A decade ago, Sonya Begay fell into a second round of parenting. Her oldest son, Ruben Eppele, was struggling with drug addiction and temporarily lost custody of his three children to Kentuckyâs foster care system. The kids â Damian, now age 16; Lea, 15; and Kayle 13 â are Navajo like their father and grandmother and should have been placed with Begay or another relative in accordance with the Indian Child Welfare Act. But it was almost a year before she could sort things out in court and take them home.  Begay and her son shared custody of Damian, Lea and Kayle for the next several years, and when she relocated from rural Richmond to Washington, D.C., for a job, the children moved with her. In 2010, she was raising them and working long hours as a policy analyst for the Department of Labor when she learned that Ruben had been murdered in Kentucky. Begay decided to leave her job and take the children back to Richmond. "I was gone [at work] 12 hours a day, so to be away from them while theyâre in their grief, while Iâm in my grief, you canât do that," she says.  Begay has since shepherded her grandkids through school, therapy and sports, but four years later, she remains unemployed. When the children are at school, Begay scours the Internet and calls old contacts to ask about job openings, volunteers in the Native American community and helps other "grandparents as parents." Her middle son, Shawn Cote, 27, is currently staying with the family to provide extra support. "You donât want your grandchildren to be raised by someone else," Begay says. "Here in Kentucky, you raise your own. Taking on three children is a lot for me, but thatâs the sacrifice Iâve had to make."  Income: While at the Department of Labor, Begay earned $75,000 a year. Now, she, Damian, Kayle and Lea live on the children's Social Security survivors benefits of about $3,000 per month. The household's income is too high to qualify for food stamps, but low enough to qualify for public health insurance. "I was making good money in D.C. and now, all of a sudden, weâre at the poverty line over here," Begay says.  Scrimping, not saving: Begay leans on cost-saving strategies: "Some of the things I do now are couponing a lot, also buying in bulk and then economizing â repackaging [in smaller portions]. If [we go to a movie], itâs a matinee with coupons."  Interaction before Internet: The family puts conversation before computer screens. "By the time [the kids] get home, about 4, we start preparing dinner. We sit down and eat and talk about our day," Begay says. "These kids, they don't request a lot of things. We donât have cell phones for them. Things other children at school have, they understand that's not a necessity."
Millions of Americans struggle to make ends meet. A photo series about how some of them get by on a budget.