*This post may contain affiliate links, please see my disclosure
When I first got engaged to Michelle (over 10 years ago now!), I was in the habit of living paycheck to paycheck, and really had NO IDEA where my money was going.
I quickly realized if we were going to make our marriage work, I needed to get on a budget!
Luckily, my brother-in-law dropped an audiobook on my lap of The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey, and the rest is history! We got on a budget and started saving toward our wedding, and moving out of state.
But I needed a new job, and I had no idea WHAT I was going to do, or how much I needed to make for us to get by.
We got married, moved, and I was able to land a job making $14 an hour. It was great to be employed, but was that enough for a newly married couple to live on?
Table of Contents
$14 An Hour Is How Much Per Year?
First, I figured out how much $14 an hour REALLY WAS per year and per paycheck.
- Hourly Wage: $14 an hour
- Yearly Income (52 weeks): $29,120
- Monthly Income (4 weeks): $2,240
- Bi-Weekly Paycheck: $1,120
After taxes, we were taking home around $1,075 every paycheck, so we had to learn to STRETCH our budget quickly!
Our $14 An Hour Budget
At first, we thought we needed more income, so Michelle got a job. That only lasted about 2 weeks, and we realized that we could not only survive on $14 an hour, but thrive!
Here’s a snapshot of our budget during that year:
| Income | ||
| Paycheck 1 | $1,075 | |
| Paycheck 2 | $1,075 | |
| Other Income | $300 | Side Hustle! |
| Babysitting Income | $40 | |
| Total Income | $2,490 | |
| Donations | ||
| Church | $300 | |
| Bills | ||
| Mortgage/Rent | $580 | This is VERY LOW today, but finding roommates can make this possible |
| Electric | $120 | We could have cut this down, but we liked STAYING WARM in the winter 🙂 |
| Internet | $33 | |
| Car Insurance | $80 | |
| Cell Phone | $100 | |
| Daily Spending | ||
| Food | $240 | Extremely small budget, made possible with meal planning! |
| Gas | $175 | |
| Date | $50 | Free exploring, split meals, coupons, no alcohol when eating out |
| Spending Cash | $60 | |
| Misc. | $150 | |
| Savings Buckets | ||
| Christmas | $50 | |
| Bday/Anniversary | $50 | |
| Beauty | $35 | |
| Car Maintenance | $30 | |
| Total Expenses | $2,053 |
Based on this budget, we were able to save $300-$400 a month only making $14 an hour.
The first thing we did was get ourselves a month ahead on our bills (spending last month’s money). Because I was paid twice a month, tracking when our bills were due and adjusting our budget every payday got annoying quick.
Getting ourselves a month ahead of our bills relieved that stress and truly made us feel financially free.
Further Reading: Stop Living Paycheck To Paycheck: Step By Step
Living On $14 An Hour Requires Sacrifice
As you can see in our sample budget, there wasn’t a lot of wiggle room. We didn’t eat out a ton, we didn’t buy new clothes, and our food budget was VERY small (hint: we ate very simple meals, not all organic either).
But that was on purpose.
Sticking to a budget requires that you SPEND LESS THAN YOU MAKE, and making $14 an hour requires some sacrifice.
But just because you can’t go to the movies every week, or bar-hopping every Friday, does NOT mean that you cannot ENJOY living!
We were able to live frugally, and still enjoy life. We went on simple, free adventures instead of costly date nights.
We stretched our dollars with coupons and meal planning. And we stayed away from subscription services and impulse buys (no Amazon Prime back then).
And most importantly, we didn’t go into further DEBT to try and live above our means.
If you don’t have a large income, keep your budget in line with your take home pay, and if you want more, then go earn more!
Further Reading: 6 MOVES TO MAKE MORE MONEY THIS YEAR!
Simple Tools To Help With YOUR $14 An Hour Budget
[elementor-template id=”506255″]
Extra Income Made All The Difference
With our budget, we would have made it by just fine, but we would NOT have saved any money during that year without our side hustles.
I was able to work remotely a few hours a week at my old job to bring in about $300 per month. Add that to the babysitting we did, and our extra income was $350 – $400 per month, which was ALL put into savings!
Further Reading: 20 Ways To Make Money
We could have easily spent the money, as we lived in wine country (and Michelle admits to having “fine wine” taste on our “water” budget).
Instead, we used the extra money toward our goals, which in turn got us a month ahead of our bills, paid down schooling costs, and brought us to a place of having financial peace.
And all it took was putting together a simple budget AND STICKING TO IT! Easier said than done, I know, but it really can make a world of difference.
Making $14 An Hour? Get On A Budget!
Grab your own budget template and get started today!
Getting on a budget changed our entire financial life. We went from making $14 an hour, to buying a home a few years later. We were able to pay off our debt, invest, and build enough wealth to quit my job and take a year off to travel the country!
I’ve put together many budgets for people at all income levels, and finally put together my process for starting a BUDGET THAT WORKS.
Further Reading: Reader Budget Makeover Series
I put together a full budgeting tutorial, including a free budget template to get you started.
Take the first step today, and get on a budget! You will enjoy true Financial Freedom, and start hitting those BIG GOALS you always dream about.
Good post. I totally agree that it just comes down to sticking to your budget. You don’t have to make millions to be able to budget. I remember my first time out on my own and I was making something like $8/hr. It SUCKED! But, I watched every penny that came in & out. I was able to have a very simple budget and it allowed me to have fun when I wanted to. Plus, it helped me to learn to appreciate what I had which can be an invaluable lesson.
I agree that budgets can also add value to your money. I learned the value of a dollar early, and was able to save up and buy my first car within a year. I cherished that vehicle because I knew what it took to save for it.
Wow, you lived even tighter than we do – I rarely see that on the PF blogosphere! I’ve made $24-25k/yr ever since graduating from college and becoming independent from my parents, so I’ve never had to live on less, and my husband makes the same, so I’ve never had an opportunity to live on more. That income is pretty easy to live on in Durham but was a bit tricker in the DC area!
Our emergency budget for if one of us lost our job would put us around the income you listed above and we’d still be able to do everything important in the short-term, but we’d be up a creek after a while because of not saving for yearly expenses.
We also put together an emergency budget! Great minds think alike 🙂
Ours removed all savings categories (Christmas, bday, car maintenance, etc..) as well as out date and spending cash. Luckily, we haven’t had to switch to a full on emergency budget yet, but we still have one just in case.
We’re sort of living this now. We’re surviving with me losing 60% of my income, on mat leave. How? I don’t know haha. My 2 main goals right now are to get ER fund and at least 1 pay cycle ahead in bills…it’s so slow it’s killing me though! I can’t wait to feel relief when we do get there.
You can do it! It was definitely a lifestyle adjustment for us to get on such a tight budget, and it took 2 or 3 months to really dial it in, but once we were a month ahead, it was a bit less stressful.
I’ve never made even $14 an hour, although some jobs probably paid that much after adding in tips and/or commission.
When I first moved out on my own I made $350 every two weeks. My rent was $220 a month and I had a car payment of $260 a month. A majority of each paycheck went to those two items. I also had a $50 a month student loan payment. With the money that was left I paid for my electric, gasoline, food,and everything else. I never had much money to spend but I never had trouble paying my bills either.
You truly are the tight fisted miser, Andy! I thought of you when writing this post, as I know your budget is EXTREME. 🙂
Well done on sticking to a budget and getting by on a fairly low sum. Also kudos to you for tithing on top of that! That’s usually the first thing to go for a lot of people when they are cash strapped!
Thanks Brian. Yea, for us, tithing would definitely have been the last thing to go, but luckily everything worked out nicely, and we even saved money 🙂
We had $20k to live off of during our first year of marriage as I started my unpaid dietetic internship and hubs did a victory lap (5th year) to finish his BS in engineering. Even with tithing $2k we were still able to come out with a positive balance! Hot summer nights meant dragging our mattress out to the living room floor, we had breakfast (eggs & homemade hashbrowns) at least once a week, and entertainment involved walking to the grocery store to try samples and hanging out in the magazine aisle 🙂 living simply made our first year of marriage creative and a lot of fun!
Sounds like our first year a little bit. We lived in a small college town, so our entertainment included walks, mario 64, and listening to Dave Ramsey. LoL, we were super nerds 🙂
When I first started to get out of debt I was making $15/hour. It was a decent amount of income based on my age and the cost of living in KC, but it wasn’t very easy considering all of the debt payments that I had. I believe I had around $800/month in minimum debt payments and it was a real struggle…but I was able to survive and get some of the debt knocked out. Having a budget and telling your money where to go truly changes things.
Dang, that’s a huge payment! I bet your budget was your best friend (or worst enemy, depending on how you look at it). 🙂
When Greg did his first professional internship, he got paid a salary of 20K per year. I don’t know what that hourly rate is but it’s not much…BUT they did provide us with a free apartment with no rent and no utilities. So we basically saved all of our money that year!
That’s like $10 an hour. Man, that’s tough! But I guess free rent is like getting a decent raise…
Yeah, exactly. We literally had no bills except for things like groceries and car insurance!
Oh, the days are long gone when most of our income was disposable. My brother just got his first job, and I’m so jealous!
You still found money to tithe each month living on that little? I’m impressed! I used to live off of 300 per week when I was a full-time actor. The only way I made it was by living in my grandmother’s attic.
Budgets do wonders for being able to fit everything in without overspending. We were blessed to be able to fit everything in AND still save money.
Were you in any movies that I would know about? Also, was the attic finished, or just full of insulation and rats? 😉
I’m with Lauren, that’s great that you paid your tithe first!
We lived on $600/week when we were first married. Derek was a 3rd year plumbing apprentice, and I was commuting to finish my last year of school. The secret weapon in our financial success was to continue living on $600/week despite our incomes increasing substantially over the next few years. Our budget looks a little different these days, we don’t have a mortgage anymore, but we now have a family of 5 instead of 2.
Well done Mandy! I want to join the no-mortgage club, but I’ll need to at least double my income to hit that goal within the next 10 years.
When I was in grad school, I lived on roughly $1000/month. I survived by living with a roommate, having really low expectation and sadly, the occasional credit card purchase. I lived pretty well, though. Managed to go to Cancun and Jamaica, paid for in cash, and I had savings. Of course, I spent $100/month on food and gas was only around $1/gallon (late 90s, early 00s) so that helped.
I miss that sometimes.
Nice work. $1,000 is not a lot of money to live on! I remember living on $1,200 a month back in 2005 during college. Lived with 5 guys and ate teriible food to survivie. Also, too much Mt. Dew!
Great post, you guys have done awesome!
Thanks Robby!
This proves that it’s not about how much you make rather how much you spend.
Agreed. Though, making more money would make things a lot more interesting if our budget stayed the same 😉
When I was a resident, I made $25K/year, which figures out to just over $12/hr. Rent was $550. Bills maybe $200. My student loans were in deferrment. I should have been paying on those, but all the residents I knew deferred loans, so that’s just what I thought you did. I had more trips and fun that year than ever. I think because of the lack of responsibility. I saved nothing but did see Las Vegas, the Grand Cayon, skiied at Vail and Breckenridge, and I got to go to conferences in Seattle and LA. I felt really rich actually. Lifestyle inflation was what killed things later on.
Lifestyle inflation will definitely kill any potential progress. That’s something I’m leery of, because we’re on such a tight budget now, I feel like we might be tempted to “relax” a bit once more income start coming in.
Wow, that is eerily similar to my story. In 2009, I quit job and moved across country to a place where I knew 10 people in the entire time zone, just to get married. It took me 9 months to find a job while we lived if my wife’s income of $12/hr.
Yeah, it wasn’t fun.
Isn’t it crazy though? Humans adapt, period. It is possible to like on $12 an hour, though it is not fun. I think spending a bit of time (even if artificial scarcity) living like a broke person can help gain some perspective and build appreciation for what we do have. Not to mention help get ahead financially.
I think Dave Ramsey calls it “living like no one else, so later, you can live like no one else.”
There were times where I had to survive on a low hourly wage, so I feel your pain. I’ve never worked for someone who was taking tequila shots with a mistress, however. That alone is reason to quit!
Yea, I wanted to go in there and chew the guy out, but having my wife quit without notice was good enough. Plus, who knows what a creeper like that would do.
Thanks for showing it can be done on even just $14/hr for two people. So many people forget that. I would challenge that some places are much more expensive than others. For example, here in Southern California, you would probably be paying about $700-800 for a studio apartment, not $580. However, that is still do-able on your budget.
Yup! We lived in a…more ghetto-ish apartment, so it was much cheaper. When we moved back home, we couldn’t get anything less than $800 a month.
Going to have to follow the crowd and say well done on living so tight – very impressive. Also admirable that you continued to Tithe. Strangely enough, we live tighter now (with higher incomes) that we both did as students! I think we finally woke up and realised how much money we were wasting!!
Thanks! We are tighter now as well, mostly because of our mortgage, but we wouldn’t have it any other way.
Wow that is pretty incredible. I remember that World of Math class too. My spreadsheet was pink and had baby penguins on it (but that still works right?).
As long as those penguins can tell you how much your food budget is, it definitely counts!
I admire your determination and creativity to make ends meet.
During tight times, my wife and I have found side jobs that have helped to see us through, like: baby sitting, handyman work, house sitting, and yard work.
You are a man’s man, Terry. I think it’s awesome you and your wife find ways to make ends meet instead of just giving up when times are tough.
This is quite an impressive article. I have also done my share of living on $14/hour and even less than to support me and my son. Well, believe it or not – but it’s doable. Good budgeting is a must and you can get ahead in life even making that little. Thanks!
It’s definitely doable, but not easy. I applaud you on your frugalness to be able to support your family on so little.
I survived on $12/hour while paying for my schooling out of pocket. The only way I could do that was work for over 50 hours per week, which made me not so great with my classes.
It’s tough, surviving on that little, and I didn’t have a significant other back then, it was just me. So I was only supporting myself. I also dug myself into a bit of credit card debt during that time but not on necessities.
It is tough, Bummer about the debt, but hey, you paid for school by working your way through it. That is an amazing and rare feat!
That’s pretty amazing. I lived on $300 a week a few years of my life, but I was in college – so that really doesn’t count. Pretty much lived off cereal and ramon, and went crazy when I found a $1 on the street… still was probably the best time of my life. 🙂
LoL. It’s funny how we have the fodest memories of when we were CRAZY BROKE! And hey, finding a $1 is still awesome! 😉
That’s about the salary we are now living without! You guys are the real deal! So many of us write about how we budget, but actually saving on that amount of money is impressive. Great job.
Thanks Michelle. We try 😉
I’m currently trying to live on about $1,000 a month and succeeding for the most part. I’ve moved near to the water at the cost of having to travel a bit more than I’d like which increases the costs of living. Without commuting I reckon I could live on about $800 a month. I like to make a challenge of how much I can do on the least amount of money. I think it probably came out of university enforced frugality. Now I just like it!
College broke really helps set the bar for how frugal one can be. Congrats on the extremely low cost of living 🙂
Wow, at $14 an hour, your take home pay was much higher than I would expect. It seems you paid little in taxes at that time, maybe due to school and/or dependents. I make considerably more per hour (mid-twenties), but my take home is really not much more due to taxes and retirement. At one point, my husband and I lived on his similar salary and a very part-time job I had during grad school for two years, and it can be done, but we also lived very lean. Great job on budgeting and sticking to your values!
I became disabled several years ago, and hubby works a minimum wage job because we live in a tiny town in the country in Arkansas. We survive on $1765 a month. That comes out to $440 a week. We have had to move into government housing for the cheap rent and it is hard. After groceries, and other regular bills, we have very little left to live on, much less save.
I urge you to encourage young people to save, save, save. We didn’t. We are not used to living like this. We lived many years in Los Angeles and both of us made really good money. We just did not save any of it, so we are paying for mistakes. When I got sick, we moved home. Anyway, thanks for your blog. I enjoy it.
Saundra, thank you so much for sharing. Educating young people the value of a good budget and money plan is one of the HUGE goals of this site. I’m sorry to hear about your circumstance, but know that there are always ways to save more, and sometimes we don’t even know it. I plan on growing the “how to save money” section of this blog, and am putting together a course to help others learned everything I wish I knew 10 years ago! Keep up hope, you will get through this!
I like reading stories of how people made it on different budgets. Unfortunately no where have I ever seen rent that cheap. I live with a family of 3 and the rent just went up to $1380 for a 3 bed 2 bath and it’s a bad apartment. But everything else is more expensive. Only two of us are working with jobs that pay about $12 an hour but we get about 70% of that after taxes, health ins.One is on disability. It’s difficult because of the amount of medical bills and because one person doesn’t work anymore credit card bills have racked just to pay regular things.
I hear you. This was the budget we lived on 7 years ago when rents were low and just before the economy crashed, and we lived in the “housing authority” apartments (had to prove low income to live there)! Would be a miracle to find something that cheap these days. I know 3 bedrooms are VERY expensive, maybe a 2 bed 2 bath with a sleeper sofa?
Sounds like you’re in a tough spot, sorry to hear that. Have you put together a budget for the money you do have coming in? Sometimes seeing it on paper can help a bit.
Here’s how I would coach someone in a spot like this:
1) Track your spending (read THIS POST to find out how). You need to know where EVERY dollar is going before you can get anywhere.
2) Once you know where you typically spend, then get on a budget. You can download my spreadsheet HERE, or just use paper and pencil. The goal here is to set a goal number for each category (make it realistic. If you normally spend $800 on food, don’t shoot for $400 the first month).
3) CHALLENGE EVERYTHING. Every category in your budget has the possibility of costing less money, it just depends on what you are willing to do. Housing, Food, utilities, gas, cell phones, etc. can all be lowered substantially. Check out THIS BUDGET for some examples, and search the internet for more options.
4) Find things for cheaper or free. We use a Buy Nothing Group to get most of our furniture, kids clothes, toys, etc for free. There are also show and swap facebook groups, thrift stores and many other options. Also, my wife does Clothing Swaps twice a year to eliminate the need for a clothing budget.
5) Find ways to earn money on the side. Side hustles are HUGE, and can make the difference between going into debt or getting out of it. Here’s a list of a few ways to EARN MORE MONEY, and check out my buddy’s SIDE HUSTLE SERIES for more ideas.
6) Don’t let excuses rule your life. I’ve been in tough spots financially, and the one thing I learned is I NEED TO MAKE THE CHOICES, and I will not let excuses make the choices for me. Life is tough, and can slam us down, but it’s our choice to stay there, or to get back up and claw, and fight to get to where we want to be. I am not discounting hardships, but know you have much more power than you even know to overcome.
You can do this! 🙂
I can see how 2 people can do it on their incomes. I am single parent of a college student and I make under 13 an hour. I have house and utilities, college, car and I am broke every week after I pay all my bills, maybe $25 to live on for 2 weeks. I have to work at least 2 days a week overtime so I can buy food. There are no deductions I can get, I already checked. So what is someone like me suppose to do? I can’t get ahead. I can’t even afford to take a vacation let alone buy food to eat. It should be against the law for us to be put in this situation, they have all kinds of tax breaks for rich people or people that don’t work and we are paying for it. I have to suffer because I have to take care of all the people that choose to not and live off of the system. They are better off than I am. What kind of self worth does someone like that have? I could not, in my head, ever lower myself to that level.
Marie,
Thank you so much for reaching out, my heart hurts hearing your story and struggle here.
Here are a few things I’d look at, because it seems you won’t be able to keep your head above water here without some major changes:
1) Find a support community. Single moms are strong, but having a support team around you will give you that much more to help build you up. Local Christian churches are HUGE into helping those who are in difficult situations, especially single moms. Find a local church you trust and lean into their resources for helping give you the support you need. This is HUGE!
2) As much as it hurts, college is not a requirement to live. Skipping groceries to put your kid through college is NOT the right move here. They will need to find work and help pay their own way thru, even if it takes a year or two longer. This will also build EXTRA hustle and character to go and kill it in the professional world when graduated.
3) Make a basic budget, with ONLY the necessities list. That means, Food, Shelter, Transportation, Clothing. No extras, no eating out, no entertainment (until your situation stabilizes). Do everything in your power to say “NO” to anything outside of this budget. Check out my “Emergency Budget” post HERE
4) Car payment needs to go. This means finding a way to sell it, pay off the loan, and have cash to buy a basic used car to get by. We’re talking a $2k – $3k 10-year old Honda Civic or similar car. If you are upside down on the loan, my boy Peach but together a GREAT article detailing all the steps to get out of it – http://www.moneypeach.com/help-my-car-is-upside-down/ – In the meantime, if possible, find alternate transportation to work and back. Car gas and insurance can cost a lot, even with no car payment, so having an alternate to car commuting would be ideal.
5) After you do the above (I know it will be tough, these are HUGE changes, but necessary), it’s time to find more income. I’ve got a list of 20 things here – https://www.roadmapmoney.com/2013/03/20-ways-to-make-money/
There are also some great side hustles you can find HERE and HERE. The point here is to get some extra income to build a cushion and savings to help you get back above water.
6) TAKE. A. DEEP. BREATH. I just dropped some monumental tasks in your lap, but you’ve fought and struggled and made it this far, I know you have the power to make these changes and take back control of your financial life. I’ve struggled to make ends meet, worked 3 jobs before, and have counseled people out of debt, and the one thing that helps all of them win is HOPE. Do not lost hope here, there is always a way. It’s all about how much effort and life change you are willing to make to get there. Take it 1 step at a time.
I hope this helps, I know what I asked of you is difficult, but it’s better than the alternative of drowning in debt and not being able to put food on the table. You are a single mom, you already have 10x more built in hustle than any regular human being, and you are far stronger than you even know.
This was a great post, my husband and I got married early (19 and 20) and unfortunately didn’t get on the budget bandwagon soon enough. We lived off of student loans and because of that have racked up a ton of debt. We now both make around $14 an hour but with two kids and that huge debt we are struggling :). However, we are slowly paying it down with a goal to have 1/3 paid off in 3 years (did I say we owe a lot? lol) thanks for the encouragement!
You are making progress. Not matter how slow, that is a GREAT place to be 🙂 It took us quite a while to pay off our debt (just finished with Student Loans actually), but even at a slow pace, we kept our eyes on the prize. Almost 7 years for us, but now we’re FREE, and it’s amazing! 🙂
You got this!
I can see how you did this but would have liked to see you do it when apts rent for 1200 a month and water/sewer/garb is $200, electric runs about 150 a month. That’s over 1500 just for a place to live
How many children do you have? My husband just got a job last year paying $17/hour, an increase from $14. We have four children. When he was earning $10/hour and we only had two children, we saved half our income for two years to put a down payment on a property.
I think we made around $20/hr total. Both graduate students making $21k/year gross each living in Southern California. Yeah life was not pretty.
I think you should redo this to be a bit more believable.
Median rent is $1260 for a one bedroom apartment in the US (sources from HUD), it is almost double that for an apartment in a city where there are jobs, here in LA a one bedroom starts at $3200 in a neighborhood you will get shot.
You give the advice of “get roommates” but that is a breach of contract in most one bedrooms—it is a breach in any size of your contract says you can’t sublet, which every contract I have reviewed in the last two decades has.
I’m not sure what agenda is being pushed here—but no amount of coupon clipping, saving, or budgeting makes up for the fact that the median job in the US does not even pay enough monthly to afford the median one bedroom rent—so what are you saying? Work 160 hours per week? I think your math is off.
Thanks for the feedback! We did this in 2008-2009, it’s our story of how putting together a budget and a plan worked for us.
I don’t typically go off MEDIAN statistics, because that is what people go ahead an pay….but not what a thrifty budgeter would actually do.
Yes, finding an apartment for $580 per month is near impossible, but finding a lower cost 2-bedroom for $1,200 per month with a roomate? I think that’s doable in MANY parts of the country.
It’s all about what you’re willing to do to make the numbers work…..and if you’re not willing to sacrifice a bit….then you need to flip the other side of the balance sheet…..and earn more income 🙂
Thanks for dropping by!
So, basically someone who makes $12.50/hour and is single is pretty much screwed. How the heck is someone supposed to get a month ahead on bills when they can barely scrape by as it is?
Yeah, $12.50 is tough, especially if you’re not living at home or splitting rent. We did this budget back in 2009, and things have definitely changed since then. 🙁