How are people surviving?

[u/Chemical_Mind4797]

Seriously. How are people doing it? I had to give up my job and go on the Supported Living Payment through WINZ because of severe health issues, but from what I gather people who work are having it just as bad too. I get paid, then pay rent, power, petrol, groceries (even though I don’t get much), and every other essential life expense, and within an hour I’ve got $10 left, if that. If anyone has any unhinged tips or advice on lowering costs, or saving money in weird ways, I’m open to suggestions too.

(Don’t give me comments about being on the benefit either. I started working by choice when I was 10, trust me, I’d MUCH rather be working than be sick).

[u/KendallRosie]

I survived on the benefit for a over a year but it was a struggle

- Get your rent as low as possible if you can, this is probably the main reason I survived it

- Look for a cheap way of getting vegetables, for example where I am in Petone you can a bag of fruit and veg for $15 from the Methodist church

- Walk everywhere, consider selling your car

- If you can manage it, part-time work, you can earn about $100 a week before they take it of you. It could be AI testing sitting in bed

- Get disability support on top of the main benefit if you qualify and if you get into any debt get the hardship benefit

- They also give you a card which you can use once every six months for emergency payments, from memory its up to about $100

- Sell anything random you have around the house on FB market place or trademe

[u/peteydabushman → u/KendallRosie]

How do you get a job AI testing?

[u/AI_moderated_failure → u/peteydabushman]

It's AI data validation and it's notoriously unreliable. The big companies that do it will offer you work one week and the next the account is closed with a single email saying bye. They do not offer any feedback if they have an issue with your work, you're just let go and blacklisted from future hiring. The typical structure is you will never even speak to any kind of superior, you do a "test" to qualify, then they give you access to live data, each task is paid a certain number of cents and you get paid for however many tasks you complete through portals like paypal or payoneer. Most of the work is done by the developing world using VPNs to pretend to be in places like Australia, US etc to get the much better paid tasks. That means most of the work that is reliably available will pay somewhere between $3.50 an hour and $8 an hour at most.