Hi all! Long story short my room mate ditched me and left me with a lease and bills to pay. It is not going well. I make enough to either pay all my bills (barely!) and not eat or pick which bills to pay and eat. Which means I owe double on the bill next month :icon_sad: My relationship with my parents is not good and they have their own health problems to deal with. I have found a local charity who pays utility bills that I am going to try. I just feel so aweful that this has happened....I've always been able to pay my bills before. Good news is I am moving into a rent-free living situation in a month but I need to make ends meet until then. Has anyone had to do this before? I don't know what to expect...
I've never had to do that before, but my mother is my only parent and she's had to do something similar when we were way younger. Being the only parent and having two kids to take care of she had to get a second job as a waitress in bar since her parents were awful and she couldn't rely on them for anything. The money from her day job would cover the rent and groceries while her night job would give money for the utilities. I would definitely suggest something along the lines of a waitress or a bartender because 1) it's mainly tip based and not salary based and 2) you wouldn't have to work long hours to start seeing results. If you work at a busy enough club, you could get an extra few hundred dollars for the utilities in 5-6 hours during one night. One question I had though is are you in school? If so it kind of makes what I said a little bit harder to do but I think it would still be manageable.
I would also talk to your landlord, as they might be willing to help out. Also, if your roommate had their name on the lease, they are liable to pay whether they live there or not, so you should contact them and ask them to pay up.
there are an awful lot of people having difficulties right now. Your landlord (unless it's a large corporation that doesn't give a crap) will likely appreciate the fact that you're trying to work with them and may offer some help. As for working with the charities, don't feel bad. Because so many people are having difficulties right now, most of them are very flexible and willing to help those in need. If you feel really bad about it, at some point in the future, when you're making bank, you can pay them back and maybe make an extra donation.
So I don't know where you live, but you should really look into the Landlord/Tenants Rights, because where I live, unless a tenant gives 60 days notice that they will be leaving, they are responsible to pay the rent even fi they aren't living there. If that's the case (you can generally google [insert city name here] tenant rights) it's possible your roommate might have committed a felony. Just saying...
