They wouldn't have to live in a cheap ass shoebox. You can rent a
4 bedroom townhouse for about
$700 a month in Monticello. If you only need a 2-bedroom, $525 will do the trick.
https://homes.trovit.com/for-rent-monticello-ky
To put that into perspective, in the city closest to where I am, a 2-bedroom place costs 3x to 4x as much, and you'll still be miles away from city limits. $700 won't even pay for a one-room bachelor apartment with no kitchen or bathtub.
To give further perspective on how wasteful Amberlynn is, she could have an entire HOUSE in Monticello bought and paid for in about a year and own it outright. A nice one, too. Why doesn't she do it? Because every time she laughs her way to the bank, she winds up spending all of it on hauls of Walmart junk, Torrid shit that won't fit unless she wears it backwards, and a couple of thousand dollars worth of food per month. All this money she had boasted of making, and all she has to show for it is a hoard of trash and the approximately 2 tons of shit she has shat out (a fairly accurate estimate) in the last 5 years. Other people could build a fucking empire with the kind of scratch she makes, especially in Kentucky.
That entire household does not have two brain cells to rub together. People always ask why doesn't Rickie put his foot down or something? Ever hear him talk? He is absolutely no brighter than anyone else in that house; there are times when he sounds the dumbest of all. Working at a slaughterhouse does not necessarily make a man a genius...
They are all very needy people who cannot function at all on their own (they barely function as a group). Rickie could afford a place if they needed one (they got by before Amberlynn was even in the picture). Eric is a worthless, lazy sack of broken toasters who could easily get a job doing
something. He is able-bodied and young. However, in recent years, it has become socially acceptable not to work simply because work stresses you out (to which I say: welcome to adulthood) So, if Amberlynn is willing to foot all the bills, the others will gladly sponge off her. In the end, nobody is gonna have anything except a foul 560-pound body to somehow dispose of.