I Had a Kid When I Wasn’t Financially Stable: Practical Steps That Actually Got Us Stable
It’s 3:17 a.m. and I’m standing in my 1998 Honda Civic’s open glove box, dumping change out onto the hood. My 10-month-old, Milo, is in his car seat in the back, whimpering with a 102 degree fever, and I’m counting every penny to see if I have enough for the urgent care copay. I’d been 22 for three months, had $187 in my checking account, and was living in the spare bedroom of a friend’s 2-bedroom apartment, working 30 hours a week at the downtown coffee shop and taking two general ed classes at community college. Milo was unplanned, and the second I told his dad I was pregnant, he packed a duffel and moved to another state. No child support, no help, just me and a baby and a whole lot of panic about how we’d get by.
At first, I bought into the idea that I just needed to work more. I picked up every extra shift at the coffee shop, started driving Uber on Friday and Saturday nights after I closed, I skipped class whenever I could pick up extra hours. After two months, I was averaging 55 hours a week, I’d drop Milo at the home daycare down the street at 6 a.m. and pick him up at 10 p.m., and I was still only making an extra $200 a month. I was so tired I cried over a spilled milk jug one night, and the daycare owner pulled me aside and said I was barely spending any time with Milo, and I was burning out before we even got started. She was right. That’s when I stopped chasing quick fixes and started doing the small, boring things that actually got us stable.
First, I stopped hiding from public benefits. I took one three-hour Sunday afternoon at the local library, used their free internet, and filled out every single application I qualified for. WIC for Milo’s food, housing assistance for a low-income apartment, childcare subsidy. I was so embarrassed at first – I grew up hearing that taking help was for people who didn’t want to work, that I’d be judged for having a kid too young. But when it came through three months later, it cut my grocery bill by $140 a month and my childcare cost from $700 a month to $45. While I waited for the subsidy to get approved, I swapped childcare with a single mom in my classes who had two kids: I watched her kids every Saturday so she could work her retail shift, she watched Milo two nights a week when I had class. No money changed hands, and it worked perfectly for both of us. That alone freed up enough money to start putting a little away each month, instead of living paycheck to paycheck. The only thing to know here is that if you qualify, apply. Most of the people running these programs want to help you, not judge you. It’s not a handout, it’s a leg up when you need it.
Next, I swapped my unfocused college plan for something that gave me a steady paycheck fast. I was doing general studies planning to transfer to a four-year school for a psychology degree, but that would take me six more years, and I couldn’t wait that long to make more money. I met with my community college advisor, and she pointed me to the 12-month dental assisting program, which had a guaranteed paid internship at a local clinic for the last three months, and 90% of graduates got a full-time job offer starting at $18 an hour – $9 more an hour than I was making at the coffee shop. I switched that week. I didn’t take out any student loans – the program was covered by the Pell Grant I qualified for as a low-income parent. That was the biggest single change we made. Instead of spreading myself thin doing low-wage side hustles, I put all my extra energy into getting a credential that would raise my wage permanently. I tried the side hustle thing, and it just left me too tired to be a good mom or a good student. This was slower at first, but it changed everything.
For daily budgeting, I used what I had: five old jam jars I got from the friend I lived with. I labeled each: rent, needs, gas, emergency, fun. Every Friday when I got paid, I took out all my cash, divided it up before I spent anything. If the needs jar (diapers, wipes, groceries) was empty, I didn’t buy anything extra. No random $15 toy for Milo at Target, no $12 salad for lunch at work – I packed peanut butter. I also stopped trying to keep up with other parents. All Milo’s clothes came from the thrift store’s $1 a bag Saturday sale, I only bought new shoes when his had holes in the soles. His first birthday cake was a box of yellow cake mix I bought for $0.89, and all his presents were secondhand books I got for $0.50 each. No one cared, and Milo certainly didn’t care. I cut three small recurring expenses I didn’t use: a $10 gym membership I never went to, $15 Spotify premium (I use the free version), and an $8 monthly book subscription I never read. That’s $33 a month I put straight into the emergency jar.
Five years later, I’m a full-time dental assistant making $24 an hour, we have a two-bedroom apartment with a little back yard where Milo can play, I have a $1,500 emergency fund, and I’m taking one class a semester toward my dental hygiene degree, which will get me to $40 an hour in a couple more years. It’s not perfect. Last month my car needed new brakes, and that ate half my emergency fund, so I’m building it back up right now. Some months we have to skip going out for ice cream after the park because the electric bill was higher than I expected. I still worry sometimes that I’m not giving Milo the kind of childhood other kids have. But he’s happy, he’s healthy, and we have a roof over our heads that no one can ask us to leave on a month’s notice.
I get messages from other young parents in the same spot I was, asking how we did it. No one gave me a bunch of money, I didn’t invent a viral side hustle, I didn’t get lucky with a random great job. It was just a hundred small, boring choices, one after another, that added up. It’s okay to take it slow, it’s okay to ask for help, and you don’t have to fix everything in the first six months. We’re still working on it, and that’s fine.
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