Reddit mentions of BLU Studio G2 HD 5" Unlocked GSM Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) Quad-Core Smartphone - Gray

Benefits

For government assistance, google your state and/or county/town for their government website. Generally they will list income-based benefits, or link to another site that does. For California I found these: Benefits.gov, CalWin.

Will I lose my ebt with my bump in income?

It really depends on your state and the bump, but yes that is a very high possibility that you will lose EBT or get your benefits lowered. Look at the website for that and/or speak to a social worker about your income change.

Debt Repayment

/r/pf has great resources on this. Read their debt section here..

Savings / Investment

I, personally, am not a fan of investing small amounts of money (less than $1000). So my personal recommendation would be to put all your money in a savings account, and if you have enough 'extra' money, a Roth IRA for investments.

You don't want a CD because that will lock away your money and you won't be able to use it in an emergency. Plus, many CDs don't have great interest rates for small amounts of money. Your best bet would be to look at your local banks and credit unions to see if they're running a high interest rate promotion.

HOWEVER, if they are, make sure to figure out what the minimum balance is (or any other requirements, like transaction activity)!! If you can maintain the minimum balance/follow the requirements, throw all your money in there. Otherwise, go find an online high-interest bank account. Generally they're hovering around 1% right now. Which is bad, but better than normal savings accounts. Comprehensive list. Though /r/pf frequently recommends Ally.

If you don't have any bank account at all right now, just get one. Doesn't really matter where, for the most part. Make sure it's free checking and try to avoid a place that requires an annual fee. Some places have minimum balances but some don't anymore. Personally, I'd look at what banks and credit unions are nearby, but then read their websites and their terms and conditions. This way you can read the information at your own pace and you have less of a possibility into being pushed to open an account that might fuck you over later (with fees etc.).

Once you've opened your first bank account, your can look at opening another, seperate, high interest savings-only account. I have all my paycheck direct deposited to my "main" checking account, then a monthly automatic withdrawal from that account that goes into my High interest savings elsewhere. This way I don't even really see the cash, so I don't miss it. Make the automatic transfer whatever you can comfortably afford - $1, $100, whatever.

Put it in the high interest account and then it will start accumulating its own money. But it is still there and accessible if you need it in times of emergency. If you had savings in a CD or brokerage account, you would have to wait ~1 week for the cash and likely pay fees. High interest savings accounts usually can get you your money within 1 - 3 days (depending on which banks you're transferring between).

If you receive most of your money in cash, prioritize a local bank or credit union for your services. Online-only bank accounts can be a pain to make cash deposits to. If you need cash withdrawn, though, online banks generally refund ATM fees now, so that's not as bad.

I hope I've explained this accurately. D;

Will I have enough to do some fun things so i dont get lonely and depressed?

Only you can answer that- seems like you need to make a budget. A guide. Another guide..

All that aside, I'd highly recommend finding your local subreddit and starting to be a regular there. You can make a lot of friends, and they might have meetups so you can still be social.

Cellphone

I've lived without a smartphone. I gotta tell you, I hate smartphones. But unfortunately it's seeming like it's almost impossible to live without them these days. It really sucks. I only moved to using a smartphone 2 years ago. Before that I was on a dumbphone for 6ish years.

If your phone is actually yours, go to a prepaid carrier with it and see what plans you can get. How often do you use your phone? If it's not often, start looking at plans that aren't unlimited. My favorite go to is Tracfone. I spend about $17/mo on my plan. I don't use my phone very often, and the best part about Tracfone is that minutes, texts, and data roll over. So if you don't make any calls or anything for a month, you will have all of that available next month. And it keeps accumulating.

I've been with Tracfone for 5 years now. Their signal strength is not ideal (so make sure to check coverage maps for where you live since you said you're rural). But it works good enough for me (I am also in a rural area) to get by 98% of the time. I'm ok with that since it's only $17 haha.

If you don't own your own phone, buy one of the cheap/free phones from whichever prepaid carrier you decide to go with. (Their phones can be $80 or less). I think Cricket wireless and Boost mobile are currently doing promotions for entirely free galaxy phones, for instance.

If you have some apps you absolutely need access to, make sure you have a somewhat recent version of Android or iOS. Especially true if you'll be doing mobile banking. I was working with a $30 smartphone that used Android 4.4. Finally my bank apps wouldn't support the OS and I had to upgrade. I just bought this phone (~$75) last year. It's got Android 6. They're on 8 currently, so I have bought myself some extra time here. (Sidenote, you can probably find this phone cheaper on a different amazon listing. But this was the one that I could quickly pull up from my order history).


Good luck!