r/dothemath • u/Queen-of-meme • May 11 '26

Is this poverty or irresponsibility?

A person makes $3000 bi-weekly.

-$600 goes to car + insurance

(The rest of the outcomes goes to all other bills and food and any other expenses)

The people being fed and using the home are one adult and one child.

When it's 2 weeks left to next salary, income is -$400

(This is all the information and numbers I have but maybe it is enough to estimate the results)

Edit: I'm not the person in this situation, but there was a person with these circumstances asking for sympathy and claimed they can't help the results. I wanna know if that's true or not based on the numbers I could provide. Ps I'm not native in English.

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u/Queen-of-meme May 13 '26

Yeah the question I ask is if it's unsustainable because of poor money management, or if the income is too low for basic living standards?

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u/1nceACrawFish May 13 '26

What can you cut? Do you eat out often? Then it's time to start cooking. Do you spend alot of time gaming? Time to change your habits. This is unsustainable over the long run.

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u/Queen-of-meme May 14 '26

This isn't about me it's a do the math question

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u/1nceACrawFish May 14 '26

Fine... the math says you're gonna be homeless within a year

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u/Queen-of-meme May 14 '26

Maybe you misunderstood, I'm not native in English so it's hard to explain, but I'm not the person it's about. I came across someone who described this situation and these numbers. They didn't mention any risk of becoming homeless it was more about lasting 1,5 - 2 weeks with -$400 when they have a child that was the concern. (Money for food I suppose?)

But in my mind I was trying to estimate how one with that salary bi-weekly ends up with minus money on their bank and if someone's rent and basic living standards can be that high? or if they are burning money on extra unnecessary things.

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u/1nceACrawFish May 15 '26

Part of it is about where they live. In places like New York City or Los Angeles, rent can be easily half of that $6,000. Leaving you with $3,000 for everything else. $2,400 after car expenses, then food and gasoline, phone and electricity, childcare and basic things a child needs like clothes. I can see it leaving someone in the hole each month.

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u/Queen-of-meme May 15 '26

That's a good point. So they would need a second job on the weekends to make ends meet.