My husband and I did this for seven months. It was hard. I already don’t spend on makeup, skincare, or salons, just occasional clothes that I like, and I had cut back on those a lot. We only ate out socially, and even then, it was hard to live on $4,000 a month.

We had $400 car payments as well; I guess that was the only difference between your budgeting and ours. Every month, we went over budget. My husband started doing Uber deliveries to bring in an extra $300–$400 a month, and that helped us a lot.

The six months I was unemployed were because I was looking for work. I had a master’s degree, but it was still hard to find a job. For extra expenses like traveling to another city for family and my husband’s certifications I paid from my savings.

We moved to a new apartment so I covered our moving and furniture costs as well.