HOW TO GET A MONTH AHEAD ON A LOW INCOME

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:00]Well, looks like we have some money here.

[00:00:04]It's been a minute since we have pulled out this month ahead binder. And it's been a minute since we have cash stuffed anything into this binder because times got difficult. And not only that, but we had a huge car repair that we had to pay for. But at the end of the month, I pulled some money from our paychecks, our end of the month paychecks, and I thought to myself, you know what? It may not be the budgeted amount that I wanted, but it's something. Plus, we have some rollover money from our Tuesday videos, not from last week, but the week before that we need to stuff.

[00:00:51]And it's been a minute. So we have 10, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 1, and two.

[00:01:05]52 bucks is better than no bucks.

[00:01:09]Cuz let me tell you, if I have another emergency dumpster fire happen, I'm not sure I can save my emergency fund any further cuz we're stretched to the max and that is just a part of life on a low income.

[00:01:31]Living on the edge really truly sucks.

[00:01:34]And that is one big reason why I'm trying to get a month ahead. And someone asked me, why do I want to wait to use this money until wintertime? What happens if I get it done by the start of the school year? Why wouldn't I want to be ahead then? And the answer is is because winter is very unpredictable.

[00:01:56]And as a matter of fact, my boss at the restaurant and I had a deep conversation about this and they were like, you know, everybody tends to quit their job here in the wintertime when I don't have as many hours to give and I can't give 40 hours.

[00:02:17]But really, where are you going to go anymore that's going to give you 40 hours in a tourist area during the winter time?

[00:02:25]And there's only a good handful of places that I can think of in my general area. And the likelihood of a job opening being there is pretty slim andor the travel is a distance. And with the extreme rising prices of our gas prices, fuel prices here in Oregon. I don't see that to be possible. So fingers crossed that we get this done before wintertime because I would really like to not have to worry for one of those winter months.

[00:03:11]So that's the explanation why.

[00:03:14]So we pay lot rent, space rent, whatever you want to call it. We own this 1966 single wide in a mobile home park, but we don't own the land. The mobile home park owns the land, which always makes people ask, do we pay taxes on our mobile home? And there's a simple answer to that. And yeah, I pay taxes on the house, but I don't pay taxes on the land.

[00:03:46]But our lot rent as of right now is 605.

[00:03:53]Pretty cheap.

[00:03:55]I've been asked in the past, are you on section 8, do you get ha housing help?

[00:04:00]No. The only way we're not paying extremely high market rent is because we own this mobile home. Otherwise, we'd be paying 2,200 2,000 2,00 500 for a twobedroom, onebath unit apartment, which is not affordable when you're on a low income.

[00:04:28]So, we have 20, 40, 60, 80, 85, 90, 95. Let's go ahead and start by making it a hundred in this. We're going to need $65 more dollars. Now, yeah, my my lot rent can go up 9.9% every year according to Oregon law, but as of right now, we haven't heard anything and it may not even increase.

[00:05:00]We're not sure.

[00:05:02]So, this is now up to 100 and we're likely going to come back to this depending on how I'm feeling about the other categories here. Now, I was overbudgeting for water, sewage, and electric.

[00:05:20]But I think that I just need to stick with my standard budget for my water and my sewer. So, I may be fixing that and making it less so we can fund it quicker because let's face it, I'm at work all the time or the kids are gone and at school and doing their job and we're not using as much water because we live in a mobile home park and our sewer is pretty consistently low and our garbage is $33 a month no matter But I am a little bit hesitant to stuff less in electric. I think I would rather bump electric up and leave these lower because electric is how we heat our home. So, you know, it's going to be it's going to be up there.

[00:06:16]So, water, our average bill on our water has been anywhere between, depending on the month, $60 to $80. I know that seems high, but I live in Oregon. Did I tell you I was living in Oregon? It's expensive here.

[00:06:34]Let's go ahead and add five, six, seven into this one.

[00:06:42]So now water is 5 10 15 16 17 18 19 and 20. And we haven't really been doing much. We haven't really been gardening, meaning that it's my job to water the lawn and Jordan cuts the lawn, but we're not doing any major gardening this year because of all the high prices, which makes me sad. I love gardening. Even if I just have a little garden, I might be happy. But we also are going into, you know, summertime, which I'm not sure. I'm not sure yet. I still may plant a very small garden just to bring myself some joy and happiness.

[00:07:32]And it's a little self-care as well.

[00:07:35]Sewer has five 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 in it. Let's also give it seven.

[00:07:48]So now it has 5 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 in it.

[00:07:59]My sewer just depends really honestly it just depends. And we do pay it monthly.

[00:08:04]We pay water, sewage and garbage along with our space rent together. They are separate bills, meaning that you can still get a late fee for your water, your sewer, or your garbage, which I don't even know what that would be because we've never gotten one. Um, garbage is $33.

[00:08:32]We're going to fund this today and call it fully funded. So, I'm gonna go ahead and put fully funded on the top of this, which I think we're going to do it in pink cuz why not?

[00:08:50]Feeling like we need a little color in here cuz these are black and white.

[00:08:58]So, fully funded.

[00:09:05]Yay. fully funded and this should be $33.

[00:09:12]That's exciting. That makes me really super happy, you guys.

[00:09:17]So, we finally have something fully funded in this binder. Woohoo! Fully funded.

[00:09:26]Fully funded is better than having to fund it $1 or $2 at a time. So that we don't have to worry about electric.

[00:09:36]Let's go ahead and give it a 10 because this is this is huge. And honestly, I think in the far future, I may even start saving for winter electric bills.

[00:09:51]So that way if I need to, I can pull money from that if we're over our usage with our budget.

[00:10:02]So, we have 20 in there.

[00:10:09]Internet is 65. It stays 65.

[00:10:14]We're on a lifetime plan as far as I know, unless they decide to change that.

[00:10:20]Um, we're going to add five into that.

[00:10:22]So, we have 5 10 11 12 13 in this one.

[00:10:30]Phones. So you guys know I have more than one phone on our phone plan. Um we have multiple phones for our family. Um so that includes myself, my husband, each kiddo, and we have a family member that we pay for a phone for.

[00:10:53]And I'm going to go ahead and put five into this one. So, we have 5 10 11 12 13 14 $15 in here.

[00:11:06]And then household supplies is going to get a whole wobbing dollar. So, we have one, two, three, four, five, six, and a five makes 11.

[00:11:22]So, we have 11 in here. you know, I can make it off of a $15 household run um just for household products, but I'm thinking maybe, you know, we need to work on pet supplies as well, which I've been doing really well on. Um, but I did find a cheaper way to get pet supplies, and that's through chewy.com. Not sponsored whatsoever. Um, but I will show you guys what we get in our Chewy order coming up. But groceries now has 11.

[00:12:02]I'm thinking I need to increase my grocery month ahead as well. And then Pets is not getting anything because I don't have anything left.

[00:12:15]I even was like, do I have $1 somewhere?

[00:12:17]A dollar here, dollar there. Um, but pets, I was going to just put in what the chewy.com um, app is telling me, which I was saying 110 for this envelope, but I think that we can knock it down to 85, which is quite a big savings. So, that's everything, you guys. So, that's how we are working on getting a month ahead on our bills for the winter time. And even if I don't finish this and get a month ahead during the winter time, I'm going to keep stuffing this as much as I can until I need it. Um, and maybe I'll just take it all out at once. Maybe I'll take it out one category at a time. I don't I don't know how I'm going to do it. Um, but the other thing that someone noticed is I'm not putting insurance in here.

[00:13:13]Um, either house or car insurance. And that is because um I'm actually a little bit ahead on both of those things, which is actually great.

[00:13:25]And I am also going to think about in 2027 making a envelope and working on a challenge specifically to have 6 months worth of car insurance and or home insurance in that folder. So that way I don't have to worry about it for six months. That would be amazing.

[00:13:55]Um, but as always, like myself, I can only do what I can with what I've got because it's all I have to work with.

[00:14:02]Even if you're saving change, even if you're saving dollars or a dollar a category at a time, if if you saved a dollar, it's better than nothing at all. Bye, guys.