You’ve identified a budget of $1,215 a month for two people. I’m guessing that if you both receive SS disability you also have Medicare coverage.

Options for low-cost housing:

Shared housing. A moderate-rent 3-bedroom house in a decent area, when shared by three couples, becomes very affordable housing. The challenge is finding compatible, responsible, dependable housemates, but in earlier years, I lived this way very inexpensively.

If you already own your home, take in a boarder for each extra bedroom. Make sure you choose responsible people who will meet their commitments; you are not taking in a stray pet, here.

House-sitting. With numerous empty housing units available (13 million nationwide), a determined search will find an owner (possibly a bank) who would rather have the place occupied even at no rent, if someone will maintain it, mow the lawn, keep it from being vandalized, and maybe do some light improvements work (cleaning, painting, etc.). Even in quite decent neighborhoods, you will now regularly see homes that have clearly been left vacant and uncared for. Find out who’s in charge and make a deal.

RV living. Used RVs are a drag on the market now with the higher price of gas. Find an inexpensive one and a relative/friend with a large lot who will allow you to park it on their land for free or in exchange for whatever light work you can do in exchange.

Transportation. Unless you live out in the country, you probably should not own a car. Public transportation in many areas is heavily subsidized for the disabled. When you need a car (like for a monthly bulk food shopping trip), ask your church minister if there is a member of the congregation who will help you out with a ride, or find a neighbor who wants to shop the same place and will take you along in exchange for help on paying for gas.

Food. Learn to cook, can and bake, and abandon all processed foods (except those you process yourself).

Eat like an immigrant and buy your less perishable food in bulk at cash & carry or ethnic food stores. A 25# bag of beans and a 50# bag of rice will cost you less than $45 and will provide one meal a day for two people for 2-1/2 months. Most Americans are used to a great deal of processed and varied foods, but where I grew up, people ate homecooked rice and beans for both lunch and dinner, most days of the week, with perhaps a chicken wing or leg, or 2-3 ounces of meat alongside. Seasonal fruits and vegetables supplement that.

A hearty breakfast of oatmeal made with milk, cinnamon & raisins costs about 25 cents a serving. A breakfast of homemade pancakes costs even less.

If you don’t have the room to grow a garden, see if there’s a neighbor who does, who will let you garden a plot in exchange for some of the produce.

Entertainment. Rely on your local library, community center, parks and recreation center, and YMCA for entertainment and exercise.

Take up useful hobbies like gardening, knitting, sewing, baking, furniture refinishing. Don’t buy your supplies new; there are dozens of peopld who have taken up these hobbies only to abandon them, so ask for supplies on Freecycle, Craigslist or among your friends, church congregation, etc.

Avoid venues that are heavy into consumer advertising (malls, TV, most magazines); they are designed to make you feel deprived.

If you want to eat out, take a picnic to a park, instead of spending $20-40 at a restaurant.

Communication. I bought a cell phone and 1100 minutes at Costco 2-1/2 years ago for $150 and have twice bought an extra 200 minutes for $10. I still have about 500 minutes left, and in six months, will spend another $10 to add/extend again. Net cost per month for cell phone – less than $5 a month. If that seems like too few minutes, analyze who you’re talking to. Usually, most minutes are spent talking to people you already LIVE with! A moment’s forethought when you’re together will make most of those minutes unnecessary.

And “If the account is closed, I wouldn’t worry about it too much”? She’s trying to build her credit! Why should she have a black mark on her credit report that she wasn’t responsible for? Yes, it will fall off in a couple of years, and it appears to not be doing too much damage at the moment, but if the information is incorrect, why shouldn’t she go through the steps to get it removed? In fact, giving her those steps would have made for a much more informative and helpful blog post.

@ Steve #32: How did we get to the point in this country where it’s actually considered irresponsible not to take, take, take every scrap offered at the public trough?

@ AnnJo #38: Still, I don’t think this is necessarily true. People often have trouble accepting a disability that isn’t visually obvious or that they do not understand. And she did not say that these people “know her well,” merely that she had gotten remarks. Maybe they do not really know her at all, but have decided that they are experts in the subject of acquaintances’ lives. That happens, too, not infrequently.

I keep reading that canceling/closing older credit cards with zero balances actually NEGATIVELY impact your credit score. I want to close off that annual-fee miles card. I don’t use the miles card anymore because my job doesn’t require me to fly often anymore, but I’d hate to have my credit all screwy as I end my single life. How drastic is the hit on my credit by closing a card with the only activity over the past year or two is just paying the annual fee to keep it going?

Your comments about how if other people say she shouldn’t be on disability then she probably shouldn’t is just really bad logic.

You misued the quotation marks around mental illness. When you quote individual words or phrases like that and are not quoting a passage then the quotation marks indicate words used ironically or with some reservation. If you were quoting a full passage and attributing it to the SSA then that would make more sense.. i.e.. the SSA says “one third of disability claims are for mental illness” if its a direct quote that is fine. But quoting just “mental illness” looks as if you’re questioning the legitimacy of that term.

As someone with mental illness it’s frustrating to see only mental illness put in the fake scare quotes. Most of the people I know with mental illness haven’t been on disability and quite a few were denied even though they can’t work.

Just because you can’t physically see something doesn’t mean it’s being faked.

Even when you can see a disablity it can be faked or exagerated.

Also just because many people think Wendy shouldn’t be on disablitiy doesn’t make them right simply because there are a lot of them. Many people can be wrong.

I don’t know whether Wendy is one of them. I don’t know the basis for her disability claim, only that she said that “many people” had commented that she didn’t deserve her benefits. It’s possible they’re right.

I put mental illness in quotes because I was quoting from a SSA website stating that one-third of claims were based on that. Mental illness is real, and it is also sometimes faked or exaggerated.

Am I mean-spirited? Well, measured by my contributions to the support of ill family members, work for clients who can’t pay me, and charitable purposes, no, but measured by my support for coerced income redistribution, yes. I find it ironic that many who contribute little or nothing of their own money to meet the genuine needs of their fellow human beings are quick to pat themselves on the back for their support of laws to compel others to do so. You can’t be compassionate with other people’s money.

In order to get SS disability, LOTS of hoops need to be jumped through. Tests are done, results scrutinized, we had to/have to visit government docs who check us out. It is a loooooong process to get disability. I can’t imagine many people faking things and still getting payments. Sounds like an urban legend more than reality.

Who is deserving of disability is not why I wrote for help and ideas. I wrote because now that Rhett and I are married, a huge chunk of what WAS our income as individuals has been taken away. It makes living with our disabilities even tougher.

Before I had congestive heart failure and three strokes, I worked even though I was legally disabled. When those illnesses showed up on top of what I was already dealing with, I had to quit. Most people are amazed at all I have done despite what life has thrown me.

I want to know how “YOU” (anybody reading this) would live on $1115/month cash plus less than $100 food stamps that is the only income for 2 people. What things would you do if you were me/us? What strategies would you have that it would be great if I had? What tips and ideas do you have for “making it” financially?

I would recommend looking at high interest CDs like those at Ally Bank (5 year) that have a short early withdrawal penalty. While it is possible to lose money if you needed it immediately, as long as you don’t touch it for a few months (less than 1/2 a year), you will do better than the 1% at many savings accounts. The only downside is that there may be a few day processing delay, but I have no problem holding 1 month’s emergency fund in a savings account and the others in an Ally CD. If I don’t touch it, I get ~3%/year. Also great is that if interest rates go up, you can break the CD and bump up to a higher rate.

@38 AnnJo: Entitlements are not the same as charity programs. Entitlement programs are programs where if you meet the eligibility criteria and you are a resident of the jurisdiction, you must be allowed in the program, regardless of anything not mentioned in the eligibility criteria.

While these can all be genuine and debilitating problems, they can also all be the basis for scamming the system, whether consciously or unconsciously.

If you are getting “many comments” from people who know you well that you should not be on disability, you probably shouldn’t be on disability. Most of us know genuinely disabled people and would never dream of commenting negatively on their receipt of benefits, but we also know lazy, unmotivated, unethical or hypochondiacal people who prefer to let others support them rather than make the effort to support themselves.

There’s a line somewhere between the desirable goal of sparing the feelings of the genuinely disabled who may be ashamed at not being able to carry their weight and the undesirable result of making the undeserving feel entitled to be leeches on the productive. In this country, maybe we crossed that line when we started calling charity programs “entitlements.” We’re not in as bad a shape yet as some European countries where one out of six workers is “disabled,” but we’re headed in that direction.

I think Trent’s advice here is flat-out wrong. If you are depending on other people to take care of your needs without producing anything in exchange to help them out, then you SHOULD spare some thought to how they feel about it. And if, with some effort, you could become self-supporting, then you shoud do it. What there is no justification for, though, is feeling resentful of the people who are footing your bills.

Soooooo….the government has things set up so that a married couple on SSI gets $407/month LESS in income than a not-married couple. We get $279 LESS a month in food stamps than we did as individuals. We are getting $200 LESS/year in help with electricity. And then the rent has increased to be $144 MORE. So much for marriage being a respected institution. Most people in our situation chose to live together rather than do the right thing and marry.

I have been in your shoes (SF-DC). Ultimately, it didn’t work out, but I have great memories. I loved getting to know him and his world. I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat.

Caution – If the two of you are not pulling in big bucks in your careers, you could be (mis-)laying your foundation only to face severe financial difficulties ahead. If you’re both independently wealthy, that’s another matter.

Set an equitable travel budget that you both contribute to based on your earnings, so that travel costs are bourne evenly and affordably. Learn and work all the Frequent Flyer and affinity programs to your advantage.

Don’t even think of moving yet! That is bad advice and it’s way too soon!!! Instead, plan on visiting each other every other week, alternating coasts. This will give you time to get great deals on airfares and add a little shiver of anticipation before each trip. If you do this every week, believe me, it will get old. You must make time for your friends and family as well as more mundane things like laundry and dentist’s appointments. Heck, shopping for fabulous lingerie takes time ;)

If you keep going at this rate, there is a good chance that one of you will experience burnout that you might not have felt if the pace had been more measured. Give yourself more time to plan, anticipate and enjoy each visit and this phase of your relationship.

Best of luck to you and keep us posted!