What are your "poor person" money life hacks?
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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Let's get a list going. Like with a Target debit card you can get $40 cash back and it takes 1 to 2 days to be withdraw from your checking.
Eat rice and beans for every meal.
Don't eat three meals a day
Buy tools from pawn shops and learn to service your vehicle or bike
Cold showers and dark rooms
Pick up a sewing machine from a thrift store
Basically DIY as much as possible. And steal anything you can.
Don't put yourself into an even more miserable situation when it doesn't even benefit you in a measurable way.
E.g. Lights/dark rooms: Let's say you use a 5W LED light bulb (which should be bright enough to decently light most rooms). If you leave that running 24/7 for a whole year, that is going to cost you ~13€/$ (0,3€/$/kWh). You are not going to keep it running 24/7, you are not even going to run it half the day. It is not worth 5 bucks to spend the whole year in darkness, no matter how little money you have.
Obviously turn off the light when you're not in the room or it's the middle of the day in summer, but be reasonable with yourself.
The same goes for food: Sure, buying cheap staples (in bulk if possible) is a great idea, but don't try to save 5 cents if that means skipping on the salt, herbs and tomato paste which would take your 2/10 bland bowl of carbs to at least a 7/10 and give you something to look forward to.
That last sentence is going a lot of heavy lifting
If they're stealing heavy things, they're a shitty thief!
(Seriously though: if you're going to steal, do it from large, company-owned places, etc. Don't prey upon struggling people or small businesses.)
Here in Australia we "product relievers" have a sort of rule that the big stores woolworths, coles ect are fucking free game and to leave the family convienience store alone.
My brother convinced me not to, as Coles and Woolworths are often franchised by families. Head office takes their cut regardless, whatever you steal comes out of the franchise owners wallet. Happy to be proven wrong as I'd love to knick from em.
I agree with you. I get the sentiment, but even stealing from large corporations like Wal-Mart is just backfiring in slow motion. They will eventually just either raise pricing to accommodate theft, install theft deterrents, or hire more people to be theft deterrents, all of which the cost is passed onto the customer. ie, you and me, and the thieves that complain about the high prices and steal to offset the cost. This isn't to defend shitty practices by big corporations. But nuanced opinions are lost on most people, and I'll subsequently likely be called out for defending consumerism/capitalism.
Nah they're charging as much as they can and will continue to charge as much as they can. If they could raise the price they would.
No prices went down when they got rid of 30 cashiers and made me scan my own stuff, they're not going to go up if I walk out with bananas.
But don't steal from Target, unless you actually want to get free meals and and lodging for a while.
On that note, when you're buying groceries at self-checkout, it's perfectly acceptable to take the 'oops, all bananas' strategy.
Fuck exploitative grocery store pricing; food security should be a human right.