How to be poor?

[Irving]

SIL wastes a lot of time doing unnecessary driving. I try to tell her, but it falls on deaf ears.

[def90]

I lived paycheck to paycheck most of my adult life, while not poor I definitely knew how to live the best I could as cheap as I could.

If you can find and afford at least a long term rental then it is entirely possible to eat well cheaply, I used to work in the restaurant biz and you can usually make really good food from scratch for less than premade stuff.. For instance a 24oz jar of shitty Prego sauce is roughly $5 and if you go by the label has 5 servings at 1/2 cup a serving. A basic authentic Italian red sauce or what they call a "weekday sauce" or "Weekday gravy" consists of olive oil, tomatoes, garlic and basil and that's it. You can typically get a 28oz can of crushed tomatoes for under $1 at any grocery store, you get a pot and you plant a couple basil seeds in it and keep it in your kitchen window or some window in your apartment so that plant will feed you forever for about a $.35 investment, garlic you can get a bulb for $1.50 or so and can be used for multiple batches of sauce and other things. Put some oil in a pot, put in two or 3 garlic cloves and heat up, once oil is heated and garlic has been infusing the oil for a bit add two of the 28oz cans of tomatoes and bring to a low simmer, allow to cook for 20-30 minutes, add about 5 chopped up basil leaves, remove the garlic and you are done. You now have a real Italian weekday sauce in the manner that they make it in Italy. Portion the sauce out in to a number of cheap plastic ziploc containers at 1/2 cup per container and you now have pasta sauce for 14 dinners for roughly $3. When you make your noodles follow the box guidelines, if the box says there are 8 servings in it then divide the contents in to 8 servings before you cook any of it so that you are not eating any more than you need to and you are getting the most out of that box of pasta. Fresh veggies are Safeway or KS are cheap, stay away from the farmers markets or places like whole foods where you are paying a premium for an experience.

Another thing to consider is that if you can't afford to do things outside of work you might as well work. Get a job as a server in a higher end restaurant working evenings and weekends, you will make more in tips than many people make at a regular job, at the right place it's entirely possible to bring in $40k or more a year as a server or bartender. You will also get food discounts as a server. Get another weekday daytime job that also allows you to make some money and maybe get discounts for things you need on a daily basis. Get a job as an apartment complex maintenance guy, usually you will get options for reduced rent for these positions.

There are a ton of other things you can do, if you have the right eye you can buy furniture at Goodwill and other thrift stores and sometimes just flip it or refinish and flip it on craigslist and facebook marketplace, I know people that make a few hundred bucks a week on the side doing this kind of stuff. One girl I know that lives in Chicago and knows clothes is constantly buying stuff at thrift stores that she knows is a bargain and later resells on ebay for 3 to 4 times what she paid. Get creative and run multiple hustles.

If it goes bad there is always "van life" as well. Skip the rent and live out of your van, get a $15/month gym membership at Crunch fitness so that you can shower and cleanup every day.

[Irving]

Here is your new anthem.

[MrPrena]

I lived paycheck to paycheck most of my adult life, while not poor I definitely knew how to live the best I could as cheap as I could.

If you can find and afford at least a long term rental then it is entirely possible to eat well cheaply, I used to work in the restaurant biz and you can usually make really good food from scratch for less than premade stuff.. For instance a 24oz jar of shitty Prego sauce is roughly $5 and if you go by the label has 5 servings at 1/2 cup a serving. A basic authentic Italian red sauce or what they call a "weekday sauce" or "Weekday gravy" consists of olive oil, tomatoes, garlic and basil and that's it. You can typically get a 28oz can of crushed tomatoes for under $1 at any grocery store, you get a pot and you plant a couple basil seeds in it and keep it in your kitchen window or some window in your apartment so that plant will feed you forever for about a $.35 investment, garlic you can get a bulb for $1.50 or so and can be used for multiple batches of sauce and other things. Put some oil in a pot, put in two or 3 garlic cloves and heat up, once oil is heated and garlic has been infusing the oil for a bit add two of the 28oz cans of tomatoes and bring to a low simmer, allow to cook for 20-30 minutes, add about 5 chopped up basil leaves, remove the garlic and you are done. You now have a real Italian weekday sauce in the manner that they make it in Italy. Portion the sauce out in to a number of cheap plastic ziploc containers at 1/2 cup per container and you now have pasta sauce for 14 dinners for roughly $3. When you make your noodles follow the box guidelines, if the box says there are 8 servings in it then divide the contents in to 8 servings before you cook any of it so that you are not eating any more than you need to and you are getting the most out of that box of pasta. Fresh veggies are Safeway or KS are cheap, stay away from the farmers markets or places like whole foods where you are paying a premium for an experience.

Another thing to consider is that if you can't afford to do things outside of work you might as well work. Get a job as a server in a higher end restaurant working evenings and weekends, you will make more in tips than many people make at a regular job, at the right place it's entirely possible to bring in $40k or more a year as a server or bartender. You will also get food discounts as a server. Get another weekday daytime job that also allows you to make some money and maybe get discounts for things you need on a daily basis. Get a job as an apartment complex maintenance guy, usually you will get options for reduced rent for these positions.

There are a ton of other things you can do, if you have the right eye you can buy furniture at Goodwill and other thrift stores and sometimes just flip it or refinish and flip it on craigslist and facebook marketplace, I know people that make a few hundred bucks a week on the side doing this kind of stuff. One girl I know that lives in Chicago and knows clothes is constantly buying stuff at thrift stores that she knows is a bargain and later resells on ebay for 3 to 4 times what she paid. Get creative and run multiple hustles.

If it goes bad there is always "van life" as well. Skip the rent and live out of your van, get a $15/month gym membership at Crunch fitness so that you can shower and cleanup every day.

it use to be 8-10x average until stupid Goodwill Colorado Springs corp merged with Goodwill Denver about 3-4 years ago. Now I have to pay up, and it is about 6x avg. Thanks to many managers of Goodwill stores told me about the merger 3-4 years ago that I started allocating more$ to return pallets.

Not to mention youtubers who glorified reselling. I saw 3 guys at arc already scanning entire book shelves.

I know a dude who visits Arc for books and he does $219k just on books. imagine books are $1-5 at thrift stores.
He has arrangement with ~ 7 arc stores to arrange and organize all the newly arrived books in return of him scanning all fresh inventory exclusive to him.

[Irving]

I recently picked up some cook books, a pretty large sewing manual, and some other books for $1/ea. I was surprised both at the variety, and the repeats I saw. In honing to find some good foraging and western plant identification books there, which works right into this thread.

[arbol]

Shouldn't this be, how NOT to be poor?

[CS1983]

Shouldn't this be, how NOT to be poor?

In a month or two that might include such exciting answers as violate deeply held principles, bow to tyranny, and remove the mirrors so they won’t show the coward staring back.

[arbol]

You are a father, with a couple of extra units, so what you say counts.

I'd suggest being vocal, among your peers.

[whitewalrus]

In a month or two that might include such exciting answers as violate deeply held principles, bow to tyranny, and remove the mirrors so they won?t show the coward staring back.

Were you able to opt out of the vaccine mandates when in the military?


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[Grant H.]

Good timing on this thread.

My employer (Space/Defense) has recently made the move to mandatory "Jab" (they aren't vaccines), or DAILY testing/Mask when in the office, so we will see how long my job lasts. The international travel portion of my job is pretty much shot given that lots of foreign countries are requiring a jab to get in now. Thankfully I am mostly WFH, with a little HQ time, and my boss appears to be willing to work with me to transition to a less travel, more HQ/Home based role on the team. But, I am not hopeful that my career at this company will extend past the next 6-24 months. I will play their mask/testing game as long as I can be 80%+ WFH, and continue to collect my check/benefits/etc, and then peace the hell out when it gets past the point I am willing to tolerate.

My wife and I were talking about our finances and future plans in regard to all of this just last night. I am the majority income for our DINK household, and it would suck to lose my salary, but we are actually pretty well positioned if that happened.

We have no major debt beyond our house. The couple small debts that are still tagging along are going to get paid off in the next 30-90 days.
We have an anniversary trip planned for this fall that we are going to take.
We have a couple projects around the house in work that are consuming our expendable income right now (all DIY to save on labor, but spending some of the savings on nicer/better parts pieces)

Once our anniversary trip is done, and the projects are wrapped up, we will be "battening down the hatches" for a while, and see where this all goes.

As for tightening the proverbial belt:
Stop eating out - We actually eat out a lot right now, but we are both capable of cooking and happy to eat left overs. Meal plan, make large batches and eat it for 2-3 days, or freeze and reheat later.
Sell the extra car - We have 3 cars and my motorcycle right now. We are selling the 3rd car. The bike doesn't cost enough to insure/drive to be worth selling, but registering/insuring/maintaining 3 cars adds up.
Sell the extra stuff - Everyone has too much stuff anymore. Sell the excess that you don't need or use.
Cut out extra expenses - Add on subscriptions to HBO, ESPN, etc... We have and use Netflix and Prime. We currently have Hulu (promo for a year at $1/mo), but will cancel it when that runs out. Similar deal with Disney+. Talking to a buddy of mine, he spends $250/mo on streaming with add on packages (HBO, Starz, etc). Youtube is free. Netflix is cheap etc...
Stop watering the grass - If things really do get tight for folks, stop watering the grass. Water bills are expensive, and green grass is generally a waste. Water a garden instead (less water, and you get a return on that investment). If you have an HOA, well, then you have to deal with those asshats, but you bought there...
Look through your recurring auto-charges - Seriously. Look at what gets auto-charged each month to a card. What of that can be cancelled?

The list goes on and on.

Something that Irving touched on, but I went a little further with, is solar. Offgrid solar systems to power critical infrastructure (fridge, freezer, furnace, etc). Doesn't have to be a massive system, but I shaved $40-50/mo off my electric bill and I don't have to worry about power outages and a freezer full of expensive meat. Most grid tie systems (Sunrun, Namaste, etc) won't run power anything without the grid being present, and are overpriced.

Edited to add:

On the sell extra stuff one, if you have a storage unit that you are paying to store stuff... Why? What is in there that you can't get rid of and save that $50-500/mo?