Melissa lives on a fixed income from her Social Security disability benefits. She makes sure she saves every month so she is able to pay her property taxes at the end of the year, but this year the money she saved had to be used for roof repairs from a storm.
After paying for the repairs and having all the trash from the storm hauled away, she didn’t have anything left to pay the property taxes. So in order to get the taxes paid, she took money out of her normal monthly expense budget and then couldn’t pay her electric bill. To compound the problem, her electric bill is always higher in the winter, and this month’s bill was double that of last month’s.
Melissa helps her daughter by watching her grandson two weeks out of each month so her daughter can work third shift. Melissa does what she can to help her daughter earn more money, but now she is the one needing help.
Greer Relief was able to help Melissa with that month’s electric bill to prevent disconnection. And Melissa also attended and completed our RENEW: Financial Literacy class to learn how to better manage her spending on a fixed income.