How We Help Low Income Workers and Families

Welcome to Low Income Aid! This Website is for everyone who needs to improve their personal finances. Most people think of “the poverty level” when someone mentions “low income families”. It’s not that simple. You could be earning more than the current median income (ranging from $22,000 to $134,000 per year) and still struggle to keep up with your bills. If you only make $20,000 a year and wonder how anyone earning $134,000 per year could be “low income”, try living in San Francisco for one year. There are homeless people who earn more than $50,000 a year in that metropolitan area.

You have a low income because your expenses are overwhelming you, not because your pay rate falls into some arbitrary category. Admittedly, the advice on this Website is written for people who earn less than $30,000 a year. But if you make several times that amount of money and struggle to pay your basic bills, we know what you’re going through. We’ve been there and we want to help everyone who needs help.

So let’s get started! Here is how we want you to use this Website:

Get A Legal (Government-issued) ID

If you already have a legal ID, you can skip to the next section. We were astonished to learn that millions of Americans don’t have a legal ID. It happens to many more people than you realize. If you want to improve your financial situation, you need to get an ID.

Read how low income people should start getting a legal ID.

Start With Savings

It doesn’t matter how much you earn. Everyone can save some money. So why don’t people with low incomes save more money? Honestly, some low wage earners save a LOT of money. You only hear about them after they die or give a lot of money to charity. Then it’s like, “Oh, Sam was a janitor in a school for 40 years but he had $3 million in the bank.” How did Sam save that money? We’ll show you how. You don’t have to become a millionaire. In fact, we’re keeping our goals simple. We want to help people get away from the Credit Trap.

Read how low income people should be saving money every week without making big sacrifices.

Increase Your Income

If you’re holding down two jobs, you already know this won’t be easy. We promise no miracles. You don’t have to buy anything from us. We’ll show you how to make more money regardless of your education, location, or job skills. There must be a catch, right? Yes, the catch is this: we promise no miracles.

The worst advice anyone can give you is “get a job”. That’s about as insensitive and cruel advice as any financial expert can give. One of us went to the Consumer Credit Counseling Bureau many years ago to get help with bills. The credit counselor ran the numbers and turned to him (me) and said, “Go down to McDonald’s and get a part-time job. You don’t make enough to pay your bills.” Yeah, bud, like McDonald’s hands out a high paying job to everyone who comes asking for it.

If you can get and hold down a second or third job, sure. Do it. And then save that money. But if you need to know other ways to make money while you still work a full-time job (or 2-3 part-time jobs), we’ve got some ideas for you.

Read how low income people can earn more money without endlessly applying for jobs.

Avoid Bad Credit Offers

You know the old saying: the people who need credit the least get the best terms, and the people who need credit most get the worst terms. Maybe you’re not running to the Payday loan store every time you get a check, but if you’re paying high interest on credit cards and borrowing money to pay off bills (“consolidation loans”), we know exactly what you are going through. You’re never going to get better credit offers by accepting bad credit offers.

There is a way that most low income people can get out of the credit trap. We’ll show you how to do that. And we’ll also share some tips on how you can get better credit terms even if you have bad credit (low credit scores). Remember: there will always be someone ready to take your money. Every easy payment credit offer is a trap.

What Insurance Do You Need and How Do You Get It Cheap?

Insurance is supposed to be a good thing. The idea behind insurance is that over time some percentage of people will experience a loss: a car accident, damage to the home, illness, etc. If we all contribute a little bit of money to a shared pool, some or all of those losses can be covered by that pool of money. Sounds like a great idea. Unfortunately, too many insurance companies are trying to make a profit on insurance. Worse, YOU are not allowed to make a profit on insurance. We’ll explain what insurance you need and how you can keep your insurance costs down.

How Can Low Income People Manage Their Health Expenses?

Everyone who has benefited from the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is glad to have affordable health insurance. Tens of millions of American who were without insurance have finally gotten some coverage. But as of mid-2018 about 30 million Americans still do not have health insurance. And that is because they just cannot afford to pay the premiums, even if subsidized by the government. Obamacare sounds like a great idea but it’s so poorly done by the government it HAS been a disaster.

What can you do to get good health care on a low income? We’ve got some suggestions for you.

Important! Manage Your Feelings!

If you have a low income virtually every company that tries to sell you something is taking advantage of you. Worse, they offer you terms of credit that make your financial situation worse. You need to be honest with yourself every day about three simple truths:

You ARE an important person
You DESERVE to be treated better
You DO have the power to change your life

Don’t ever allow yourself to believe that this is the way life is and you should just accept it. You have been beaten down in life but that doesn’t mean you have to give up. Take small steps every day to improve your life. After a year you’ll be able to see how big a difference a simple change in attitude makes for your self-esteem, your lifestyle, and your overall happiness.

Everyone hates those complicated “take these small steps” journeys. Our philosophy is to keep things simple. Believe in yourself today and make one small change today. Tomorrow can wait until it comes. You just need to start notching small victories on a daily basis. When something bad happens, you’ll be able to look back at what you have done for yourself over the past few days, weeks, or months and see that you CAN change the world around you.

Don’t give up before you try. We’re not selling you anything. We don’t want your money. We want you to succeed in life. We want you to look back a year from now and say, “Yeah, I made a difference and I want to keep going.”