Against All Odds

Disclaimer: I don't own iCarly

A/N:

Chapter 30 (Budget Tightens)

They'd tried to figure out the budget some time before bed last night, and without the money Carly got from Nevel, they had four thousand and one hundred dollars in the bank. With the money, Carly had discussed with Sam, Freddie, and Gibby what should be done. They decided to split it four ways, so that came out to be twelve-fifty for each person, and Carly made the decision to put her share in her own personalized savings account that she had set up with Chase Bank. It was a free account, since she was a student, and the money would not be touched. It was money that could possibly be saved up for when she had a life of her own.

Now they formerly included bus prices in their monthly costs, but since they had a car, they could drop the bus cost. Gas was Four dollars and thirteen cents at the local Shell gas station. Their tank held up to fifteen gallons of gas, which came out to be a rough estimate of sixty dollars. With Spencer out looking for a job daily and dropping Carly off at school and now work, they would have to fill up every two weeks. This came out to be another rough estimate of one hundred and twenty three dollars. Subtracting the bus fare, forty five, and then adding the monthly gas, their total monthly expenses came out to be seven hundred and eighty three dollars.

Without a job, subtracting the monthly expenses, and Carly did this math in her head, she figured they had about four to five months to live without work. Next, she'd calculated how her part time job could help them in any way. Assuming T-Bo had her working on the weekends, she could get fifteen hours of work chipped away. She knew T-Bo gave a paycheck to his employees once a month, so it wasn't hard to calculate one hundred and twenty dollars for one weekend, then multiply it by four. She'd be making four hundred and eighty dollars a month. The family agreed that whatever Carly's amount totaled out to, she should keep half of it, while the other half goes into the family bank, so two hundred and forty dollars would be deposited into the account at the end of each month. This would make it appear that their monthly costs were only five hundred and forty three dollars a month.

Given that new information, Carly could determine they now had about six to seven months to make the money last. Now, she hadn't determined how much for the petty cash, which was basically simple things bought, like cleaners.

"Spencer, don't we still have to total up all the small purchases? Like restaurants, clothing, cleaners, and stuff like that?" She turned to Spencer, who was driving her to the Groovy Smoothie for her first day at work. She was wearing a red polo shirt and black jeans, considering she'd seen most of the employees wearing that basic outfit. "I was thinking about our whole budget thing we drew up last night and I can't help but wonder if we should account for the small cash expenses."

"There isn't much you can do to estimate that. We probably won't eat out more than a couple times during a month, and when we do, it will likely be at cheaper restaurants. Household cleaners won't be bought very often I'm sure. You can't calculate if there are any unexplained incidents."

"Like what? Unexplained how?"

"Say you get sick and you have to go into the hospital, or you have a doctor's appointment at the free clinic…" Since none of them had health insurance anymore, they were on their own as far as insurance goes. "There are unpredicted things that can happen to derail the actual budget. Those are the expenses we have to tie in at the end and beginning of the month." He parked alongside the front of the Groovy Smoothie, just as T-Bo was walking up to the front doors. Carly smiled and waved at her new boss. "Looking forward to your first job?"

"Hell yes."

"You have a good first day. I'm proud of you baby sis." She grinned and reached over, hugging him close. She couldn't wait to go through the day, she was eager to learn all T-Bo had to teach her. Once out of the car, Spencer watched her rush up to T-Bo, who was unlocking the doors. He couldn't wait to hear how her first day went. Maybe he'd pay her a visit later, but then, she likely didn't want him showing up at her work unexpected, like parents usually do. Who could blame him if he did, though?

With a chuckle, he began to drive off. At the mention of the budget, he was calculating all those totals in his head himself. He really wanted a job, and soon, but why was it none of the places he was applying to had called him? Then when he followed up, they said he wasn't the person they were looking for. If one thing was certain, he was not working at a fast food restaurant. "It isn't like I didn't finish college," he muttered with a low tone. "A degree in criminal justice, and I still can't get work…" He turned his eyes to the car's gas tank and grumbled. "I wonder how many times I'd have to fill up if I drove to Florida…."

It wasn't something he was truly considering, not at the moment at least, but it was tempting to pack up their valuables and move. The tank could go four hours on a full tank before needing to be filled up. On a forty-six hour trip, sixty bucks every four hours did seem like a lot. He thought it could come up to be six hundred dollars to drive that far. Then there were motels to consider.

He mentally slapped himself and pulled out of this thought process, there was no way they could move to Florida. Not now, at least. If they did that, it would be a last resort thing. "No. I got this. I'll just pick up the pace on the job applications!" Screw the economy, he could, and would get a job soon enough. Even if he had to 'know' someone, he would find a job!

His phone started ringing, so he answered, listening as Socko started talking. "Hey Spencer man, how's it going? Got a job yet?"

"No…"

"Sucks." He rolled his eyes and turned right on the next street. He didn't want to snap off his friend's head, so he just kept calm and quiet. "So, I saw you on that last iCarly, real sweet man. When's the wedding going to be?"

They hadn't thought about when it would be, but it wouldn't be for at least a few months. They wanted to be sure Spencer's family could all make it to the wedding, and, they wanted an actual ceremony. Ceremonies cost money, so they couldn't do that until he had a job. "Not too sure man, we're going to wait until I can actually get a job. Not only that, but there's the whole planning thing."

"Yeah, you guys have some time, I guess. Anyway, I have something I need to talk to you about…can you get over to my place? Lenny's going on and on about rent." What was the problem now? He looked to his car's clock and sighed, he was only about five minutes from Socko's apartment.

"Okay, I'll be right over." Lenny was a good guy, but the real estate agents above him were asses. There was no doubt about that. He hoped they hadn't figured anything out besides what Lenny informed them, which was that Spencer and Carly had been moving in and were without a car. There was a pretty good chance they'd figure it out and raise the rent, if so, he wasn't going to be thrilled. James and Juanita were actually paying four hundred for their house. Any extra people moving in would be an additional fifty bucks. This included children. Unfortunately, there was nothing wrong with how the agents had their system, they just wanted to make money off anyone they could. Nothing illegal, just assholes.

At Socko's place, Socko was sitting on his vanilla couch and Lenny was pacing the floor. Spencer walked right in, making no attempt at small talk. "All right, what's the problem, guys?" Lenny looked over to him and Socko's lips feel into a disheartened frown. "Tell me the rent hasn't gone up." In return, sparing no blows at all, Lenny replied with a heavy heart.

"It has. My bosses discovered you had a car, a fiancé, a kid, and your little sister all living under one roof. So, it was either I raise your rent or I serve you eviction papers…and I'd rather not do the latter to you. So I have to raise the rent to whatever they want." He closed his eyes and groaned. How was he supposed to tell Sasha and Carly about this? At least Lenny had the decency not to evict them. The agents would probably raise it to four hundred, since that was a base thing, they had just been nice because of the circumstances.

"I don't have the money for this, Lenny!"

"Well tell that to them! I'm just the messenger…sorry…"

He rubbed his forehead and moved over to the couch. As he sat down, Socko pat his back, attempting whatever comfort he could. "I know, it isn't your fault. Thanks for letting me know, most landlords would just drop the bomb when rent was due." Lenny smiled and slowly nodded his head. He wasn't like most landlords out there, he cared about the tenants. "So what's the rent? I know the typical rent is four hundred."

"For two adults, rent is four hundred dollars. They've added into consideration that you have a car, Blake, and Carly…and they're totaling your rent at five hundred." His face turned ghost white and his heart clenched in. How the hell could they raise it to five hundred! Lenny flinched, overcome with worry. He took a deep breath and met Spencer's eyes. "I'm sorry, I tried to convince them not to do it."

"It's all right, just…we'll pay it. Have to rework the budget a bit, but we can do it." This was going to be hell, wasn't it? Now they would have barely five months to live if he didn't get a job, he was certain of it! Maybe that wasn't right, he didn't know for a fact yet, not until he started crunching the numbers again. "I-Is there anything else?"

"No…" Great. Now he could go home and break the news to Sasha, and she probably wouldn't be too happy with the news. It didn't help that their first month's rent was coming in soon. He could feel everything starting to crash around him, and there wasn't a thing to do about it

Several minutes later, he rushed into his own home, tossing his jacket on the table. Sasha and Blake were cuddled up together on the couch, he didn't want to disturb them.

He had time to figure out the budgets in both scenarios, the scenarios being whether Carly's job paid half the portion and whether she didn't pay anything. Without Carly's job and with the three hundred dollar rent bar bringing their total to seven hundred and eighty three dollars, he now had to figure the new rent. It'd had just been raised two hundred dollars, so their total monthly expenses were nine hundred and eighty three dollars. Without Carly's involvement, that gave them only three to four months before quite a bit wouldn't be paid.

Now on his way home, he had a chance to stop by the Groovy Smoothie and found T-Bo at the counter while Carly was cleaning up the girl's bathroom. It turned out he had given her Saturdays from eight in the morning to six in the evening, then Sundays he opened the doors at one in the afternoon, to six in the evening. This did total fifteen hundred, so their prior guesswork still stood for the wages of her job.

If she contributed half her wages, two hundred and forty dollars, to the monthly bill, then they had to pay seven hundred and forty three dollars from their bank. After five monthly payments they would have three hundred and eighty five dollars left in the bank. Four monthly payments, they'd have one thousand, one hundred, and twenty eight dollars.

He had five months to get a job or they were on the street. He could do this, it wasn't as bad as it seemed. Right? He heard Sasha stir awake and quickly looked over at her, disheartened. He watched her carefully sit up and stretch her arms, yawning softly. She met his eyes and smiled at him. "Hey Spencer, I thought you were looking for work?"

"I was, got a call from Socko and Lenny…" She frowned as he sat beside her. The tone in his voice gave away the upset he'd been feeling, so it wasn't hard to tell he had bad news. "Lenny's bosses raised our rent, Sasha." She gasped and her eyes slowly grew.

"How…much?"

"We have to start paying five hundred dollars a month. With half of Carly's paycheck, that leaves us with five months for me to get a job before we're pretty much on the street. I'll find a job somewhere, I will…"

"I don't doubt that. At least your grandpa helped us out, so we have that time."

"Yeah…" They would have less time if it hadn't been for Travis. What would they do if he hadn't helped them? They'd be worse off. As for the money Nevel handed over, he still didn't want to touch that. As far as he was concerned, it was going to a good cause, to help out Sam and Freddie. Aside from that, whatever was left was in Carly's savings. Should Nevel decide to be an asshole, they could at least pay that portion back.

"What are we going to tell your family?"

"The truth…Mom will probably try to convince me to go down there, but I don't want to do that unless it's absolutely necessary." Sasha pressed her lips together and leaned her head back on the couch, closing her eyes. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

"I don't see why we don't go ahead and just go down there, but I can kind of see that it wouldn't be good to do since Carly just got her first job. Either way, when the time comes, you know I'm trusting you to make the right decisions for the family…" That sounded like something his mother would say to him, to make the right decisions for Sasha, Blake, and Carly. He raised an eyebrow and looked to Sasha suspiciously. She's been talking to his mom again?

"You stole that from mom, didn't you?" She smirked and moved her head up, staring at him with satisfaction.

"Yep. I thought it was a good line. So, five hundred dollars…" She exhaled and put her head to his shoulder. He moved his arm around her waist and stared at the blank television in front of them. "What time is it?"

"Nine o'clock." His eyes flicked to the clock on the end table beside him. It was closer to 9:05, but he didn't care so much.

"You want to move Blake to his crib and go back to the bedroom to try and sleep some more?"

"Yeah…"

It wasn't hard putting Blake back to bed, he really wasn't wide awake yet. He didn't seem to start waking up around noon. When they climbed into their own bed, he was on his back with his hands between his head and the pillow. Sasha was curled up under the blanket and attached to his side. Her knees were up to her chest and her arms were wrapped around him. She had her head above his heart and her eyes shut. He stared up at the ceiling and tried to drift off to sleep. He was tired enough, but his wandering thoughts just wouldn't leave him be.

Sasha's fingers curled up on his chest, tickling his skin. He felt her lips kiss his chest and looked down to see her smiling at him. His thoughts turned to her and he moved onto his side, facing her. He moved his arm around her and touched his forehead to hers. She kissed his lips and curled into a ball in his arms.

Calmness washed over him and he relaxed his tense muscles. He closed his eyes and slowly breathed in. Sasha felt so warm in his arms. He could get used to this. All worries aside, she was his, and she reminded him of that every single day.

"Sasha," he whispered to her. A gentle sigh from her lips brushed against his chest like the kiss of a butterfly.

"Yes?"

"If things get so bad…if we run the risk of losing all our money and I still haven't found a job in three months…we'll go to Florida. Or at least ask Mom for help. Okay?" She squeezed him for a second and nuzzled herself closer to him. She hummed contently and slowly nodded her head.

"Okay. I'll hold you to that."

"I know you will." He kissed her forehead and breathed out as his body started drifting off to sleep.

A step in the right direction, Spence, but just a step. Why not now? Sure Carly's got that new job, but I'd betcha T-Bo knows someone in the ol' Sunshine State that could get her a job. Come on now, you're losing more money than you think!