If you want to survive on $1,600 dollars a month, this is your post.
Living off any certain amount of income requires discipline and accountability.
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The smaller the cash, the more accountable and smart you’ll need to be.
In this article, you get to learn exactly how to live off $1,600 dollars.
It’s more than doable and I list out some of the realistic things or habits to help you get through.
Ready?
Here we go.
How to Live Off $1,600 a Month: 9 Effective Strategies.
1. Draft a spending limit.
Living off $1,600 a month isn’t all that difficult. It’ll require you to have a spending limit.
Tell yourself you’re going to spend this amount or that amount of money every single day.
And build a resistance to the urge to spend more money everyday especially when it’s not stuff you planned for.
Draft a spending limit; this is perhaps one of the most important things you can do for yourself if you’re looking to live off $1,600 a month.
It’s basically the same thing as mapping out your daily expenses and even drafting your daily expenses below $1,600 a month.
In other words, you’d have to spend below $53.3 bucks a day.
For the sake of being conservative, you’d have to spend below $50 bucks a day (or $1,500/month) which is below the $1,600 silver line.
If you can keep up with this and just go to work (or focus on a side hustle indoors/online or outdoors) for the entire month, you’ll do just fine.
2. Split the cash.
Splitting the cash is a step to live on $1,600 a month.
You can split the money into different shares.
For example, it’s $1,600 dollars we’re talking about right now.
You can split the case into weeks and spend less every week.
So, in 4 weeks we’ll have $400 dollars for each week.
Your goal is to live beyond not just $400 dollars, but $300 dollars every week.
Or $350 (for the sake of generosity).
If you’re able to do this, then you’ll have some money left in your wallet at the end of the month.
$300 dollars in 4 weeks amounts to $1,200 bucks in a month.
In essence, you’ll have up to $400 dollars left in your wallet at the end of the month.
Brilliant?
I guess it is.
3. Be more thrifty.
Being more thrifty has nothing to do with being stingy and self-centered.
While it’s smart to split the cash and to draft a spending limit, you can easily spend money on people and activities you never planned for.
This was my problem until now.
I give a lot.
And it crippled my ability to save money and have money even if I was making only so much money.
So, the idea is to be thrifty.
Learn to say no to yourself when you’re craving stuff that’ll let you spend above your daily spending limit, and learn to say no to people who ask you for money even when they have it.
And when they don’t have it, you’re trying to live too.
It wouldn’t be a bad thing to say “no” because you’re trying to make a living and if you give up everything you’ve got just to be generous, then you’ll end up stranded and devastated – and I’m sure this isn’t a place you’d want to be.
4. Borrow what you have to.
Take from other people.
Ask for money even if you have it.
There are people who will be willing to give you cash even before you ask.
Maybe they’re your friends or your colleagues at work.
Or people who are members of your family.
You have a budget, and so you need more money, even more than $1,600 dollars (or $50/day).
If you get tipped by friends or family members, or your colleagues at the workplace, it’ll be an opportunity to finally spend on the things that you crave for or the things you’d like to get but can’t afford because of your tight spending limit.
Self-impose these things and you’ll see how things will work out.
5. Hike to work if you can.
Sometimes, transportation is something that takes out a lot of money.
It can take up to 15% of your entire income if you take public transport to work every day.
If you take a taxi, it is even more expensive.
So, this can be realistic for you and also, it may not be.
It’ll be realistic if your workplace isn’t a long distance away from your apartment or your house.
It’s unrealistic if your workplace is really far away from your apartment, and hiking to work would mean you’re soliciting a dismissal from work.
So, if you can hike to work.
No problem.
If you can’t, you’ll spend more but it’s necessary.
Hiking to work when you can without a problem is a measure you can adopt if you’re looking to live off $1,600 a month.
But then, if you work from home and you have a side hustle generating income for you, then that’s just good.
6. Trade futures with 20% of the money.
Okay, so this is something you can do to make more money if you want to live off $1,600 a month.
You can do this but then there’s a need to learn before you jump right in.
Trading the futures market with 20% of your capital or $1,600 bucks that you’ve got is a smart move if you already know what’s up with the financial markets and you’re good at trading.
But if you’re not good at trading and you have no idea what this is about, then just scroll away to the next tip. With 20% of $1,600 dollars, that’s $320 dollars.
The futures market is typically the financial markets on steroids.
You can make big wins with a little capital.
So, with the prerequisite skills for profitable trading, you can turn $320 into $700 or even $1,000 dollars in a month.
This means you’d have more money to live off of, spend, and to reinvest.
7. Drink tap water.
In the US (at least), drinking tap water is safe.
I’m not sure about other countries of the world, and I’m not sure this is true particularly in Africa where I have my roots in.
So, if you want to live off $1,600 a month, drinking tap water will save you the cost of spending some money on bottled water like Dasani, Smart Water and Aquafina (my favorite).
A single Aquafina bottled water will cost you almost $2 dollars ($1.99 at the gas station), but then by the time you buy 10 of this in a week, that’s roughly $22 dollars gone.
It’s a lot of money to be spent on just water when there’s free tap water wasting away.
8. Skip beer & soda.
Talking about consumable liquids, water is the least that’ll take away all the money from you.
If you want to learn how to live off $1,600 a month, then you’ve gotta kill the urge for beer and soda.
I’m not trying to live on $1,600 dollars a month, but I’m putting in a lot of work to kill my soda zeal.
I take soda like it’s air.
But I’m working on that and I’m seeing great results – the crave is fading while I redirect the appetite towards yogurt instead (which is a better alternative after water 💦).
Other than trying to live off $1,600/month, consuming soda & beer isn’t very nice for your health.
To be plain, it’s dangerous and can terminate longevity pretty quickly – early death can be an aftermath of addictive soda or beer intake.
For many reasons including the safety of your health and the growth of your finances, skip these culprits.
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9. Start a side hustle.
Even if you keep a full-time day job, you can still start a side hustle.
While this isn’t going to make you live below your means, it’s a medium for you to make more money in the long run than you currently do.
Plus, starting a side hustle today means you’re putting every effort to generate income that’ll surpass the income from your day job.
This would mean more time for yourself, your family, and more money to live your dream life.
A lot of benefits come with starting a side hustle.
And if you don’t know what side hustle to start just yet, here’s an article to guide you through.
How to Live Off $1,600 a Month: 9 Effective Strategies – Final Words.
Living off $1,600 a month is realistic if you play by these rules.
They’re not impossible rules however, but you’ll need to exhibit some level of restraint and self discipline to survive here.
Another thing is, $1,600 dollars a month is a lot of money to live off of.
It’s nothing like living off $200 bucks or $300 dollars, or trying to live off $150 dollars.
Honestly, unless you’re a really luxurious spender who splurges on just about anything, you should do really fine with these hacks to live off $1.6k in a month.
In a nutshell, you can survive on $1,600 dollars a month by starting a side hustle (to increase your passive income or total income), skipping beer and soda, drafting a spending limit, splitting the cash, getting more thrifty, borrowing items you can borrow to live off on instead of buying, taking a walk or hiking to work, trading futures with 20% of your $1,600 dollars, and taking tap water instead of buying smart water.