I'm just very early on in my career and it's a slow build in my field with all the competition, gaining a lot of great experience at my current job but i'm not getting paid all that well.

Rent is 950

Internet(no cable, phone is voip), 60$

Power 200-300

Water - 60

Insurance - 50

cell phone - 110(fucking verizon . . on a contract too)

Insulin - 150$.

Groceries - Probably 600-700$ depending on what we need, what happened that month.

So roughly 1680 in bills, my income is more like 2400 a month. I drive 60 miles a day round trip to and from work. The bills aren't including maintenance or random events that occur(hot water heater busting, sick kid, etc) I'm up to date on all my bills but I want to start my emergency fund. No room for retirement at this point yet. I plan on staying with this job another 6 months to a year before attempting to find work elsewhere with a much higher pay. I just need to learn more about my field before I get myself into the thick of it.

All of that being said, I've made steps to lower my bills, I bought my own cable modem, took 15$ off my bill every month, changed insurance company, took 25$ off a month, I cut off cable and home phone and signed up for business internet. (I do have a side business but less than 800$ in 12 months from it, no expenses though) I got a 4$ thrift store phone, and got a voip-analog adapter.

Power is high because it's winter, central heat set at 60F, definitely not abusing it, just shitty insulation. Rent is unfortunately the lowest I can find in the nearest cities to me and not be in a dangerous neighborhood.

Like I said, I was able to stuff away 20-50$ for a few months and then a string of bad luck and all the emergency savings were depleted. Been stuck trying to recover for 4 months now.