Not in a great spot. My material needs are met, so don't worry about that. Just want to break out of the cycle I'm in of "oh hey, you have only a few hundred from this paycheck before you're negative again."
Not in a great spot. My material needs are met, so don't worry about that. Just want to break out of the cycle I'm in of "oh hey, you have only a few hundred from this paycheck before you're negative again."
Do you have anything you can pawn? My buddy had to pawn his rifle recently because he was between jobs. It sucked to lose the gun and he got back way less than he'd spent on it, but he was able to eat until he found work.
If you can cut back on expenses in any way, the easiest way to build a nest egg is to do it slowly. I'm sure you've read similar advice outside of leftist spaces, but take some time to do your research, find a few safe ETFs and then just set it to autodraft. It should be such a small amount that you don't really notice it, because let's be honest: you are gambling in this scenario and there's always the chance that you'll lose your entire investment. You will feel sort of dirty at first and you won't get to $3,000 fast, but you will get to $3,000 eventually.
I started doing this the last time I got a raise. I just put the additional pay into a brokerage account and tried to ignore the rising cost of living. Even though the market isn't doing great, I still feel more secure knowing I have something to sell off, and if things truly collapse then I'll have bigger problems to deal with. I know myself and if I'd put that cash into a savings account, I would have taken it right back out at the end of the month when things got tight. Making the money a little more difficult to withdraw actually has some benefits if you struggle with impulse control and saving.
I think there is a critical piece of common advice to add here which is, "Don't invest anything you can't afford to lose." The market can tank for years at a time, you need to be prepared to hold your investments through multiple down years to avoid actually losing your money.
Typically investment in the stock market is only recommended after you have a cushion of like ~6mo living expenses in cash savings.
I agree with this for people who are looking to save intelligently, but for someone who is living month-to-month, I don't think the stock market is a good idea, because you can't eat it.
(then again, it's all contingent on what corgi means by "negative". Like, lost money on the month and dipped into savings, or is literally overdrafting their checking account?)