Building an emergency fund with little income

[JanH]

Could your DH tutor other students? Or even high school or junior high students? My DD tutored for pay during high school. I think she tutored middle school kids. Hubby tutored for free, but I bet others would pay for the help. If you play an instrument, often high school band programs look for tutors for those instruments. Here they get paid about 8 dollars an hour. A lot of tutoring was done in the homes of either the child or the tutor. Sometimes at school.

[skinnybudget]

Thanks everyone for all the suggestions! We've been busy thinking about some of the options and are planning to make up some flyers and pass on the word to some friends. Also, a colleague of DH's is moving across the country and gave us a huge bin of unopened grocery items! Luckily there's only a couple things that I have no idea what to do with (spices) so we will be able to make good use of all of that. I also am planning to sell a few things. For the immediate future I think we are in good shape. Hopefully DH and I will be able to pick up a few little jobs here and there to contribute to our emergency fund on a monthly basis and more good news - the check engine light went off after a couple days but we had it checked out anyways and everything is fine so that was a huge relief!!

The ideas given in this thread were really great. I think with a little bit of networking I should be able to find a way for us to add maybe $50-100 a month without much effort!

[mom-from-missouri]

Got another one for you-that you could maybe even take your child with you to. Type up a brochure and take it personally to as many realtors and builders that you can. Mail to the rest. In your brochure, describe how you will clean their vacant newly built homes before they are listed on the market. You provide the cleaning supplies and vacumme. Advertise how you will clean the inside windows, wipe down appliances, clean floors, fixtures...
A guy at our church does this (he is a builder). He pays $20 an hour. His normal house takes 2-3 hours to clean. Mainly its dirt workmen have tracked in, sheetrock dust, and windows that need to be scraped, tubs/showers/toilets that need to be cleaned. Sometimes he also pays to rake, mow...before it is listed as well. He said the couple that he has now do it during the night. Its a mess when he leaves the house keys with them the last day of construction, and clean the next morning at 8am. There is no furniture in the way, so it goes quickly.

[rusty@saving]

when i was starting out....wow! i would have killed or $60 saving after 6 months or so.
what i was doing was saving $ and what was left over i was putting it towards electricty, the only thing i really needed.
over time though, i was able to build a little, and then a little more....and before yoiu knew it, i had saved enough emergency fund for 1 month of rent!!! i was sooooo relaxed after that! it was awesome, just knowing that if anything happened, i was not screwed and going to live under a bridge, and had at least a month to live in my place before i was in trouble.
then i saved 1 month rent and utilities...that was even better!!
and so on and so on....i am not THAT well off, but i have peace of mind at least!!
best of luck to you, i know things will work out for ya!! just keep on keepin on

[LuxLiving]

Okay, I know it's tight for you but how about just taking 10% off the top and sticking it back and making the cuts in your food area and possibly w/less driving. Ask the folks to drive to you right now while you guys are on limited income. That would give you $120.00 a month to put back which is nothing to sneeze at. Have it set up to do it automatically and learn to live on less. Not easy but doable.

Can't do 10% right off? Try 4 or 5% and build up to it in 1% or 2% increments every month or two.