What are your "poor person" money life hacks?

return2ozma@lemmy.world to Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world – 305 points –

Let's get a list going. Like with a Target debit card you can get $40 cash back and it takes 1 to 2 days to be withdraw from your checking.

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Buy solids, don't buy liquids. Solids are cheaper specially if you buy in bulk.

Don't buy drinks at fast food restaurants.

Eat less meat.

Drive less.

Solids vs liquids - could you elaborate on that? Soap seems like an obvious example, and a couple specific food items like broth vs powder... but that's all I can think of off the top of my head.

A couple years ago I switched from drinking soda to drinking those powdered wylers light drink mixes, it was mostly because I wanted to stop drinking so much soda but I went from spending $6 every other day to $20 every month and a half.

It makes sense when you think about it. Most drinks are 90% water and it just seems so wasteful to have water shipped rather than using the pipes that come directly to my house!

Water weighs about 8lbs/gallon (1kg/L). When you're eating soup, the actual flavors/salts/veggies take up about 20% of the weight, tops. Additionally, volume is far decreased, so you can have more food in a smaller container. Finally, bacteria have nothing to work with in material without water. Just add your local water when you need it, it's already there.

So, buy dry goods to reduce shipping costs for both you and the producer. Ship only the food part of food, not the water. The costs are much lower, for all the reasons above.

A lot of things including milk, jello, drinks, general purpose cleaners, and detergent

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