5 Ways to Get by Living Paycheck to Paycheck
By: Stephanie Rose
Tags: Saving, Make Money, Saving Money, Make Money Online, Paycheck To Paycheck

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links which could provide me with a compensation at no charge to you.

Many of us have been through the struggle of delegating our money to what we need most, and that is the bills. I can’t count how many times I actually would run out of money before all the bills are paid, because I had to take into account that I still needed to feed my family.

Most of us now during the covid pandemic, don’t even have the income they had before, which makes it harder to provide the basics. This year, I have found various small solutions that helped me keep my bills paid and my family fed.

1. Save your spare change

Anytime I went out and used cash to make a purchase, I would put the change I received back into an empty jug when I got home. I was used to doing this after awhile, where I wouldn’t carry any change at all; I even started doing it with my 1s and 5s. Now this doesn’t sound like much, but it has helped me fill up my tank when I was strapped for cash.

Another time it came in handy was when I needed to buy an alternator for my car, and was short about $50. When I went to coin-star, I had managed to save $89 over a small period of time.

You have to remember to put the jug in a place you can find easily, but hidden enough where you won’t go in it.

Don’t use cash? Try this app instead

If you don’t carry cash, you can always invest your spare change through Acorns. Acorns is an app that allows you to save spare change through investments.

It uses a feature called round-ups to round up your purchase to the dollar. If you spent $4.52 on your purchase, Acorns will take the remaining $0.48 and put it into an invested savings account.

The good part about Acorns is that you can withdraw your money at anytime. I had $10 worth of spare change in the account and the investment went up a bit, I was about to withdraw about $14.

You can probably imagine if I had hundreds or thousands in the account. You can also get $5 from me just for opening an account. Sign up here!

2. Cut down your useless expenses

Take the time to sit down and go through the things that you are spending money on, but not actually using. I had to have a discussion with my husband about all the subscriptions we were paying for.

He was paying $20 a month for his gym membership which he only used twice in the past year, and also paying $7 a month for the new Disney Plus streaming service.

Disney was fun when we first started using it, but we haven’t watched it after the second month of having it. Together that’s $27 a month and in total $324 a year.

If you’re a smoker, consider quitting. I had to break it down for my sister on how much she were actually spending on cigarettes and liquor. She gave me the “I only spend $30 every two weeks on it” talk.

I explained that $30 every 2 weeks turns into $60 a month, which turns into $720 a year. Do you know what I could do with an extra $700? It’s crazy how we don’t know how much we actually end up spending until we break it down overtime.

3. See if your utility company has an installment plan

After living in our house for a year, my electric company sent us something that stated we could qualify for installment payments.

It explained that they would take the average monthly payment and split it into 12, which means we will pay the same amount each month regardless of how much we were using.

Our bill during the winter months could get up to $200 a month, where as summer, I was looking at only $75 a month. This was because of the state in which we live, we don’t have to run the air conditioner as much.

They said that it averages about $135 a month. So with us paying $135 in those months we were paying $75, we have enough left over to cover us in the winter months.

So you’re basically spending the same amount of money, but it’s just broken up into a much better budget.

You could also save $10 on your bill this month by signing up with Arcadia. Arcadia provides clean energy for your home when you connect your utility bill.

4. Save more in the beginning

I was noticing that when I got paid, I’d pay the bills and still have a little bit left where I could splurge. Every few weeks I would take my family out and have a big dinner, or go to the trampoline park, you know something fun like that.

Since Covid had closed the majority of those places, I was actually able to open a savings account for that money. Every time I’d get paid, $100 would automatically go into that savings.

If I think back to when I started in 2020, it would have been April. Twice a month, from April til now would be $1600 set aside just in the saving alone.

Now I could say that there is still $1600 in that account, but we ran into a few rough patches. It really came in handy when our car wouldn’t start and we had a transmission fluid leak which set us back $300. We didn’t have to cut into our everyday spending money because we had the savings.

Open a Savings

I actually started using Chime, which is a mobile banking app. This has really helped when with my spending and savings. I had a checking account with PNC that I closed because Chime made the banking experience that much better.

I was able to open a checking and savings account in one. They allow me to set money aside in my savings every time I got paid. And it also uses round-ups to put spare change in my savings as well.

My Husband and I both have Chime banking and can send each other money in seconds. Chime also lets you turn off transactions when you aren’t using your card, so that there isn’t any fraudulent activity going on.

The best feature of having Chime is Spot-me. This allows Chime to let you “overdraft up to an addition $100, without actually having to pay an overdraft fee. You have the option to turn that off as well. It came in handy for me, when I needed to buy groceries a few days before pay day.

Chime also has a credit builder card for those who may not have great credit. You can load and spend money off that card from your Chime checking, and every time you load more money on the card, it says that you’ve made an on-time payment.

You’ll also get an extra $50 loaded into your account once you open and deposit $200. This will only happen if you sign up through this link.

5. Cook more at home

Let’s just face it, we’re lazy. Every other night my husband asks me what I want for dinner because he doesn’t want to stress about cooking. In fact, a few months ago, we actually spent well over $300 in dining out. I’ve also come to the conclusion that he is the issue.

Pinterest will become your best friend when it comes to cooking at home. I have found so many simple recipes that have saved me from spending more than I needed. Though some of the recipes may not be as healthy as you’d like, you’re still getting fed.

I found that buying dry foods stretches better than boxed foods. That means instead of buying rice-a-roni, I bought white rice and added my own flare. A 5lb bag of rice cost about the same as a box of rice-a-roni, and you’ll get more meals out of it.

There are many different things that could you can do for yourself to help you get through your next paycheck. Especially now with places being closed and restrictions. Try to sign up for as many free programs as possible; It’s either a yes or a no.

Some of you may feel ashamed for being on some type of government assistance. When I had my first child, I was on assistance for at least 5 years, which helped me get through college. Since I’ve recently had my second, we are only looking at my husbands income, so we are having to dial back on a lot of spending.

Please share with me some of the ways that you have had to stretch your paycheck and overcome some of the disasters this year has brought us.