You can live off of $1000 a month after bills especially if you live alone or just with a spouse.
However if you have kids it can be harder to live off of just $1,000.00 a month after bills are paid.
But it's still possible and you can often get help with food through churches and food banks and you might even qualify for food stamps and other assistance.
I've lived off of $1,000.00 after bills for a few years and it was doable and if you need to and can do so you can also get rid of things that you don't need such as subscriptions you pay for and cut back on other unnecessary expenses to help you get by even better on the $1,000.00 a month.
Ideally, you want to have 20% of your take home pay left over after paying all of your bills.
You can also track your spending using an app or spreadsheet to determine why there isn't more money left over after bills.
Consider cutting unnecessary bills (like cable, streaming networks, gym memberships) to save money.
The cost of living varies where you're located and some places are cheaper to live and other places are higher in cost to live.
Also if you own your home and have no mortgage then you can live more easily on less money than you could if you had a mortgage or monthly rent.
A single-person household spends an average of $4,641.00 on monthly expenses.
Married couples without kids spend an average of $7,390.00 on monthly expenses.
A family of four spends an average of $8,450.00-$9,817.00 on monthly expenses (depending on kids' ages).