# Is it really impossible to live alone on minimum wage?



## llodell88 (May 15, 2011)

I really don't want to live here, and preferably I'd like to be out of state far away. The situation I'm in right now, to me, is completely unacceptable. I mean I think I could be frugal, but everything I read is that it's impossible, plus I keep spending money to protect myself from something. My mom got mad when she drove me to the hospital and I left since I didn't really consent to her taking me there and I just wanted her to take me to some public access place so I could compare what's on my computer to another one, she yelled at the staff and said that they weren't allowed to do that, like they broke some rule, and that they shouldn't have because I have no life skills.

I don't know how much utilities and stuff cost, don't know anything. Never lived anywhere except here, only for a month with some family members I was thinking of moving in with.


----------



## Yu89 (Jun 10, 2018)

Pretty much impossible unless you somehow able to find a place that is ridiculously cheap which is likely a shared space. To live on minimum wage you pretty have to live with someone. You make $1160 a month before tax at minimum wage and after tax you won't left with much.


----------



## Not crying (Jul 2, 2018)

Do you need to live alone, or just need to be away from your family? Having a roommate would make it much more manageable. Also would help if you could commute into Chicago where the minimum wage is much higher than the rest of your state
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## llodell88 (May 15, 2011)

@Yu89 So what do people in bad situations do? just live in the street or hang out at the homeless shelter?

I know some help with getting jobs and a place to stay, i really want to go far away, but i guess i couldn't find me any affordable housing then, idk


----------



## twitchy666 (Apr 21, 2013)

*min wage a wondrous luxurious boost to my life*

over my NULL survival 'what YYOOUUUU NEEEED to live ONNN'

life here, summer, hearing heavy construction sounds, seeing crane movements nearby. everyone's engines everywhere. all so excited about their holiday travel. big planes and helicopters all day, every day


----------



## Suchness (Aug 13, 2011)

You can with government housing.


----------



## Yu89 (Jun 10, 2018)

llodell88 said:


> @Yu89 So what do people in bad situations do? just live in the street or hang out at the homeless shelter?


If you are able to bring yourself to live like that. I can't speak for everyone but I would stay and deal with the bad situation for a little longer and save up some money. I'm pretty sure most jobs do pay more than minimum wages.

If possible, I suggest find any job you can find now to build up some experience. At least when you out at work you'll be away from home.

I'm waiting to get away from my family myself and I know it's going to be hard.


----------



## llodell88 (May 15, 2011)

@Suchness usually takes a long time to get i'd think? i think years sometimes.

i wish they're was a manual on life somewhere i could follow and just make everything better. don't know why i have to live my life feeling watched, would rather just have the fbi watching me or something.


----------



## llodell88 (May 15, 2011)

Yu89 said:


> If you are able to bring yourself to live like that. I can't speak for everyone but I would stay and deal with the bad situation for a little longer and save up some money. I'm pretty sure most jobs do pay more than minimum wages.
> 
> If possible, I suggest find any job you can find now to build up some experience. At least when you out at work you'll be away from home.
> 
> I'm waiting to get away from my family myself and I know it's going to be hard.


Yeah, I need to do that. Just not comfortable doing that here where I live in this area. Need some new surrounding, that feel clean and not contaminated.

Seems like most jobs are minimum wage around here. I think average income for female I read in my town is like 18,000 dollars lol


----------



## Yu89 (Jun 10, 2018)

llodell88 said:


> Yeah, I need to do that. Just not comfortable doing that here where I live in this area. Need some new surrounding, that feel clean and not contaminated.
> 
> Seems like most jobs are minimum wage around here. I think average income for female I read in my town is like 18,000 dollars lol


You could try commuting to nearby town/city. You just have to set away extra time for traveling.

Well, 18,000 annually is more than minimum wages. Even if most job is minimum wages, with some experience you probably can negotiate for higher pay or get a higher wage job.


----------



## Suchness (Aug 13, 2011)

llodell88 said:


> @Suchness usually takes a long time to get i'd think? i think years sometimes.
> 
> i wish they're was a manual on life somewhere i could follow and just make everything better. don't know why i have to live my life feeling watched, would rather just have the fbi watching me or something.


Over here it usually takes a few years. Gotta plan ahead. I got mine in 2, decent place too, cheap rent.


----------



## Yu89 (Jun 10, 2018)

Suchness said:


> Over here it usually takes a few years. Gotta plan ahead. I got mine in 2, decent place too, cheap rent.


It's a little f**cked up in the US for getting government housing. At least from what I know from one of my parents' friend. They used to lived in NYC and the whole government housing apartments building are taken by illegal immigrants.


----------



## Suchness (Aug 13, 2011)

Yu89 said:


> It's a little f**cked up in the US for getting government housing. At least from what I know from one of my parents' friend. They used to lived in NYC and the whole government housing apartments building are taken by illegal immigrants.


It's pretty good here, if you treat them nice they will look after you. I said I didn't wan't an apartment and I didn't want to be next to any drug dealers, they even put me on the priority list.


----------



## Canadian Brotha (Jan 23, 2009)

Depends what the minimum wage is & what the average rent/utilities is for a cheap 1 bedroom or bachelor suite but generally speaking it’s usually impossible in most places even if you live frugally unless you’ve got savings or assistance payments or something else to tide you over. And keep in mind that if you can chances are the neighbourhood will be less that ideal...

Whether you’re moving state or not if you know nothing start making research notes for future reference


----------



## llodell88 (May 15, 2011)

yeah well i can't find anything to help me online, much i've been doing searches all night, i might just take a train somewhere and wing it, cus i don't think there's anything on the internet to help me, and the only way i can get out of my situation is to hurt people who wronged me, and yes hacking into peoples stuff is wrong by itself without all the other ****, cant believe someone put those paintbrushes next to that building with the security camera a couple blocks away from my house, wtf is wrong with these people. see other **** too that bothers me sometimes but probably a coincidence. dont even know who my neighbors are, like do they think i give a **** if they do or don't want tosee me change, your windows are the same color as some **** on my computer that i never wanted to see. how could you be in a situation that is less ambigious or makes less sense. i never thought they did anyway, and that's not the point. the guy is doing stuff to make me seem like him, that's creepy, projecting out of the ***, and serious anger issues, very dangerous person, i could have died multiple times, if it happened a year before, i know i would have. Then he puts something like "you didnt die though" on my computer, like what a ****ing inhuman thing to say after putting some under that kind of emotional hell, people are so heartless, even my counselor was like, some people are really sick, wow, dude, it is just you guys in your own little world.

i dont like talking to ppl here because they're probably just one of those people involved.

i mean nothing is working out i dont have a car, and its risky to fix it, mother isn't too interested in helping me w/ it i think, these people don't care about me, they're scared of me ratting them out or else they woudln't being doing the stalkery stuff still.

It's incomprehensible to me that someone could think they did not do something wrong here, omg. I'm staying in my house so I can heal and all I do is get harrassed and taken back to the start except it's a year and a half later and here I am.


----------



## llodell88 (May 15, 2011)

My cell phone is less than 100 dollars a year as long as i dont use much data and mostly wifi, i'm assuming there are locations where i dont need a car right away? mortgage? i mean a place to rent. Also I'm small and probably only need to be eating like 1200-1400 calories a day. You can buy cheap clothes a walmart, goodwill, etc.? Places have cheap transportation sometimes...i guess it's still not enough.

I'm not really seeing people who have experience with this online through google searches so i guess it's impossible.

also i don't know how people can just room up with some random person. how many people out there are actually easy to live with...almost none. but people torture themself because they have some disorder where they cant be alone. no wait, im the one with the disorder...


----------



## leaf in the wind (Mar 28, 2017)

It's possible in my city, which is metro population ~4 million. I made minimum wage in my first full-time job here, and I got by pretty easily... but that's due to two reasons:

1. The cost of living is very low in Quebec. My rent was half of what it would have been in Toronto or Vancouver.

2. I was new to the city, new to living on my own, and basically did nothing but go to work, buy groceries, and come home. I wasn't purposely depriving myself (I had savings I could have used to entertain myself), but just the nature of the routine is frugal. I was too tired after work to do anything, and I'd just make food and clean on the weekend. I never ended up spending much money and actually managed to save.

I think Montreal is a weird exception for major cities in North America though- There's just a big glut of housing supply from like a hundred years ago, so rental prices are kept low. There's also lower demand as most people don't want to live here because of the French :lol


----------



## llodell88 (May 15, 2011)

FallenOne said:


> It never is easy living with someone though, as you have to give up and sacrifice things such as privacy, and deal with other peoples personal habits etc.
> 
> I'd much rather have my own apartment tbh, if I could afford it, but you take what you can get I guess.
> 
> I see that you're from Illinois? What is the rent like in your current area? I know that uptown Chicago can be pretty pricey.


um my sister just moved into an apartment, two bedroom and it's 500 and something, she's waitressing and talking about not being able to survive with a kid, seems like around 500 would be about right for a 1 bedroom. oh, see a 350, one a 575 and a 595 and a 525 one, not many available looks like right now, some a lot higher priced ones too.


----------



## duckie (Apr 30, 2012)

if you live in a cardboard box you could survive on part-time minimum wage. 😜


----------



## komorikun (Jan 11, 2009)

Most landlords require a certain amount of income depending on how much the rent is. Usually 30 to 40 times the rent. 

So if rent is $1,000, they will require a yearly income of $30,000 or $40,000. 

I guess there are some super duper cheap areas where you can rent a studio for $500. So if it's $500 that would mean minimum $15,000 income. Wouldn't that be minimum wage? Or maybe the income requirement is different in cheap areas of the country.


----------



## Kevin001 (Jan 2, 2015)

Most places here require you to make 3x the rent gross income so.


----------



## girlyone1 (Jan 20, 2012)

Alone, no. Minimum wage ft here will bring in about 1500 a month after taxes. A one bed room apartment here is 900-1200.


----------



## Paul (Sep 26, 2005)

Full time USA federal minimum wage is $15K a year, many states are higher. It's quite easy to live by yourself on that if you live anywhere in the country except for the most expensive coastal cities like San Francisco. It's $1256 a month. Spend $120 on food, $100 on utilities/laundry, $50 on a bus pass, $30 clothes and miscellaneous = $300. That leaves you $956 for rent, which is way more than you need for non-luxury studio or one bedroom apartments. You can find $400 rents all over in the middle of the country, and even in an expensive state like mine it's not that hard to find a $600 rent.

People who say it's impossible to live alone on minimum wage are generally rich kids raised in luxury who are convinced it's impossible to live without a $4 Starbucks drink every morning or endure an apartment without a balcony, dishwasher and in-unit laundry. So they choose to endure roommates or live with their parents in order to keep those things, which seems like odd priorities to me but to each their own.


----------



## llodell88 (May 15, 2011)

Paul said:


> Full time USA federal minimum wage is $15K a year, many states are higher. It's quite easy to live by yourself on that if you live anywhere in the country except for the most expensive coastal cities like San Francisco. It's $1256 a month. Spend $120 on food, $100 on utilities/laundry, $50 on a bus pass, $30 clothes and miscellaneous = $300. That leaves you $956 for rent, which is way more than you need for non-luxury studio or one bedroom apartments. You can find $400 rents all over in the middle of the country, and even in an expensive state like mine it's not that hard to find a $600 rent.
> 
> People who say it's impossible to live alone on minimum wage are generally rich kids raised in luxury who are convinced it's impossible to live without a $4 Starbucks drink every morning or endure an apartment without a balcony, dishwasher and in-unit laundry. So they choose to endure roommates or live with their parents in order to keep those things, which seems like odd priorities to me but to each their own.


Thanks, that's sort of what I though honestly, I mean I actually enjoy the challenge of being frugal, but everything i've read keeps telling me it is impossible, and catastrophizing the situation. It's weird that you're the only one thinks that though. I don't care if i pay 100 dollars for a phone that lasts a year, and live off of bananas, rice, and oatmeal, dollar menu, whatever, for a while until i get off my feet and get a better job if i can. i dont care about expensive entertainment like going out drinking, going to the movies, iphones, whatever.


----------



## WillYouStopDave (Jul 14, 2013)

Makes you wonder why everything is the same everywhere you go even though there are no regulations that require them all to do everything exactly the same way.


----------



## komorikun (Jan 11, 2009)

Can you get Medicaid if you are making $15,000 a year? Or will you still have to pay for health insurance?

Looks like FICA and Medicare would be $100 per month. Then Federal Income Tax would be about $40 per month ($463 per year). So it would be $1,250 per month but $1,100 after.

The other issue is that places with super duper cheap rent often have little to no public transportation.


----------



## JH1983 (Nov 14, 2013)

Housing costs in the part of Illinois you and I live in are pretty low, so it's definitely possible. Minimum wage is $8.25/hour, so you could bring home close to $1200 a month. There's plenty of apartments in the $300-500 a month range. I've seen listings recently in the $200's even. Figure in a couple hundred for power and water. Find a reliable used car or fix the one you have and if your driving record is decent you shouldn't pay more than about $50 a month for liability insurance. Figure in money for food and gas as well depending on how much you eat and drive. It's definitely not luxurious, but for sure possible. Could maybe qualify for free healthcare and food stamps, too.


----------



## Mondo_Fernando (Jun 26, 2014)

llodell88 said:


> @*Yu89* So what do people in bad situations do? just live in the street or hang out at the homeless shelter?
> 
> I know some help with getting jobs and a place to stay, i really want to go far away, but i guess i couldn't find me any affordable housing then, idk


Emergency housing is for people with mental illness, single mothers, etc. I have lived like that for a while with single mothers, etc.

Students rent a house together, so one room each where pay rent, power, phone, etc equally.

If look at some real estate places, they sometimes have people renting houses out while people travel overseas (gives the owner some cash and helps to prevent crimes, etc) or for some other reason. I often see foreign students at these real estate places looking for rentals like this. Some people live that way where constantly moving from house to house.



Paul said:


> Full time USA federal minimum wage is $15K a year, many states are higher. It's quite easy to live by yourself on that if you live anywhere in the country except for the most expensive coastal cities like San Francisco. It's $1256 a month. Spend $120 on food, $100 on utilities/laundry, $50 on a bus pass, $30 clothes and miscellaneous = $300. That leaves you $956 for rent, which is way more than you need for non-luxury studio or one bedroom apartments. You can find $400 rents all over in the middle of the country, and even in an expensive state like mine it's not that hard to find a $600 rent.
> 
> People who say it's impossible to live alone on minimum wage are generally rich kids raised in luxury who are convinced it's impossible to live without a $4 Starbucks drink every morning or endure an apartment without a balcony, dishwasher and in-unit laundry. So they choose to endure roommates or live with their parents in order to keep those things, which seems like odd priorities to me but to each their own.


I agree about luxuries.

When have luxuries like a car, it becomes more difficult to manage money wise due to maintenance that is required.


----------



## Paul (Sep 26, 2005)

llodell88 said:


> Thanks, that's sort of what I though honestly, I mean I actually enjoy the challenge of being frugal, but everything i've read keeps telling me it is impossible, and catastrophizing the situation. It's weird that you're the only one thinks that though.


A decade ago I thought it was impossible too, because I was brought up middle class with unnecessary expectations. Then financial circumstances forced me to try it, and I found out it's really not hard and I wish I'd been spending less all along.



komorikun said:


> Can you get Medicaid if you are making $15,000 a year?


$16,404 is the limit for completely free coverage (including dental) here but I suppose it varies by state.



JH1983 said:


> Figure in a couple hundred for power and water.


A couple hundred? I spend $30 a month on power, $15 on propane for water heat, and cold water is usually included with an apartment but when it's not it shouldn't be more than $40.



ANX1 said:


> When have luxuries like a car, it becomes more difficult to manage money wise due to maintenance that is required.


You have to get a little lucky with a car to make it work, but I've been managing with mine as it hasn't needed many repairs.


----------



## MadnessVertigo (Sep 26, 2016)

It isn't possible where I live. That's why the local people are being forced to move away to be replaced by rich people who buy huge properties that they live in a few months a year.


----------



## JH1983 (Nov 14, 2013)

Paul said:


> A couple hundred? I spend $30 a month on power, $15 on propane for water heat, and cold water is usually included with an apartment but when it's not it shouldn't be more than $40.


Water is about the same here. Our electricity is close to $200 with running air conditioning a lot. I guess if you were hurting for money you could cut that back.


----------



## komorikun (Jan 11, 2009)

I suppose it's feasible but I'd feel very, very nervous if I had to drive to get to work. If you only have $200 left per month after expenses, you are going to be **** out of luck if the car needs repairs and you have no savings.

You'd have to have some savings for the initial move, security deposit, furniture, new appliances, etc. Also would need to own the car outright. No way you could make monthly car payments on that income.


----------

