How Low-Income People Are Surviving With Everything More Expensive

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]I'm sincerely curious if you get paid weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, how much money do you have after your bills are paid?

[00:00:09]Like, I see these accounts that have like huge savings. I have four grand in my checking account and $25,000 in my savings. I have nothing. Honestly, being a one-inccome family in 2026 is not for the week. Groceries are expensive, rent expensive, literally everything is expensive. As a stay-at-home mom, I have definitely had moments where I question if we're going to be able to make this work. But the biggest thing that changed for us was finally getting realistic about our spending. We definitely stopped trying to live like we had two incomes when we only had one. That meant less takeout, fewer impulse purchases, and definitely planning before we spend.

[00:00:53]And honestly, budgeting stopped feeling restricting when we realized how much less stressed we were with a budget.

[00:01:00]Now, do we still have hard months?

[00:01:02]Absolutely. But being home with Eastston during this season of life is worth so much to us. And I think there are way more families out there that are trying to make one income work than people realize. So, feel free to join me over on the Messy Mama Files and we can figure it out together.

[00:01:19]>> Have you ever heard the saying living paycheck to paycheck? Well, if you don't know what I'm talking about, let me put it in perspective for you. I had $1.83 in my bank. I just swiped credit at the gas pump so I could get $10 for gas because I was on E, my friend. And hopefully in two business days, I get that $10 back in my account because my bank does not play, man. They charged me $40 in overdraft fees because I was overdrafted seven pennies. I ain't even playing it. Banks do not mess around with their money, even if it's seven pennies. So, all that to say, please hit all these buttons so I can get Tik Tok paid and get my $10. Love you. Bye.

[00:02:00]So, how are people living and surviving on low income? Nowadays, a lot of people are classified as low income because of how bad inflation has gotten and how bad the devaluation of the dollar has gotten. So, we obviously see that people are extreme budgeting. They're really taking a look at their expenses and trying to cut out things they no longer need, which includes Starbucks, which includes jewelry, makeup, even.

[00:02:32]And one thing I highly recommend is to cancel subscriptions. Always take note of every single subscription once you subscribe to one because I think subscriptions are a huge trap. it it charges you every single month and most of the time you don't even notice. It just goes on your credit card statement.

[00:02:53]So, if you're tracking every single subscription service, make sure it's something you need. Otherwise, cancel it because you're going to be charged every single month. And I think they really do need some more regulations on subscription services because it really is stealing a lot of money from people who are paying for services they don't even use. Let me know in the comments below what you think. Take a look at the rest of these clips.

[00:03:18]>> The bills are late, the debt is piling up, and the savings is empty. So, let's budget my low-inccome bi-weekly paycheck with me. This is from May 7th to the 20th. I got paid $666.98.

[00:03:29]I have $7245 of debt that is overdue. I need $822 for my bills. For my essential expenses, I need $200. For my lifestyle expenses, 150 would be nice. Debt, I need $683.88, not including the past due amount, which would bring me to a total of $1,9212 for my debt. And I want to save a cute little $65. In total, I need $2,645 for this pay period. So, what I ended up doing was paying $22 towards my bills, leaving $620 negative, which means that my rent is going to be paid late. For essentials, I spent $45. For lifestyle, I spent $79.31.

[00:04:16]I put $65 in my savings. And for my debt, I paid $270 towards debt, leaving me $82,2212.

[00:04:23]I don't think people realize how broke $3,200 a month actually feels. Because on paper, it actually feels like you're doing okay, right? But in reality, look at this. You need to be making 80,000 to 100,000 to even be okay in this economy.

[00:04:37]But on $3,200 a month, my mortgage is like half my paycheck. And I can't imagine if you live in somewhere like California or Texas or Florida, then you still got to pay utilities, loans, groceries. Groceries is like a second rent or mortgage payment in today's economy. No wonder people got so much credit card debt. You don't even have money to spend on yourself. And this is exactly why it's so important to have a system. The economy isn't built for us.

[00:05:01]The rich are going to keep getting richer and the poor are going to keep getting poorer if you don't have a system. Tracking your money, seeing where everything is going, getting out of debt as fast as possible is the number one most important thing to get us out of this hole. We just keep digging ourselves. We live on less than $40,000 a year and we've been able to save up $35,000 by just tracking our money. And I don't care what kind of budget system you get. I have one linked in my bio if you want it, but buy any budget sheet. Make any budget sheet. It doesn't have to be fancy. It can be incredibly simple, but just sit down every time you get paid and assign your money a spot.

[00:05:37]>> Here's three more things I struggle with being low income. Number one, when someone asks me to hang out for the first time and it's usually to go spend money somewhere and I have to very strategically say, "Hey, like I would love to do something a little bit more in my budget." It's just hard because like I don't know sometimes it's embarrassing to be like I can't go and do that simply because I just don't have the money. But I'm very lucky that I have a group of friends who don't care about that at all and are happy to just go and do whatever wherever whatever is in our budget. Even if it's just to go get a drink somewhere. Truthfully, those are the best friends. Number two, trying to plan out how and when we can buy our meat. Um cuz meat is very expensive. So, uh, 90% of the meat that my husband and I eat are chicken breast or ground turkey. I can't remember the last time we've bought ground beef cuz ground turkey is cheaper and to me it tastes the same and so I don't mind making that switch. Steaks we have once, maybe twice like a year, I don't know. And then number three, I wish that I could throw big extravagant parties for my son or my husband, but that's just not our life right now. Our my husband and I's anniversary is coming up this month in like two days. My husband starts his spring semester on our anniversary. So, our anniversary will probably be celebrated on the weekend with just going out to eat. And that's okay. It's very simple. It's a very simple life.

[00:07:04]It's a very simple life that I love. But that doesn't mean it's without struggles. And I think that's could be said about every single life. There's just three things I was thinking about today that are kind of a struggle for me, but not unmanageable. Me and my wife intentionally choose to live below our means. So, here are some things we can do or we choose not to do. Me and my wife will trade everyday comforts or small luxuries to ensure that we have something in our savings account because if worse comes to worse, we never want to be left with nothing like it was before. I have gotten very sick from my autoimmune disease and my wife worked her freaking ass off to make ends meet and I will never do that to my wife again. First thing I don't do is I don't do any outsourced beauty. Second is we do not go on vacations. We can't even afford a vacation, but if we do something like special, we do like a little weekend trip to go visit family.

[00:07:55]Another thing that we don't really do is go out to eat very often or go get like little coffee drinks here and there cuz obviously it does add up when we go on our weekend trips. That is the exception. We also don't buy new clothes. If we do buy new clothes for ourselves, it is going to be again for a special event for like a birthday. And this one is just particularly like my dad coming out of me, but I don't leave the lights on in the house. No, you walk around with your phone or have one light. We don't do that. No, not because those electric bills can get like $300 for no reason. And if it feels good outside, we're not running the air. We are open up the windows. The last thing that we can't do is live the type of life where you just blindly spend and ignore. Me and my wife tell each other everything. If I spend $20, hey, I'm texting you. I spent this much today. I literally bought baby shower gift. I did coupons, but I got three packs of diapers for $30 at CVS cuz they're running a deal on Pampers. And then I texted her right after. Sent her a photo and said, "Hey, I spent $30. $30. Big whoop. We have more than $30 on bank account. I don't care. We always let each other know what we're spending."

[00:09:00]>> So, do you know what I always feel bad for? Like as as somebody that lived in low income and came out of low income and I got to change some of those adversities for myself. I always feel bad for the young girls before they know before they they that don't have any role models. Anybody to tell them like, "Hey, >> your living situation is already mediocre at best, mids at best. Do not have any more children. Do not It's okay. That that boy, if he really loves you, he's not going to continue to get you pregnant." Why? No. Why is no one in low income ever having these conversations with these girls? Do you know how many girls that I actively know right now that are like 18 between the ages of 18 and 25 that are two to three four kids deep? I'm 35 years old and I'm drowning and I'm not on lowincome housing. I pay everything cash. I don't get [ __ ] >> I'm drowning.

[00:09:54]Okay. And I have a support system with my man and we do this.

[00:10:01]>> No. Why is no one telling these young girls how difficult this is?

[00:10:06]You keep going to lay down with that man and you thinking that he loves you. No man is going to continue to get you pregnant.

[00:10:13]No man, knowing that he's not adequately providing, knowing that you're not in a better situation. No real man does that.

[00:10:21]This is part of the lowinccome saga that part of the system that keeps repeating itself because now what happens is that young girl >> it's one of two things but the rare side is that she's going to go get a degree bust her ass and and get the [ __ ] out of that situation because a lot of these girls coming from lowinccome situations come from lowincome parents or like oh you have kids sign up at the housing authority for an apartment you're eligible Now, >> not take your ass to school.

[00:10:53]>> Charge it to the game. Maybe consider adoption.

[00:10:59]>> Like, it's so sad that in the lowincome housing community that this keeps repeating itself. And there's no one telling them in the actively in the low-income housing community that you shouldn't be doing this.

[00:11:11]>> It's only the people that step outside and looking in because you can't see the full picture from the inside of the frame. Financial independence probably sounds differently coming from me than it does from other people on social media. I keep my costs low. I live a simple life. I keep my needs as simple as possible, but all my needs are met.

[00:11:34]And then I use the extra to do some of the wants that I have on my wish list.

[00:11:40]Like I travel and I have wintered this last winter in South Texas in my RV. I absolutely loved it. But I also retired early. I'd rather do that than have a Stanley cup, then have an ice maker, than have an air fryer, than have all of these more modern things that are always the newest, greatest thing that keeps being introduced to us that makes us think we need to keep spending our money when what we have is working. when it's working, why spend our money for something else? It just keeps us working longer. So, that's my trick to financial freedom, keeping my life as simple as possible, being content, and keeping my costs low.

[00:12:31]People are not really surviving in 2026 on low income unless they're bringing in another source of income. And people are doing this by doing side hustles. We're seeing gig culture become very very popular because it is a source of income doing Door Dash, Uber Eats, Uber, or even Instacart.

[00:12:51]And even though they don't pay the highest, it is going to help pay off some of the bills. And another thing we're seeing people do is downsize.

[00:13:00]They're selling off things they no longer need or use, such as unused clothes, jewelry, electronics, just to get some extra cash in to help pay off some of these expensive expensive bills.

[00:13:12]I'm having a rough morning, so I'm only making this video because I don't want any other single parent income families to do what I did around Christmas time.

[00:13:20]To be able to afford presents, my my apartment complex, you pay your rent through an app. It's really not that serious. I think it's cuz I'm getting ready to start my period. That's why I'm so emotional. allow you to do the Livable app where you can like make payments. What it does is it takes the whole rent out at the beginning of the month and then you pay the three payments back or two payments, however you set it up. Once I started it and did it the one time, I couldn't ever get out of the cycle of using it.

[00:13:43]I couldn't get out of the cycle of paying it because I didn't have enough each paycheck, if that makes sense. I don't get my paycheck on Fridays until like 11:00 at night. So, I make my payment at 11:00. Well, it doesn't process until the next Monday. So, this rent paycheck, I haven't even paid rent yet. It's the 6th. So, now I'm getting the $50 late fees. So, I messaged the Livable app because it's not letting me pay my May rent. And so, I messaged them yesterday and I'm like, "Look, it says it's still processing, but it's came out of my bank account. Like, how do I make the payment today so that I don't get the late fees?" And she's like, "Oh, well, the window will be open until the 8th. You'll be good." So, I go to pay it today. Well, because there's a late fee, it won't let me use the Livable app. I don't even have enough from my paycheck to pay my rent. $100 short on rent, which my mom has sent me Vinmo, but I also use SoFi banking, which I love SoFi, but I can't transfer my money from Vinmo to my SoFi. So, I processed my rent payment, which I know is going to get denied because I highly doubt they're going to let me overdraft $100.

[00:14:34]I literally have no money for the next 2 weeks. I'm just so mad at myself for putting myself in this position. Like, I knew the day was going to come where I was going to have to just pay rent out of one paycheck so that way I could get out of the whole being stuck in this cycle of paying that livable thing.

[00:14:47]Don't do the buy here pay your apps.

[00:14:48]That's pretty much all I wanted to say.

[00:14:51]Okay, love you. Bye.

[00:14:52]>> I'm honestly at a point where I'm so tired of spreading myself so thin that something has to get ignored and it's not going to be me. Budget my low incomely paycheck with me. I got paid $982.92.

[00:15:02]For my bills, I owe $1,442.

[00:15:05]This includes my past two rent that I didn't pay plus plus the late fee. I decided to pay my past two balance for rent. Everything else will still be on time. I will just have to pay on my next paycheck, if that makes sense. For my essentials, I put $117 aside. I'm left with a balance of $1.92. Debt alone came up to $1,65.97.

[00:15:26]A lot of it is my buy now pay later apps, but also my credit card is over limit right now by $54. So, I just made a $54 payment. And then I decided I was not going to pay my buy now pay later apps right now. They're already late.

[00:15:38]They're already overdue. So, now I'm left with $150. I decided to just take that 150 and put it in my high yield savings account. let it grow some interest for a little bit and just have that buffer in case I need it for the two weeks. Right now, I'm really just focused on not stretching myself so thin. Like, I just can't pay what I can't pay. And that's just what it's going to be. So, my next paycheck, I'm going to be really focused on again just catching up on my rent, car insurance, and all of my bills. And that's it. The paycheck after that, I will probably then focus on my debt. Thank you guys so much for watching.

[00:16:12]>> I just got paid today. So, let's budget my $895 paycheck. I work in retail part-time. I make $1650 an hour and I get paid twice a month. So, let's see what this paycheck does for me. Adding that to what's in my checking account already, I have $4,659, which is a lot of money. I normally do not have that much in my account at all, but my credit cards, I just paid them this morning. And so, all of that money is basically gone because I do all of my spending on my credit cards. So, I do not have $4,000 to my name. I definitely do not. All of that money is gone. It's already been spent. So, I spent $477 on my Master Card, $24 on my Discover card, $672 on my MX card, and $965 on my Chase card. Again, this is like a month's worth of spending. And then I also spent $472 on my Delta MX card because I flew home to Georgia to see my family. So, that was for my flights. So, if we subtract all of that from what's in my checking account, that leaves me $2,49.

[00:17:14]But we also need to subtract what I have in bills coming up between now and my next paycheck. I have just around $200 in bills. So, that'll leave me with $1,849, which is still more than what I usually have left over at this time. But, um, I know last paycheck I didn't put all of my money towards debt. I left like a good buffer in my account and I want to keep doing that moving forward. It's just sometimes I do not have enough to leave a buffer. So, we are now on to paying off my city credit card, which is my balance transfer credit card. I have $2,950 left on that one. So, I'm going to put $1,000 towards that. So, that means I have $1,950 left to pay off on that one.

[00:17:57]So, we are under the $2,000 mark. That's so exciting. And that also leaves me with um $849 left to work with until my next paycheck. So, not bad. We did good this month. We did it. So, I'll see you in two weeks when I get paid again.

[00:18:13]>> Get rid of all of your bills except for rent and your phone bill.

[00:18:18]Do it. Do it for 6 months. Just do it for 6 months. Get rid of all of your streaming services. Find the episodes and the movies you want to watch online for free. They're there. I promise. Gas.

[00:18:28]Sure. So, here's what I've done. I got rid of every single bill except for the rent that I pay, my phone bill, and my gym, which is $15 a month. Now, I have an automatic bank account set up for half of that amount to be put into a separate bank account um from every paycheck. So, with every paycheck, if I put half of my bill amount away, which is like $450, $500, I live with my best friend. And I know for some people that's going to look almost double, but if you put half of your bills away each paycheck into a separate account and you have them automatically taken out, or not even automatically, you can do it yourself. And I used part of that school money to put a month of my bills away.

[00:19:08]So I'm always a month ahead. I have had 600 to 700 extra dollars from every paycheck since I've started doing this.

[00:19:16]I've always lived paycheck to paycheck, but I got a little bit of school money.

[00:19:19]So, I decided to use that to just put away into a like savings account um and like as an as an emergency fund. And then, like I said, every paycheck I put half of my bills into a separate account. I think this is the way to go.

[00:19:33]I saw somebody else doing it on TikTok and to be honest, it's been 6 weeks now.

[00:19:37]And granted, I've spent a little bit extra money than I should. I have an account that's just for spending, but I've gone over that. But still, I have everything that I need and more technically since I overspend. And I still have money in my account, and it's great. Please do it if you're somebody who's been living paycheck to paycheck.

[00:19:53]We're a low-inccome family of five. And every once in a while, I get on here and I share what our bills are for the month. Now, these are just bills, not our expenses, because one, the month isn't even over yet, so things will pop up. And two, you know, expenses are they're variable and there's often not like a consequence if you don't pay them. Whereas bills I tend to think of more as like they're recurring and they're predictable and if you don't pay them there's a consequence. So we consider our kids' sports fees as a bill. Now if something pops up like tickets to the dance concert, well that's an expense for the month. That's not part of the usual recurring monthly bill. Starting off with our highest was our mortgage $1,363.35.

[00:20:37]Our utilities this month equal to $267.95.

[00:20:41]That's for electric, gas, sewer, and water altogether. Our cell phone was 65.

[00:20:46]That doesn't change. Our internet was 30. That doesn't change. Life insurance was 22. That doesn't change. Then we had our quarterly trash bill due. That was $53.17.

[00:20:56]My son's taekwondo monthly fee is $58.

[00:20:59]My daughter's dance is 48. We have Netflix for $19.32 and a different streaming bundle for 3502. And this saved us money going into that bundle. Our car insurance does fluctuate a little bit each month. It was $16527 and our one monthly debt payment was $225.37, but that should be paid off probably first quarter of 2026. And then that'll free up obviously a lot of room in our budget and we should be able to start putting more money aside to savings, which is going to be really nice. Some expenses we've had so far this month are of course Christmas gifts. We set some money aside for hosting a Christmas party. um a dance ticket, a cheer competition, and travel fees. Um gas for both of our vehicles. My mother's birthday is this month, so we'll have an expense for that gift. And like I said, I'm sure a few more things since the month is about halfway through. Our cell phone is so cheap because we have a prepaid plan through Spectrum Internet or Spectrum Mobile, but we will be switching back to Mint Mobile um probably January or February of this year. And when we do, we're just going to pay for the full year in advance. And so we'll get $65 back in our pocket each month, which is very nice. If you've never looked into Mint Mobile, I have we've had their cell phone service before and loved it. And I do regret switching because it was cheaper and I get the same exact quality of cell phone coverage and customer service through Spectrum as I do through Mint Mobile.

[00:22:27]And now I hear Mint Mobile is offering internet. So I want to look into that because I think the only reason we're getting our internet so cheap is because we have our cell phones through Spectrum. And I don't want to lose our internet rate when we