The question is hard to answer as you provide little to no information about the daily situation. What type of dwelling are you living in? House? Apartment? with relatives? Have you managed to put away any emergency funds? If so, how much? What are your average monthly expenses -- cut to the bare essentials? Does anyone know how to cook? First (and easiest) discretionary expenditure is meals out (and that includes the occasional $4 Starbucks). Don't buy magazines or newspapers; read them for free at the public library. Got an Internet connection? consider ditching it and also using the public library's connection. As for your mother's employment options, again, too many variables to consider to give any constructive advice or observations. And of course, any credit cards - GET RID OF THEM! don't charge another thing. And given your finances, if you have credit card debt you may want to consider stopping making anything but minimum payments to buy yourself a little time until an income can be sorted out. And mobile phones! A HUGE drain on monthly budgets. Trim down the time you spend yakking on the phone (if you have a cell phone). If you think about it, most conversations people have on cell phones are not life or death. Consider dropping phone options you don't use, and if you're allotted a certain number of minutes per month, make sure you don't exceed them.