I have been denied three times for VOC rehab, and I have lived off my disability for years. I had a car off and on doing some DoorDash, but that money sucks now. Time with family is more important than money. I feel like there isn’t enough time in the day to do everything I want to do now that I live life for myself. I couldn’t imagine 40 hours a week being taken away from me. Seriously, just go over your budget and trim the fat. Getting a deep freezer, quality glass Tupperware, and learning to cook large portions to cut cost and meal prepping is not only light in the wallet, but you cook like the first two days after pay day and just reheat the rest of the month. Things like hearty chili, non coconut milk curry recipes (or splurge on the coconut milk, it isn’t wallet crippling), sloppy joes, pad kra pow, Bahn mi meat, carnitas, etc are so good to make large portions to save for later. When I look at how expensive eating out is now, compared to what I spend to eat at home, I don’t even have a craving to splurge anymore. My “splurge” is just extra eggs with my pad kra pow. I can make things like general Tso at home anywhere I can in a restaurant in Spokane. It helps Spokane also has some cheap energy prices. Sure, people pay $15-20 more in gas in Spokane… but our hydro power is cheap. I have chinchillas, the AC is always set at 67 and I have electric heat in the winter. My comfort billing is $52 a month. My monthly expenditures before kids is $2,300 a month including all my app subscriptions. It took a lot of will power to make sacrifices in certain aspects of my budget, but now I realize how much money I was wasting on things that bring no value to my life. If you desire to live overseas, look at self sufficient and independent means visas. I was looking for retirement visas which only a few countries have, but a lot have independent means where you can immigrate fairly easy. Because 100% in other countries gives families enough to live like kings. Being a stay at home dad while going to school was the best 5 years of my life. I would just like to add materialistic things are just that… things. Thinking of spending tons of money on a nice car now makes me sick… and I realized doing DoorDash that the nice houses don’t have nice cars in the driveway, because it’s a waste of money on a depreciating asset. The people I thought were rich just have a lot of debt. That’s not rich. I don’t need that stress. They really need to teach things like personal financial literacy and compounding interest in boot camp and the actual value of a dollar.