People Who Grew Up Poor Share The Hacks That Helped Them Survive

Hard times can happen to anyone. But, if you’re not used to it, it can be quite a shock to the system. Suddenly, the fancy cereal you love is no longer within your budget, and the days of buying designer jeans are just a fond memory. Now it’s time to tighten your belt and only buy what you need to.

For others, though, they grew up with not-so-much money and have always had to find creative ways to get not only what they need but sometimes what they want, too – and not always in the most an obvious way. From measuring the freezer to store fast-food specials to unconventional ways to find eggs, people who grew up poor share the hacks they’ve used to survive…

Ten Years’ Worth

Growing up my family had its moments of struggle. Our public transport system at the time had tickets which were simply hole-punched with the day and month, but never the year. So we’d save them and store them neatly in envelopes marked by month and concession (one stop) or full fare. After a few years of saving tickets we pretty much had free train and bus travel for the next 10 years.

That is, until they changed the ticketing system to electronically stamped tickets with barcodes. I’m not saying it was us that made them do this, but we can’t have been the only people who’d figured out the system. I’m not really super proud of it, but times were hard and we had to do what we had to do to make sure we could get where we needed to go. Reddit user: [redacted]

Order Something Free

I was so poor once that I’d go to Long John Silver’s and order water and ‘crunchies’ (the crispy bits of batter that fall off fried fish), then sit there and watch the people that would dine in. It was amazing how little they ate. And then they would leave without dumping their tray off in the trash. So, I guess my hack is to order “free” or extremely cheap things from the menu.

There were fries, hushpuppies, chicken, fish – all untouched. No, I wouldn’t eat a piece that was bitten off of, but I’d casually snag a few leftovers before the staff came to clear the table – that’s how long ago it was, staff still cleaned off your table. I once saw a woman order a 2-piece fish and more for her kid, that ate one hushpuppy and a few fries, and then left the rest of it there. It was the best I’d eaten in weeks. Reddit user: ToddTheOdd

You’d Be Surprised How Many Things Are Free

Lots of school systems do free lunches for kids under 18 during the summer. When I was a kid I remember my dad taking us to get lunch at the school then going to play disc golf, soccer, or do something else free and fun. It was a blast, and I had no clue it was because we were actually poor.

Dollar theaters are a great place to go, too, and sometimes they have a free afternoon/evening show for kids with the purchase of an adult ticket. The three of us saw many movies for $4.00, including a shared popcorn and coke. My dad was amazing at making us feel rich for basically nothing. You’d be surprised by how many fun things are free; you just have to check around your community. Reddit user: pyromaster55

Learn When Things Go On Sale

Learning the times of the day when meat, bakery, fish, and produce items are reduced to 75% at the local supermarket. I’ve been doing it for years, but it’s a good day when you find 400g of fresh mince for 99p (I live in the UK, so mince is ground up food … literally anything, but in this case beef or pork), and you have warm, filling food that you used to take for granted when living with your parents.

One thing I’ve noticed about being poor is that you become almost vegetarian because meat just costs too much. It doesn’t matter if it’s frozen or fresh. Another thing would be buying the cheapest large container of yoghurt, and mixing in jam for fruity yoghurt. But that’s not about being poor, that’s just a good idea, and is usually pretty tasty to boot. Reddit user: WatchingJeremyKyle

Hold Your Nose And Gulp It Down

In university I used to buy 10 or 20-pound bags of potatoes, freeze-dried chives, and gravy mix in bulk. Not the supermarket packs, either, which are $1.00 for two cups of gravy. I’m talking about restaurant-sized packs that make eight liters from one package. Way cheaper and usually tastes better. That was often dinner at the end of the month when money got tight.

Sometimes I had even saved enough that I could have mashed potatoes made with some sort of dairy, or bacon grease. I also had a cheap tub of protein powder for weight lifters. It was gross, but I’d blend it up – usually with water – hold my nose and gulp it down. It was actual protein, and slightly more healthy than a week-long diet of potatoes. Reddit user: GuyInAChair

Go Junkin’

You can get new car parts from the junkyard for virtually nothing, just as an FYI. You can even get added discounts if you remove them from the junkers yourself. I had a 12-year-old car in college and, when it blew a tire, I went to the junkyard and found a decent set of tires. Bought all four for $70, which reduced my food budget to $16 for the next two weeks, but I was so happy.

Some lady in the grocery store saw me with a calculator trying to figure out how much ramen I could buy with $16 and handed me a $20 bill. It made me cry. I’m glad I’m not poor anymore. But I’ll always remember that lady. I wasn’t going to starve, I was super thrifty and had lots of veggies, but that made the next few weeks SO much easier. Reddit user: IAlbatross

DIY Designer Wardrobe

My mom used to take me to the shopping mall to look for new school clothes. I’d point out five outfits I like – one for each school day, and then we’d leave to go to the fabric store where she’d buy remnants in similar colors/styles. Then, she’d sew outfits that looked just like the things I pointed out in the store.

Maybe it was my young eyes, but I honestly thought they looked just like what I’d seen in the store –minus the label (it was the 80s, and labels were status symbols). Mean kids who wore the name-brand stuff immediately picked on me for having ‘fake’ or ‘wannabe’ clothes, but I never told my mom because I knew she did her best for me, and I didn’t want her to feel bad. Reddit user: aCause4Concern

They’re Trendy Now

We would make cheap crock-pot meals and eat off that for a week. We did that for the longest time. Nowadays they’re called “one-pot meals” and meal prepping. It’s even kind of hipster-chic because of that one BuzzFeed cooking thing. But, back when I was a kid, it was literally the only thing we could afford. I remember them all tasting really, really good.

Anyway, we would take our extra money – us kids did side jobs and stuff – and buy all kinds cheap cuts of meat, potatoes, and veg and just mix it all up to make a massive crock-pot meal. We’d do three at a time and it would last us a whole week, if not longer. My favorite was when we found a chuck roast on sale. I still love a good pot roast. Reddit user: [redacted]

Learn To Hunt And Barter

Living in a semi-rural community, doing chores for old farmers, means they let you walk through their fields to dig your own turnips and other veggies – cut your own mustard greens, pick tomatoes, beans, and whatever else. Turnip greens are awesome with the juice from leftover pickled peppers. Some of the best meals I can remember growing up were made with veggies from those farms.

You can plant and grow more zucchini and cucumbers than you can eat if you shovel the neighborhood horse stalls for fertilizer. Beans, rice, and butcher scraps can go a long way, too. Those are the main things we had to buy. Everything else was bartered for. Occasionally we’d get “charity” from the local church, but the ladies in charge were mostly just gossips.

Learning to hunt was essential, too. We lived on the edge of Champion Paper Company land. They let us hunt. Squirrel and rabbit go a long way towards adding some income and meat. I could keep us in milk by selling meat or turning in the fur to some local traders. Obviously, this was also a long time ago, but hunting and learning to live off the land, or barter, can keep you alive. Reddit user: [redacted]

It’s The Start-Up Cost That Gets You

Poor people buy a lot of eggs. Eggs are one of the cheapest and best tasting sources of protein out there. Enough eggs for six meals costs less than $3.00. Extra bonus points if you have your own birds, but a lot of poorer people can’t afford the start-up expense of buying or building a coop, sourcing the birds, and everything else that goes with it.

We also ate a lot of venison growing up. If you have the time to go stand in the woods during deer season, you can get yourself 70 or 80 lbs of meat really cheaply, especially if you do your own butchering. My wife won’t eat venison, though; when she was young, poor, first starting out that was the only meat they had to feed the family for several years, and she doesn’t ever want to see it again. Reddit user: Freekmagnet

Waste Not

I’m poor right now and have a 3-year-old daughter and a loving wife. I try to be as frugal as possible and my wife is even better at it than I am. Twice a week she goes to the food pantry to get a whole bunch of stuff, anything we don’t use we re-donate. It’s only right that someone else should be able to use what we don’t.

After coming back she’ll spend around $30 or $40 on vegetables and meats each week at the local grocery store. And she can make it last, too. She grew up in Mexico with very little money, and always had to feed five or six people on $30 a week. Best enchiladas I’ve ever had. She doesn’t let perceived “shame” keep her out of the food bank, and she doesn’t waste anything. Reddit user: jmelol

Loose Change

Paying for things with loose change. When I was growing up, we we’d be so broke at times that we’d have to look everywhere for change. We’d use every single penny for gas, food, or whatever. Very occasionally we’d have some change to buy a candy bar or something “luxurious.” As a child, it was always so humiliating to pay for something all in change.

Walking to the cashier and paying for a loaf of bread and lunch meat with nickels, dimes and pennies was the most nerve wracking thing I had to do as a kid. It was the time it took to count it all out that made me really self-conscious. But, I still save all my spare change as an adult. I even still pick it up off the ground when I see it.

I remember riding in a friend’s mom’s car and seeing their center console full of loose change. I thought they had to have been so rich. I thought that if I could have that much change just sitting there when I was older everything would be alright. Reddit user: richielaw

Grandma’s “Hacks”

My grandma would separate 2-ply toilet paper and make two rolls out of it. That was her “hack.” Of course, she was always complaining that she had to use so much of it to “get the job done.” You’d tell her that, if she just left it whole, it’d be so much more effective, but she didn’t care. In her mind, she was cheating the system with her DIY single-ply.

She also had a weird misconception that she was still paying for electricity if the light was turned out unless the bulb was removed. So she’d literally move a single light bulb from room to room, climbing up and down a stool about a million times a day to install the light bulb and save electricity. I 100% do not recommend any of her hacks. I loved her, but she was a weirdo. Reddit user: Runner40

Shop The Clearance Sections

When I was in university and it would get to the point where my student loan was running out, instead of going to such-and-such a supermarket to do my weekly shopping, I’d walk into the city center and visit four or five of the ‘Express/Metro’ versions of different supermarkets, and shop exclusively from the clearance sections.

As a side note, there’s nothing like going to university to make you realize just how poor your family actually is compared to others. The absolute waste and lack of realistic plans is mind blowing. Anyway, if you go at the right times and aren’t too picky, you can get plenty of decent food out of the clearance sections. It really teaches you to be creative with your meals. Reddit user: leeisawesome

Make Do With What You Can Get

It was a bitter cold winter, but I couldn’t afford a winter coat. So, I bought two hooded sweatshirts off the clearance rack. When you can’t afford a proper coat, you wear as many layers as possible. Also, use brown rice instead of white. It makes more per uncooked cup than white rice, plus it’s got way more nutrients in it.

I couldn’t afford a bed, so I made my own futon mattress and put it on the floor of my crummy loft apartment, which was on the bad side of town. Those days are over, but I’ll never forget them. Nor will I forget what it’s like to have to scrape by just to survive. Still, those days taught me to take nothing for granted, and make do with what I could get. Reddit user: muffledvoice

Hamburgers By Volume

When I was kid, the McDonald’s down the street started having a monthly deal where they sold a regular hamburger for 19 cents. I remember that my dad, who was an unemployed carpenter at the time, cleared out the freezer, measured the interior with a tape measure, and wrote down the dimensions. My mom, who he hadn’t let in on his plan, thought he was nuts.

When he had done all his measuring, he went to McDonald’s, measured a hamburger, and worked out – by volume – how many hamburgers he could fit in our freezer. After that, once a month he’d drop ten dollars at McDonalds and we’d stack hamburgers in the freezer like gold bullion. When we got hungry we would warm them in the toaster. Honestly, he did it more for my mom than anyone else. She loved hamburgers. Reddit user: Smileycakes

Keep Your Scraps

I don’t know about things you wouldn’t really know about, but when I was a single parent on maternity leave, I was so financially poor for a while that I’d save every odd and end from vegetables I’d use and place them in a mason jar in the fridge. Once a week I’d use it to make a vegetable stock for soups.

Honestly, I still do that now that I’m financially stable. My kids never knew the difference, and I was able to teach them a life skill by doing it. They got to learn how to create as little food waste as possible. A few years back, my daughter even decided she wanted to only use bone-in, skin on chicken because she saw that we could make our own chicken stock, too, and that it would be cheaper. I’ve never been so proud. Reddit user: peppepcheerio

Stop Opening Jars Of Jam

From elementary school until I was a sophomore in high school, we were pretty poor. In high school, my mom would send me to the grocery store with $50 and a list. I had to get everything on the list for the $50 I had. It was an amazing lesson in comparative shopping that has served me well. She also made a game of it, so it never actually felt like we were food poor.

We also learned that you do not eat anything in the kitchen without asking (in case mom had a plan for it) and you eat all of something in the refrigerator before you open anything new. Don’t like strawberry jelly? Too bad, because that’s what’s open. Want a different kind? Either buy it yourself or deal with what’s there until it’s gone.

One day, when my husband and I were just married, we were making breakfast and he went into the cabinet and got a new jar of jelly. I told him there was already a jar open in the fridge. He said he didn’t like that kind. It took everything I had to not throw the jar of jelly at him. My level of anxiety for him opening that new jar of jelly was astounding. Now we only get jelly if we both like the flavor. Reddit user: [redacted]

Like A Good Neighbor

I’m currently poor, and I get excited for the last day of the semester at the local college because they throw out a bunch of furniture. I’m serious. The waste is astounding. Not only the money, but the perfectly good furniture that just gets left for the garbage collectors. Local churches do free clothing drives and hand out free food on certain days of the week.

You get really good at finding stuff at a discount in the thrift store, like 1/2 off purple tag sales, stuff like that. I think all my clothes, except my socks and underwear, are from thrift stores. You get to know your neighbors and work things out on a barter system. Like ‘I’ll watch your kids for a couple days if you fix my car.´ Granted, that only works out if you have good neighbors – fortunately, I do. Reddit user: [redacted]

In Case We Need Them

My grandmother lived through the great famine in China. As a result, even after our family became better off, she still saves away stacks of nickels, along with her collection of free napkins that she gets from fast food places. She gets really bent out of shape if you try to use them. She’s “saving them” in case we need them someday. I’m not saying that you should do that, but she’s the product of her time.

We also used to buy a can of gas to cook, heat the house, shower, etc., and that would last us for a couple of months. My grandmother is so strong. She bought a boat ticket to get the heck out of that place and made her situation better when she was insanely poor. As weird as it might seem when she collects these little things, she’s doing what she believes she needs to do to keep herself out of poverty. Reddit user: Hao-ru

Need Breeds Creativity

We were pretty poor when I was young. We’d put old blankets over the windows in the winter to keep the heat in. We lived in a 110-year-old house with old blurry glass, single-pane windows. Not really ideal for insulation. We’d re-use the Donald Duck-brand concentrated orange juice containers as cups and the store-brand margarine containers as bowls. Needs must, right?

Store-brand plain shredded wheat in a big box goes well with the powdered milk. Sharing the same bath water with my siblings, my sister always got to go first. If I went first, I usually got the water too dirty for her to use. Strictly hanging up our clothes after each use until laundry day. We recycled aluminum cans from around the neighborhood. I just thought we were doing our part to keep the city clean. I guess the moral of my story here is that 1) we were poor, and 2) need breeds creativity. That almost rhymes. Reddit user: TomSelleckPI

Buying Defects

Buy “defective” clothes. They’re usually way cheaper than regular clothes, and most of the time you can’t even tell what’s wrong with them. Usually it’s just something like the arms being marginally too long or a pattern that was from last season, and even then most people can’t tell what’s from this and previous seasons.

That’s what we did to stay clothed growing up. Most places will get rid of them for deep discounts. Oh, and always look for “scratch ’n’ dent” stuff when you’re buying electronics. I’m not poor anymore, but I still do this when I need a new computer or something. I managed to buy a laptop worth $2,000 for about $1,300 (still a lot when you have nothing, but you get what I’m saying) from the Amazon Warehouse because there’s a scratch on the lid. It took me lots of searching to find a scratch. Reddit user: TunaNoodleMyFavorite

Extending Your Stay

Extended stay housing or motels/hotels. When you can’t qualify to get an apartment because you don’t have proof of income, you end up wasting more money to stay for a week at extended day housing or a cheap motel. It’s how the poor stay poor. Back in the day, though, they came with a lot more than they do now.

You could get free breakfast, Wi-Fi, cable, pool, and there was sometimes even a cheap restaurant on site. It sucks having no home and/or being a transient, and I promised myself never to be in the same situation again. But, those extended stay hotels were there when I needed them. Reddit user: notmaurypovich

The Dollar Store Saved My Life

Growing up, we bought almost everything at the Dollar Store. The Dollar Store even has steaks. Seriously – steaks for one dollar. Now, if that doesn’t sound sketchy, I don’t know what does, but when in need… Also, Fabulouso. That stuff cleans everything, I had no clue what it was until I grabbed a bottle to do some cleaning and was shocked at how good it was.

Turns out it’s very popular in Hispanic communities. I can see why. It works wonders. You get really used to pasta and rice, too. They’re cheap and can be bought in bulk at the Dollar Store. Oh, and by the way, dollar store toilet paper is seriously better then the toilet paper my mom buys. Say what you want, but if you’re ever in a pinch and need TP, you’ll be thanking me. Reddit user: mistertims

Grow And Use Your Own Food

Many poor people, especially in rural areas, buy a lot of canning jars and lids to preserve cheap local food for the winter. Four bushels of tomatoes – bought at a roadside stand for $15 in late summer or raised in the back yard for 50 cents in seeds – makes an incredible quantity of spaghetti sauce. Plus, you can adjust the taste to suit you.

A hundred ears of corn cost about $10.00 and is enough to make you sick of eating canned or frozen corn by spring. One pound of seed onions bought for a dollar in April turns into 20 or 30 lbs of big onions by August, just by sticking them in holes in the dirt and watering regularly. Easy to store, too. Just clear out some space in a closet and store them in a big basket or bin.

Don’t clean them off, though. You definitely want to leave the dirt on. That helps to preserve them all winter long. Also, I feel like it’s a little ironic that my hack/how-I-survived tip is simply learning to grow and use your own food. Why does no one do that anymore? Oh, yeah…convenience. Reddit user: [redacted]

We Are The Needy

Pancakes. You might not think a lot about pancakes, but my family used to eat them all the time. I can count on one hand the food we ate: pancakes, spaghetti, ramen, butter sandwiches (sometimes with cinnamon), and mush – which is like ground chuck and mashed potatoes mixed together. But pancakes were cheapest, and they froze well so we could eat them for after school snacks.

We would eat that over and over and over and over. Sometimes we could get Hamburger Helper from the food bank (don’t knock it). Sometimes we could have mashed potatoes made with real milk instead of powdered milk. I didn’t realize that we were poor until I came home from school one day and started looking through the cabinets. I was probably eight or nine.

My teacher had told us about a food drive we were doing. You know, “for the needy.” My mom asked me what I was doing and she just sighed, looked at me with sad eyes, and said, “Sweetheart, we are the needy”. Reddit user: obscurethestorm

Go To The Food Bank

Last year I had to go to a food bank in my city. I was barely making enough money to afford rice to eat. My hair started to fall out and I lost the ability to focus. I felt bad because I had an apartment and felt like I was taking away from someone else. I know, that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. I definitely needed that apartment, but malnourishment affects more than just your waistline.

I spoke with the guy running it and he told me they’re there for anyone in need, so I went. And, oh my… fresh meat, eggs, fresh veggies, milk, pasta – you name it, it was there. It was amazing. I’m not totally above water, but doing a lot better and volunteering there to pay it forward for the bleak times they helped me through. Food banks are an amazing resource. Never be too “proud” to use them if you need it. Reddit user: FlamingoRock

Slop In A Pot

Growing up poor, you get used to buying something only when absolutely necessary. I think something I learned from my family always living paycheck to paycheck – struggling to both pay rent and put dinner on the table – was meal planning. You can’t just go buy groceries all willy-nilly. You check what’s on sale, then plan your meals for the week/month, and then you buy only what’s necessary for those meals and nothing more.

My family would eat what we called one-pot meals (look it up, it’s a “real thing” now) that would make a lot of food and keep for a long time. My family had this one meal we called “slop in a pot” because it literally looked like the slop you would throw to a pig when it was done. We would take whatever meat and vegetables we could afford and cook it all into a stew, of sorts. Beans were a must-include, they made you feel full fast. Then you put a scoop of that on some rice and you’re good to go. Slop in a Pot. You’re welcome. Reddit user: USSno1

My Dad Made The Best Toys

I was born in ‘69, so my memories come from the 1970s which, economically speaking, wasn’t the best of times for many families. In my house, milk was poured from a plastic pitcher – not those plastic gallon containers. It was powdered skim milk, which probably saved more than a few bucks a week with thirsty young kids in the house.

The ketchup was made by mom, not Heinz, and bread came from the oven, not the store. Chips, hostess snacks etc, weren’t a thing for us. The most popular toys in the neighborhood were made by my dad from scrap lumber. Play houses, tree forts, and enough swords and shields for a small medieval army. In the winter it was the inner tube from a tractor tire.

We’d burn energy bouncing from one side to the other inside our attached garage, which had been converted into a family room. It was all wonderful and I never felt like we lacked a thing. It’s amazing how, as a child, you never really think about things like money. Having to scrimp for food was just normal. We thought that’s how everyone lived. Reddit user: Funky500

Freeze Your Bread

My family couldn’t afford much when I was growing up. I don’t think anybody could afford much during those times – or at least I didn’t see people like that in my neighborhood. Tough times, crises, no jobs, shortages of food in the stores – all that traditional poverty kind of stuff. Of course, as kids, that was just how we lived. We didn’t know any different.

My parents would go to the store two or three hours before it opened to wait in line because someone “said they will have bread today.” They would buy as much bread as they could get their hands on and freeze it. Then, we’d put the frozen bread in the oven and eat it. Best bread ever. Extremely crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside, and warm. Reddit user: GeorgiGeorgiev

Don’t Buy From The Middle Of The Shelf

You know that laundry soap in a bag with a picture of a seal on it? I can’t remember the name, but you’d know it if you saw it. It’s every bit as good as Gain. Stores have high-dollar products and middle to low-dollar products for “average” (aka poor) people. But, they know that poor people absolutely cannot buy higher priced stuff, and won’t buy it at all if it doesn’t work.

The products for the poorest people are out of the way (think bottom shelf) and usually packaged so differently that the average person doesn’t consider it part of the line-up. But these products are usually as good as at least the middle-of-the-shelf items, if not better in some cases. So, if you’re on a budget, next time you’re at the grocery store…look down. Reddit user: ThatGirl_Tasha

If You Can’t Buy, Find A Way To Trade

Buying wasn’t really an option when I was growing up. We cut exactly even after bills and groceries. My parents used to trade their skills outside of work for all the extra things we wanted around the house. For example, as a young kid, I wanted a puppet theater. We had no money for toys, but I was  super into making my socks talk to each other, so my dad finally decided to make me that theater.

But, having no money, he traded labor for the materials. He painted a neighbor’s house for a few sheets of plywood and some hinges. He brought it all home and put it together. It was a folding screen with a cut-out in the middle for my puppets. He painted it my favorite color and I kept it for a long time.

My mom wanted a new sewing machine. A friend bought the machine for my mom to make curtains for her house. Mom did and got to keep the machine as a “bonus” since her friend didn’t sew. She still has it and uses it today. So yeah, my contribution is just, “Some poor people don’t buy, and instead, trade.” Reddit user: [redacted]

Buy Generic Medication

Store brand, over-the-counter medications – allergy meds, Pepto-Bismol, Tums, Motrin, Aleve, and Tylenol – you name it, there is a store-brand equivalent that is guaranteed to be at LEAST 75% cheaper than the name-brand. Just look at the active ingredients, those are the ones that do the work, and they’re all the same. Brand names don’t work any better. It’s all a placebo effect.

Most of them are just Target, Walmart, CVS, Rite Aid, or whoever buying from the same manufacturer that the name-brands do. The only difference is that they don’t charge as much. Why? Because they don’t have to. It costs them more to sell you the brand-names than it does their own version, which (again) is the exact same thing. Reddit user: ArtistSchmartist

Shop At Asian Markets

I moved out at 17 and raised my little brother after my mother passed away from cancer. Okay, I say “moved out,” but I had no choice. She was a single parent so I learned a lot from her work ethic. I can honestly say lots of ramen bags, sliced beef, eggs, and rice was our food-source for a few tough years.

I’d buy them in bulk from the Asian super markets. After working fulltime and going to college fulltime, I’m pretty well off now and my little brother is now engaged and is happy with his life, too. I’m almost 30 now, but you really never forget the tough times. Also, seriously, Asian super markets are where it’s at. Great prices, and their food is just as good. Reddit user: camoramb0

Grow Your Own Food

Vegetable seeds. My family was dirt poor. Both my parents worked double shifts and when my mom came home, around 11:00pm, she’d go outside with a flashlight and tend to this tiny garden where she tried to grow vegetables. She tried tomatoes, peppers, beans, and corn. You name it, she got the seeds and tried to grow it herself in the backyard.

Not much came out of it, but somehow she could grow beans really well. For dinner, she’d cook extremely basic homemade chili on top of our fireplace stovetop because the electricity bill couldn’t be paid. Those beans always had pride of place in the chili. I was young enough that I thought we were always just having fun cooking in the fireplace because the power was out from a fallen tree or something. The power of a child’s imagination. Reddit user: Coyote1824

Hunter Gatherer

Dumpster diving. The amount of food and good everything people throw out would blow most people’s minds if they knew about it. I’ve found $1,500 jackets, laptops, jewelry, even money on occasion. A Coach purse paid my electric bill a few months back. I still can’t believe that someone threw that away. The real thing, too. Not just some knock-off.

The food is amazing if you’re willing to go for it. I’ve seen several dumpsters filled to the brim with vegetables, bread, pounds upon pounds of frozen meats, and dozens of cartons of eggs. More packaged food than a single person could eat in a week, and quite a bit more besides. Most people would never eat it. I totally get that, but when you’re starving, an unopened bag of chips in the dumpster is like gold.

It can be very rewarding but like any hunter-gatherer enterprise, sometimes you come home with a king’s ransom and sometimes you come home empty-handed. It’s also actually relatively hard work, though. You need to be up either very late or very early and be observant in regards to when things get thrown out. Reddit user: HeloRising

Buy Your Food On Sale

If you go to your local bakery an hour before they close, a lot of the bread is discounted or they give you some extras for free. If you go to a 24-hour supermarket, go around midnight, a lot of the food will be discounted. The foods that will be include your basics: bread, milk, fruit, fresh veggies, etc. Anything that’s about to reach its “use by” date.

Don’t be afraid to buy the sale-priced meats, either. You know, the ones that are on, like, “last chance” special. As long as they’re not brown, you can take them home and use them right away or freeze them. I hope that, even if I have a lot of money one day, I’m still able to do that. I feel like it’d be so easy to start living beyond my means and then get in a bad spot again. Reddit user: BaconSyrop

It’s Pretty Much The Same Thing

In more rural areas, firewood by the truckload is your lifeline in the winter. Growing up, we would always barter and trade for it. A couple of cords would get you through the winter. You use it for heat, light, and cooking. Literally a lifeline. The wood stove becomes the center of the household, too. Mom could usually get us a discount by baking a few pies or trading some eggs.

Thriftier people I knew heated their bath water with wood rather than pay for a water heater and would share bath water among the entire family (costs money to run the well pump). There were some old-timers that would even buy oats and grains from farm supply stores (meant for animal feed) to cook and use for themselves. They are/were the same thing, just not as “pretty” as the stuff you’d get at the supermarket. Reddit user: [redacted]

Food Outlets

Bakery outlet stores. There are only a few around and usually in odd places, like the industrial district. You can get really cheap bread there. If you refrigerate or freeze it, it can last for a month or more. Also, grocery stores have clearance sections – usually near the toilets – that are sometimes very cheap. I bought 50 cent bottles of laundry detergent that were good for 50 loads of laundry each.

Always get whatever is on sale at grocery stores. Stock up on staples like rice, potatoes, flour, sugar, and even powdered milk. When I was a teen, there was a burger joint in town that offered five burgers for $1.00 on Thursdays and that’s what I got. I’d buy 15 and freeze most of them. By the way, there are a lot of government programs around to help, too; you just need to look for them, and not be too prideful to use them. Reddit user: [redacted]