PLEASE tell your doctor if your medications are too expensive.
My parents worked themselves to the bone and we ate like shit to help pay for medicine for me and my sister (hemophilia, we needed medicine to help clot during our periods)…they never complained and just worked – my mom didn’t want anyone to know we were poor. There were cheaper alternatives!! They could have saved thousands of dollars.
I’m a family doctor now and I make it a point to talk about medication costs and ask at all of my follow-ups if things are affordable. We don’t know what your copay is and it’s not always easy to tell what will be covered on your plan. PLEASE let us know if something is too much, this is what we are here for!
Floss – dental visits are expensive!
Rich people throw out amazing stuff. If you know someone with a truck, you can go around the wealthy areas on garbage day and get all sorts of furniture, appliances, and clothing. A little cleaning and maybe a few minor repairs and you have lots of stuff to use or sell.
If you wind up homeless, get a Planet Fitness gym membership ($10 a month) so you can shower every day. The one near my work also has free WiFi.
Go to the library. Not only are there books there, but also you can check out video games, sewing machines, movies, museum passes… so much more. Not to mention the software, education and events that can help you get a raise, promotion, or better job.
If you have pets, find charities on Facebook that help provide food for pets to people with a low income. I can’t tell you how much stress this took off my shoulders knowing I had enough kibble for my cats so they wouldn’t starve and I could buy my own food instead.
Hot Sauce is a simple investment to turn sad, bland food, into sad, slightly less bland food.
Manage every dollar you spend. Know exactly where your money is going. You can’t reduce spending (and save more) if you don’t understand where your money is going.
There are a number of apps out there that help you budget and tell you what you’re spending money on (Mint, Truebill, etc).
Once you see the breakdown, you might notice that you’re spending more on meals than you should. Or you had that subscription you forgot about that suddenly took $25 out of your account.
Remember, being poor and being constantly broke aren’t always the same thing. Sometimes you’re just bad with money.
Shop at Goodwill/second hand stores!
Buy the store-version (aka imitation brand) version of things. Cheaper and it works the exact same save for a few exceptions.
Drink only water. It’s one of those ripple effect things that improves every other area of your life.
I work in a welfare office. The number of people who are both 1) unable to afford proper nutrition (supposedly), and 2) morbidly obese is counterintuitive until you see the enormous sodas so many people travel with. It’s incredibly easy to drink more calories than you think you’re drinking, and the fattening nature of these drinks is all in the sugar content. Switch to carrying water instead of soda or other sweetened beverages and I assure you the following will happen:
-You will save more money than you imagine,
-You will sleep better,
-Food will taste better,
-You will have more consistent energy throughout the day,
-Your skin/overall appearance will improve, and
-You will lose weight.
If you do nothing other than stop spending money on soda/sweet tea/etc and just drink filtered tap water, you will thank yourself.
Source: Was poor, now am not poor. Still, drink only water (and unsweetened coffee). Am over 40 lbs lighter, sleep well, and feel better.
Eat the rich to absorb their wealth.
• Don't insult other visitors. Offensive comments will be deleted without warning.
• Comments are accepted in English only.
• No swearing words in comments, otherwise such comments will be censored.
• Your nickname and avatar are randomly selected. If you don't post comments for 7 days, they both are reset.
• To choose another avatar, click the ‘Random avatar’ link.
