How can we get $300 extra a month?

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

My husband and I have three children (two are mine, one is his) and we both work full time. He is an assistant general manager at a hotel and his hours vary because he needs to be available 24/7. It is not possible for him to pick up an extra job and he is salary, so overtime is also out. I also work full time and go to school online (now part time because full time was taking too much precious time away from my children). It may sound odd but I cannot afford to work more than I do now. I pay $125 for my children's babysitting every week and this is half my paycheck, I cannot afford anything more, I can't even afford that. I have toyed with the idea of dropping out of college to work an extra job, but that further complicates my problems. After I'm out of school, I have to start paying back my loans, whether I have graduated or not. I don't want to get a part time job and all of that money go to pay off the loans, then the things we are short on now still don't get paid. We have cut expenses as much as possible. We do not have a home phone, we stick to our cell phones and yes, with three children and an unreliable car, and my husband being the AGM, the cell phones are an absolute necessity. My car is paid off so I do not have a monthly payment, when I got my taxes, I paid 6 months of insurance, so that is also not something that is immediately plaguing us. We have poor credit so our payments that we do have are high, I alone have 36 and 32 % interest rates on my Care Credit (a dental procedure I needed done) and CitiFinancial (we had to borrow money for our home). My husband pays the rent and all utilites, I only pay for the internet, which I need for school. I pay my own bills. We have no credit cards either. What used to be a $75 a week budget for groceries has decreased (when the cost of babysitting increased) to $40 for all 5 of us. As you can imagine, it's nearly impossible to feed 5 people on $40, no matter how cheap you shop. I am lost and feel like a terrible mother because I can't afford to put enough food on the table for my family. We make just over the limit to qualify for any type of assistance (food stamps, TANF, WIC, government housing, etc). Even with my quitting my measley paying job, my husband makes $200 more a month than we'd be allowed for assistance. I do not want to live off the government, I have done that before when I was single. I don't like having to be taken care of by someone else. Can anyone recommend a (legal and realistic) way for my family to make an extra $3-400 a month on our tight schedules?
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try a local food bank to help you put groceries on the table
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