But it works if you save money in other ways too. When your pillow goes flat, don't toss it, open it up and combine the insides with a second pillow and sew it back up. Buy whole kernels for popcorn instead of microwave bags, pop it on the stove in a pot. Buy plain cocoa powder and milk instead of Swiss Miss. Heat up drinks using a candle. Get rid of the electric coffee maker, use a hand-mixer (http://img.tradera.net/images/949/211033949_90141cc0-1e16-4e50-8e11-601b55ff05cf.jpg). If you own a house or a balcony, in the wintertime just put your food outside in the cold and unplug your fridge/freezer (food that shouldn't freeze goes inside the house in an icebox like a cooler, using snow or ice taken from outside for the cold).
Make potato chips at home, or use another vegetable that's not even potatoes but is cheaper. Nowadays you can even do stuff like buy phone chargers and flashlights that use "human power" instead of electricity to work, and you can make or buy "sun ovens" that don't use electricity, for the summertime.
Hmm, so maybe after that your electric bill is a little lower? Or maybe you realize that you have some habit-food (like coffee and chips) that's actually sucking away half your money, that you can stop eating or reduce costs on?
Buying tea loose-leaf in bulk is cheaper than in bags. If you learn to sew and repair or make your own clothes, so you can at least turn the old clothes into new ones when something happens to them, they'll last longer and then - Wow! You have a little more money for food sometimes too! If you're really poor, once the fabric of your shoes breaks, re-use the soles and sew new fabric on. If you buy fish that hasn't pre-gutted, you save a little more money. If you get a machine you can even make sausages at home and again you can put "filling" in that makes the meat stretch. If you realize that hearts taste just like normal stew meat after you cook them enough, if you save bones and shrimp shells and whatnot and make soup stock, there you go.
Right now I'm making leather/fabric from fish skin, and thinking about all the times I've eaten fish and didn't know that you could actually use the skin. Maybe it wont go anywhere, but people are selling these fish skins for like ten dollars each on Etsy - I could potentially fix up the skin and sell it for nearly the same cost as actually buying the fish cost in the first place.
I mean, if we were all REALLY poor, we'd be making sandles for ourselves by weaving together grass or free plastic straws we picked up at the mall, and our clothing would from melted plastic bags that we picked up off the street... We'd all have rainwater collection buckets and we'd be picking up pieces of wood out of dumpsters or from forest floors and carving our butter knives and spoons from them. We'd make oilcloth ourselves at home, no one would ever use dryers, and we'd all be turning dog hair into yarn LOL.
I also see "people should have common sense already - you should know not to drink soda with every meal" sorts of comments come up a lot. Anyone who looks around them should realize that most people do not have common sense. People are feeding soda to babies and deep-frying pasta. (If you haven't seen "Big Meets Bigger" I recommend it, it's probably on Youtube.)
I think that people should be able to poison themselves however much they want once they're an adult but there needs to be some sort of regulated system about it. You should be able to buy alcohol, but you have to use a card every time, and when the card racks up too many purchases/visits within a certain time period you then get tested to see if you're an alcoholic.
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Make potato chips at home, or use another vegetable that's not even potatoes but is cheaper. Nowadays you can even do stuff like buy phone chargers and flashlights that use "human power" instead of electricity to work, and you can make or buy "sun ovens" that don't use electricity, for the summertime.
Hmm, so maybe after that your electric bill is a little lower? Or maybe you realize that you have some habit-food (like coffee and chips) that's actually sucking away half your money, that you can stop eating or reduce costs on?
Buying tea loose-leaf in bulk is cheaper than in bags. If you learn to sew and repair or make your own clothes, so you can at least turn the old clothes into new ones when something happens to them, they'll last longer and then - Wow! You have a little more money for food sometimes too! If you're really poor, once the fabric of your shoes breaks, re-use the soles and sew new fabric on. If you buy fish that hasn't pre-gutted, you save a little more money. If you get a machine you can even make sausages at home and again you can put "filling" in that makes the meat stretch. If you realize that hearts taste just like normal stew meat after you cook them enough, if you save bones and shrimp shells and whatnot and make soup stock, there you go.
Right now I'm making leather/fabric from fish skin, and thinking about all the times I've eaten fish and didn't know that you could actually use the skin. Maybe it wont go anywhere, but people are selling these fish skins for like ten dollars each on Etsy - I could potentially fix up the skin and sell it for nearly the same cost as actually buying the fish cost in the first place.
I mean, if we were all REALLY poor, we'd be making sandles for ourselves by weaving together grass or free plastic straws we picked up at the mall, and our clothing would from melted plastic bags that we picked up off the street... We'd all have rainwater collection buckets and we'd be picking up pieces of wood out of dumpsters or from forest floors and carving our butter knives and spoons from them. We'd make oilcloth ourselves at home, no one would ever use dryers, and we'd all be turning dog hair into yarn LOL.
I also see "people should have common sense already - you should know not to drink soda with every meal" sorts of comments come up a lot. Anyone who looks around them should realize that most people do not have common sense. People are feeding soda to babies and deep-frying pasta. (If you haven't seen "Big Meets Bigger" I recommend it, it's probably on Youtube.)
I think that people should be able to poison themselves however much they want once they're an adult but there needs to be some sort of regulated system about it. You should be able to buy alcohol, but you have to use a card every time, and when the card racks up too many purchases/visits within a certain time period you then get tested to see if you're an alcoholic.