Ask Lemmy

Stop buying stuff. My wife grew up poor, probably poorer than I did, and she still buys tons of junk. If fucking Amazon is showing up to your house on a weekly basis, STOP, you are buying shit you don't need.

Don't buy something because it is on sale. If you don't want it bad enough to buy it at full price, then you don't need it. This does not mean ignore sales/discounts, but don't let fear of missing a sale or discount force you to buy something.

Kohl's is a fucking scam, stay the fuck away from them. All their shit is price jacked 60-80% so they can advertise 40% off, give you "Kohl's Cash" and still make a profit. The number of times my partner has told me we have to shop for clothes because our $40 dollars of Kohls cash is expiring, and we walk out with $200 dollars of clothes and another 40 in Kohls Cash is way too damn fucking many times.

Apple is expensive junk. Avoid if you can. Fuck it, Windows/Microsoft is expensive junk too. I'm paying 150 a year for office, and I hardly use it. My partner "needs it" because they can't write a document or use a spreadsheet in Google's free office suite. The Surface is fucking terrible.

Just stop buying stuff. Try it for a week, don't buy anything except groceries, and maybe gas if you drive. You'll survive.

Get a 2nd hand multicooker off eBay. They slow cook, do rice/lentils/soups and lots of other things. I got one that was a bit bashed about but worked perfectly for £20.

Grow herbs either inside or outside. Rosemary, Thyme, Bay and garlic and a few others will grow fine. For the rest, get dry. Herbs add instant flavour to rice, lentils etc.

A small chicken (about £4) equals 4 meals. When the carcass is stripped, put it in your multicooker, just cover with cold water, add a whole carrot, a whole onion, both halved, some peppercorns, 3 or 4 bay leaves and 2 teaspoons salt. Slow cook on a very low heat for 6 hours. Get rid of all the solids and you now have chicken stock.

Piracy, some people buy 3 streaming subscriptions for 50€ a month just to watch one show.

Also depending on where you live you could take the supermarket advertisement magazines, they are free and if you live in an area where you can walk to your nearest stores it can actually save some money

I also know an old man who sells vapes, cigarettes and alcohol to kids (he couldn' save up enougth for a good retirement). You'd be suprised how much 12yo actually pay for a vape you can buyat every store for 10€. He once told me he get's his products from our cheap neigthbour country and only pays ⅓ of what he's charging.

I once met some hippie-like people who fed themselves exclusively by dumpster diving. Not sure where they got their stuff, but they had a lot of high-end foods (cheese wheels, expensive meats, not-so-fresh produce, etc). They lived in busses, vans, RVs and stuff like that. They didn't have jobs; not sure how they got money for things like clothes; odd-jobs I guess.

Less extreme "hacks": Goodwill, or Ross/Marshalls if you're feeling fancy. Ebay/Craigslist/Offer-up (need to be careful about getting ripped-off, and Ebay isn't as cheap as it used to be). Buy, cook, and eat mostly cheap staples (rice, beans, pasta, etc). If eating meat, you can use it sparingly by cooking recipes that comprise mostly of cheap staples. Budget Bytes has decent recipes. Unfortunately, most people's biggest expense is housing, and there aren't many "hacks" for that. Maybe, get a work-from-home job and move to Wyoming or something

A boomer I know once bragged about using fabric softeners a second time because they still had some use after the first. I've never even considering using the stuff.