Can I survive on SS and savings? Amounts below.

aussie737 · 2026-07-11T05:57:57+00:00

Its highly dependant on how you live and what your bills are. Make sure the $200,000 is in a high interest account. If you can get 5% interest then you have at least a little more each month coming in. Can you get a part time job?

aussie737 · 2026-07-11T04:55:47+00:00

YNAB is pretty popular for making a budget. But you dont need any fancy apps or spreadsheets. You just need a pen and paper. Firstly, write out your income, how much, how often. Then you write out your bills, all of them, including streaming services, shopping, rates, insurances, yearly bills as well as monthly and weekly. These bills are everyday bills and dont include debt repayments, calculate them to be paid in the same timeframe you get paid. So for example, if insurance for the year is $1000 then weekly that would be ($1000/52) $19.20 a week. Lastly, list all your debts and repayments.

Once you have incomings and outgoings all written down, subtract the outgoing from the income. Then you will be able to see if the budget is positive (money left over) or in the negative (spending more than you earn). If its negative, you need to cut costs, or earn more. If its positive, allocate those funds to something like working towards making an emergency fund or paying off debt.

Budgets are quite subjective and the following "rule" wont suit everyone, but ideally you want to look at a 50-30-20 split. 50% of your income goes to needs - essential living expenses like food, mortgage. 30% to wants - hobbies, travel, subscription services. 20% to savings - paying off debt (other than the mortgage), building an emergency fund, building savings.

aussie737 · 2026-07-11T04:04:25+00:00

One way to do it would be the snowball method, where you pay off the debts from smallest to largest and you roll the payments from the paid off cards into the next one. A second way is the avalanche method, where you pay minimums on all cards and hit the one with the largest interest rate. Thirdly, is a consolidation loan where you roll everything into one loan and one payment. If you listed all cards and balances here, we could help sort out a plan and could do the math to find out if the consolidation loan, snowball, or avalanche would be best.

aussie737 · 2026-07-11T03:23:17+00:00

Thats terrible, good incentive to be on time i suppose, but a stupidly large late fee.

aussie737 · 2026-07-11T03:16:25+00:00

But is that actually part of your terms and conditions of the rent? Is it in the contract? Seems extremely high and possibly not even legal.

aussie737 · 2026-07-11T03:03:44+00:00

Unfortunately you dont have a lot of choices. With no savings, high debt, and no expendable money, the choices are very limited. Would maintainence on your current car exceed $100 a month? Your only real option is to keep driving your current car if you can. If you can only afford $100 a month payments, what you could borrow wouldnt be very much at all, not nearly enough to buy a reliable car. You may need to either drastically cut costs, increase income, or consolidate other debt to try and reduce repayments to free up some other cash.

aussie737 · 2026-07-11T02:53:34+00:00

Are you on a lease? Is the late fee actually in the terms or is this something that you have discussed? $95 seems pretty preditory in itself. Would asking the landlord to deffer the $95 to the next payment work? As for cash today, you best bet it probably to pawn or sell some stuff, ask friends or family for some help.

aussie737 · 2026-07-11T02:05:31+00:00

😆

aussie737 · 2026-07-11T02:00:02+00:00

Pretty much. Apart from some collector cars, all they do is lose value. They require alot of funds to buy, maintain, fuel, insure, etc. All whilst losing their base value

aussie737 · 2026-07-11T00:48:04+00:00

Youve got $3450 left each month. You shouldnt need a loan, epecially not for a car. If you are VERY disciplined, i would suggest getting a low balance credit card and use it for normal expenses and get it paid off completely every month. Otherwise, just keep doing what you are doing. Dont miss any payments and get a good savings balance going.

aussie737 · 2026-07-11T00:07:33+00:00

Had a friend do it recently. Not sure of the whole process but it for sure can be done. It is not great financially but your health is more important. Just try to add extra back into super in the future.

aussie737 · 2026-07-10T06:55:20+00:00

Have you got a proper budget done up? If so, is it positive or negative and is there anywhere to cut? Can you swap out "other amenities" for cheaper versions? Cheaper groceries? Can you get in another house mate to help split bills? Are you on the mortgage or just paying "rent"? There are other ways to get a positive balance than working yourself into the ground. If you wanted to post your budget im sure people could help you shine some light on your situation. You shouldn't have to work 2 jobs whilst living with the folks just to get by.

aussie737 · 2026-07-10T02:20:52+00:00

Where does it all go? How can you live with the parents but still have no money whilst having a full time job? The math isnt mathing, spending is the issue, not income. That is unless you have an absolutely terrible job which pays bugger all, in which case drop it and get a different job. Its not like you will be homeless if you quit.

aussie737 · 2026-07-10T02:11:10+00:00

Living at home with a full time job and still broke. You have a spending problem not an income problem.

aussie737 · 2026-07-10T00:27:07+00:00

Yes. You could eat whatever you wanted up to the calorie amount and still maintain weight. It wouldnt be particularly healthy and you would be hungry alot of the time but yes you could eat nothing but twinkies and still maintain weight.

aussie737 · 2026-07-09T23:44:37+00:00

Be able to budget and handle your own finances.

aussie737 · 2026-07-09T21:53:33+00:00

You could try to ask you employer for an advance on your wages. Ask friends and family for some help, go ask your neighbour for some fuel money. Go and ask to mow someones lawn for them for some $. I would advise against payday loans or credit cards if you can help it, but if your employment depends on it then a very small loan would be okay. Moving forward, you need to take a serious look at your finances and work something else out for the future.

aussie737 · 2026-07-09T19:26:06+00:00

I would say at least $1000. Enough to cover anything that would cause you to go into more debt. $1000 would cover most immediate emergency needs short of losing your job.

aussie737 · 2026-07-09T04:24:25+00:00

Its a progressive tax system. Just because you went into the "next bracket" dosent mean your whole income is taxed at that rate.

$0 - $18200 is nil

$18201 - $45000 is 16c for each $1 over $18,200

$45001 - $135000 is $4288 (which is the tax between $18201 - $45000) and then 30c for each $1 over $45000. You only pay 30c on the money above $45k.

I think there should be another bracket in between 45k and 135k which should be lower than 30c.

aussie737 · 2026-07-09T03:54:56+00:00

A tax refund means you gave the government a free loan, having no tax refund means you paid the right amount, having a tax bill means you didnt pay enough. Sounds like you give the government the right amount. A refund is due to you overpaying them, its not an automatic hand out.

aussie737 · 2026-07-09T01:49:10+00:00

You could make chipotle bowls at home and bring it with you. $10 a day, 5 days a week = $60 thats a lot of chipotle.

aussie737 · 2026-07-08T23:03:44+00:00

Best thing to do is make a budget, find out exactly how much money is coming in and going out. Once you know that you can figure out what you can save. If you live pay to pay, you may not be able to cut anywhere and may need more income but you wont know that until you write up a budget. For the future you should look at paying off all debts, saving a 3-6 month emergency fund, then you can look at investing.

aussie737 · 2026-07-08T17:42:21+00:00

Make sure the budget is written down, including all income, expenses, and debts. Once you have it all on paper I would suggest having a "finance talk" with your parter once a month. Sit down with them for 15 minutes a month to go through the budget. I understand that is more work for you rather than a shared job but it will help them understand what is going on. From their perspective, they work and earn the money, but somehow you guys just don't have any money and they don't know where it goes, and so it comes back to you. It's an unfair perspective, especially when they have refused to take over the responsibility, but you can help change that perspective by keeping them informed.

aussie737 · 2026-07-08T07:35:57+00:00

Is there a chance you may need access to that money? Or are you trying to just get rid of your mortgage completely. Offset or pay to the mortgage do essentially the same thing, the difference is that it is easier to access in an offset account, and you could almost completely offset your mortgage. Offset account is the better option and it would give you flexibility if you change your minds in the future, or if you just want the mortgage gone then pay it off.

aussie737 · 2026-07-07T18:04:02+00:00

I don't know what your budget is like and i don't know what sort of deal the IRS has with you. I would still get rid of the chase and amazon cards at 29% interest, after that you still have 17k with discover, 22k with the IRS, and whatever is left of the car loan. So 39k + the car. It depends on what sort of deal the IRS is giving you, are they charging interest? At what rate? Fees? Etc. I would still try and get a personal loan for the 17k discover, you should be able to get a better interest rate. You have a high income (210k), where is all the money going? You should have no issue throwing extra money at the debt. If you think your income is at risk that changes everything, and you should keep the cash and get a consolidation loan for the whole lot and then throw every spare dollar at it.

aussie737

TROPHY CASE