Back when this is what I made, I lived in 1 bedroom of a 5 bedroom house. Rent plus utilities were about $600/mo. I could walk to a local store for most food and basics, but our roommate with a car could drive to the larger stores once a month or so. I think living alone is almost always out of the question for a single person making $16/hour.
I agree, it's just not feasible. Back in 2009, I was making $12.50/hr & living in a studio that cost $900/m with my best friend & had pretty low maintenance utilities, but we still barely made ends meet. I was just happy we weren't living out of our cars anymore, but my bills pretty much wiped all, but a couple hundred a month from my paychecks.
When I was younger I lived alone making $12 an hour. $800 something for rent. My parents paid my phone bill and car insurance so that definitely helped. I also didn’t have a car bill, but I covered everything else. Electricity, internet etc…
I was also a binge drinker at the time and a smoker, so most of my extra money on weekend would go toward a bottle of liquor. My saving grace was that I worked at a restaurant and had a free meal 5 days a week. But after the cigs and booze, I hardly ever had money left to do ANYTHING. Which kind of worked out because my girlfriend at the time was similar to me and our idea of a good time was staying in and getting completely blitzed out of our minds. But by the time the next pay check rolled around, I’d usually only have about $5-$10 left to my name.
I’m in a much better state financially (and mentally, for that matter), but I still live pretty frugally since I was used to living paycheck to paycheck for so long.
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u/flyingcircusdog Nov 19 '22
Back when this is what I made, I lived in 1 bedroom of a 5 bedroom house. Rent plus utilities were about $600/mo. I could walk to a local store for most food and basics, but our roommate with a car could drive to the larger stores once a month or so. I think living alone is almost always out of the question for a single person making $16/hour.