We live cheap, but even that is too much, we have two car payments, car insurance, eat very cheap (30 a week between both), and do not spend any money on entertainment (we check out movies at the local library). We also are deferring our student loans (500 total) because we cannot afford them. We do not have health insurance, we are currently living with family, so no rent or utilities. But again, we hate handouts, so we’d like to move out. We just cannot afford rent. We are saving some every month, but it’s not enough to move out.

We have considered two options. The first being to basically keep our current employment, and take advantage of any govt program, whether it’s food stamps, anything for rent, medicade or anything for insurance, until the economy gets back on its feet and hiring freezes/layoffs end, as well as anything else along those lines.

The other option is to basically take any job we can get to pay bills, even if it’s working 60 hours a week bussing tables to make bills, including health insurance, rent, and student loans.

I believe a couple should do whatever it takes to provide, even if it means taking lower paying jobs. But my main conflict is a family value that i grew up with basically saying it is treasonous to take a lower paying job where your skills are not used. The logic behind that being, if i can make 50k a year, and pay out 10k in taxes, and instead i’m making 20k a year, and still drawing from the govt, i’m screwing the military, educators, etc out of money. So i have that hanging over me.

So what would be the best course of action right now? Obviously having a kid is out of the question, so we won’t have that huge expense.
also, my mom pays my cell phone bill, its basic service, no data, not even multimedia
selling cars is not an option, we didn’t get expensive ones either, i said our tutoring jobs are only while the academic year is in, meaning three months of the year, no income!! so we are saving to cover december’s bills. The problem we’ve had is that we have been turned down by employers because of our education, we actually had a good friend give us an internal memo from a franchise owner at XYZ restaurant, that detailed specific instructions not to hire college grads. The other places offer good potential in recruiting ads, but don’t back up their word in person or even say it takes longer than stated to move up.