A couple of gross details to point out. Hopefully you can correct me or correct yourself.
$1k / month ??
Who can or will live on a $1k a month ?
I spent almost a decade living on less than $9000/year.
To be fair, I owned my mobile home - but I got it for $2500 early on in "The Great Recession" and turned around and sold it for $8000 about 8 years later with no more than a "fix what went wrong with it while I was in it" into it.
Even had I had to invest the $8000 into it instead of the $2500 I got it for, it still would have cost me less than $100/month had I gotten NOTHING out of it in the end - instead I made a PROFIT on it (and that profit is a large part of what financed my move to Washington State and the expansion of my cryptomining farm last summer).
I didn't pay income taxes - both Iowa and the Feds did not require income taxes to even be FILED if you made $9000 or less a year all of those years - and since I never owed income taxes, I could claim "exempt" and not have taxes taken out in the first place.
I rode the bus most of that time. I did get benefit from a "low income" program from the bus system, but that only saved me $15-$20 a month in the months I was working so it wouldn't have been a major issue had the program not existed and all of those years I'd STILL have been under $9000 a year even if I counted the savings from the "low income" program as income (the last year it *might* have tipped me to just over $9000 - but I'd have STILL been under the Federal "no tax" threshold due to inflation adjustments - since the savings didn't count as income, it was a non-factor).
Some of my income was unemployment - I was typically working a total of 5-6 months out of a year, on an intermittant work basis every year in that timeframe due to the nature of the work I did. The months I did not work I just paid for a $3 day-pass fare (STANDARD for that bus system, not discounted at all) for a once-a-week run errands and grocery shop run, and skipped the monthly pass.
My food budget was around $200/month the last year, less before that as prices did increase occasionally.
My lot rent was between $200 and $260 that entire time (mobile home living is CHEAP, an apartment of similar size would have cost me $400-$600 per month instead depending on the year).
I could have gotten by on LESS than $500/month most of that time, had I been willing to go through the hoops and hassle to apply for food stamps.
The last couple years would have needed more, between my expanding cryptocoin efforts (which I DO count in my income) and cost increases on the rent and electric rate increases.
I did look into Section 8 at one point (does NOT cover mobile homes it turns out) but I quickly figured out t would have cost me more to live in a Section 8 apartment than to stay where I was at, I'd have been stuck in an apartment that was a LOT smaller, and they would not have covered the cost for me to move OR the cost of the storage place I would have needed for my book collection.
Just because YOU are used to living very high on the hog on a 6-figure income and don't know how to economise doesn't mean NOBODY can manage it, and still live comfortably.
