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.
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.
Food banks. Look at your local church, synagogue, or mosque. A lot of them do community outreach and have some kind of food bank.
If you're skipping meals or you have $5 'til next Friday, the food bank is for you. Don't feel like you're taking something away from someone "more needy." It's you. You're needy. Take the help. That was a hard lesson to learn in my 20s.
If you have a gurdwara in your area, they often do free meals, almost like a restaurant. Baptist churches tend to have dinners on Wednesdays, and the Hare Krishnas are always good for some heavily dairy vegetarian foods. I wish more people knew this.
I meant to define what that was in the comment and forgot. Sorry. A gurdwara or gurudwara is a Sikh worship house. Like a mosque/temple/church.
I'm not poor but this always helps everyone. Wait for a while before you buy the thing off your shopping list. Wait for a week and reconsider whether you indeed need it.
If the answer is still yes, buy it. It is a must do for expensive things. Never break this rule for any massive purchase like a car or something!
Also, there's a big difference between being able to pay for something and being able to afford something.
Thank you! Wish my last girlfriend understood this.
I could pay for her, but I couldn't afford her...
If you add an item to your cart but don’t buy it right away, you will sometimes see a discount that it meant to encourage you to buy it.
To add a light structure to this approach I always liked the "wait $100 a day" approach. Want to buy something that costs $300. Wait three days after you have decided you want it. Want to buy something over $1000, think about it for a couple weeks. A $50 impulsive purchase, maybe think about it over lunch.
Yea for me every extra hundred is at least a couple days, even a $20 item usually sits in the cart until i make a decision on if i actually need/want it enough to warrant it
You are not wrong. I've been pretty fortunate in my adult life and I've adjusted the threshold as I go. Really the point is to slow down your decision making and reduce impulsive purchases.
...also, thank you for calling me out. I grew up pretty poor, and didn't ever make much more than minimum wage until I was over 30. I think I internalized the frugal lifestyle as part of my identity during that time, and I often forget that is not my situation anymore. I appreciate the occasional reminder to be more grateful of my current privilege.
I was looking for a new car (leasing) and kept checking different for some weeks until I stumbled upon one offer that was 100€ less than any other while being essentially the same (power, space, etc). That was nice and I don't really care about brands as long as they are somewhat reliable.
Interesting I guess this is why my partner does this. Kind of drives me nuts though because then we'll have something on the list for months and he keeps putting it off until I finally just go on my own to buy it because I actually need it. Obviously not for big purchases but for stuff we don't use often like flour or jam or something.
Growing up my parents sheltered me a lot more from the financial instability we faced, his did not and he's still stuck in survival mode even though we are past it, so we have very different spending habits.
I try to never buy something the same day I learn of it. I'll take someone's business card, look it up online, comeback later, etc. that way it's only if I really care about it and not just feeling pressured or spending money for fun (buying stuff feels like an accomplishment, but the feeling never lasts).
I'm not sure what you mean here. I can only think the confusion is on business cards, where I am from it common for little shops and individual vendors to have business cards to look them up later. Sales people for big things too like cars, and houses.
Get a chest freezer. It's much more efficient for long-term storage than an upright fridge with a freezer because the cold air doesn't spill out when you open it.
Toss your incandescent and fluorescent lights. Get LED bulbs (not smart lights, just white LEDs). Where applicable, install timer switches.
Fuck cars, get a bike. A simple, sturdy one, like an onafiets. They run on toast and determination.
Understand the difference between having enough money to buy something and being able to afford something.
Unsubscribe from music/video streaming services. Return to the seven seas.
Maybe engage in some light tax evasion.
Toss your incandescent and fluorescent lights. Get LED bulbs (not smart lights, just white LEDs). Where applicable, install timer switches.
It's crazy how efficient LEDs are. They are a little bit more expensive but you'll save it on your energy bill over time and you'll have to replace them less.
People also don't realize how much of their energy bill is heat & air conditioning. If you don't have pets, turn your heat off or way down while you're at work. Just make sure it stays above freezing and above the dewpoint. If you can get any smart thermostat for cheap, they'll save you a ton of money over the long run if you're like me and constantly forget to set the temperature before you leave for work.
Also, thick drapes work wonders at keeping the cold out of cheap windows. You can get them and the hardware to hang them pretty cheap from goodwill. You can also wrap them in Saran wrap if you really want to keep the cold out. They sell kits, but painters tape and a cling film are way cheaper if you can hide them behind some drapes.
I’d be careful about the HVAC thing. I read somewhere a while back that it can cost more to change temperature than to just leave it slightly lower/higher and just wear a sweater or just shorts and a T shirt. Changing temperature is especially expensive if you’re drawing more electricity during peak times to make that change, like getting home from work at 6pm or so, when rates are higher. If you have a small apartment it may not be so bad to change the temp in a smaller volume of space.
YMMV, check your rates and times you’d be changing temp. Wear a sweater or strip as much as is feasible.
Excluding variable energy pricing, it's much more energy efficient to only heat and cool your home while you're actually at home.
Think of it like a tea kettle. It's definitely not energy efficient to keep the water boiling for the hours when you're not home just because you might want a cuppa when you get home. The only benefit keeping the water hot is to brew your next cup quicker. The water is cooling off at the same rate it would if the heater was off, but energy is being pumped into it to keep it hot and therefore it is constantly losing energy.
This is also assuming your HVAC's coefficient of performance is constant, which it's not, but it still generally is way better to avoid heating and cooling while you're away from home, especially if you live in an older less insulated home.
If you do have variable energy pricing, that can change things, and that's when a smart thermostat can really save you money. Instead of heating and cooling around your schedule, you do it around the pricing treating your house like a battery. See: https://youtu.be/0f9GpMWdvWI?si=LjiAjNf6t8cU8OZ2
This video really only really works if your home is relatively well insulated (as he points out). If it's not well insulated, you'll be uncomfortable basically all the time.
Generally if you're on a variable rate it's better to set the thermostat closer to the outside temperature when you're gone for more than 5 hours. If you're not on a variable rate, that break even point is like 30 minutes.
I don't have an omafiets, but a single gear bike. The only gear it does have is quite tough to start, but my God is it so much better than something with 8 gears or whatever. So much less effort once you get going. I never realised this, but apparently you lose a lot of power through the gearing.
The derailleur transmission design introduces a LOT of friction because the chain is forced to bend and twist between gears that are out of alignment, and it hates doing that. It also leads to increased wear.
And breaks far less often. Less wear and tear, and the chain rarely if ever slips off the cog.
Nope. Do hills too.
It is a bit tougher up hill, like cycling in a higher gear, but because you lose less power due to gearing, it's not as bad as you'd expect.
I'm not an avid cyclist, and I found the inability to make inclines easier a no-go. I'm into electric assist though, but that increases bike price. I see quite a few used ones for sale tho.
The efficiency trade off of a chest freezer is often broken by people’s inability to remember what’s in it. If you can’t reach the stuff at the bottom then it all goes bad. This is why an upright most likely makes more sense, even though it’s less efficient. You end up wasting as much food simply from forgetting what’s in there.
I consider not letting food go to waste as part of a poor person's fiscal financial responsibility.
Can I be pedantic? I'm going to go ahead: fiscal means tax-related, so probably just 'financial responsibility' is more what you're aiming for.
Maybe engage in some light tax evasion.
Not me (definitely not me) but my friend certainly had a lot more money when they had a job that made light tax evasion easier :(
This will allow you to live in your car or be homeless, in relative(!!!) comfort, and still be presentable enough to hold down a job.
Not the same person but where I am there are shelters and community centers that offer these things for free. The facilities are not in as good condition as a gym membership though.
We have tons of shelters in the US too. Talk to any homeless person though and they’ll tell you they don’t use the shelter because it either: forces them to not use drugs, splits up a family, has lots of sexual assaults going on, or has more health related problems than it’s worth.
last time i took a shower at a homeless shelter:
you have to hand all your stuff to a guy at a window, he puts it in a bag, then you go to a medium sized room with several shower heads spraying towards the middle...
so you don't just get your shower, you get the water bouncing off a dozen naked homeless guys...
the water is a tepid, narrow, painful jet...
i caught scabies and athletes foot...
...
i've taken one other one at a shelter in another city and state and it was identical...
....
gym is way better, otherwise i'd rather take a bird bath in a random bathroom sink...
Oh definitely, it's not a great option regardless so if you have the ability to pay, the gym is definitely the better option.
To add to @garbagebagel's point I am not sure that a homeless person with a car is very common in Eurasia.
But come to think of it, this depends on how much people are willing to move around and at what point are they considered homeless, e.g. if they can't afford to sleep anywhere except for the car but have a room in a next town etc.
Also, I am now not sure what is the statistics of ownership of things like cars in a group of homeless people in different places. Could be wrong about the idea that most homeless own close to nothing but don't know if such a statistic exists.
Not American. BasicFit and similar chains allow you access to all their gyms across Europe. Obviously, the car will be a problem here. If you can afford it, something like the citroen berlingo will do. They're everywhere, relatively affordable, and not super noticeable. If that's not an option, there's the library or public transport, combined with the occasional hostel. Not ideal, but better than sleeping on the street and not being able to wash at all.
How enraging is it that this is genuinely the best advice for a huge chunk of the US population, we are the richest country in the world :(
I echo the sentiment, but the US is barely in the top 10 richest countries in the world.
https://www.worldatlas.com/gdp/the-richest-countries-in-the-world.html
A lot of those countries are just tax havens where companies like to "headquarter" their businesses and where rich people hide their money. Some have a low official population, and rely on exploiting foreign workers for much of the labor done (non-citizens don't count towards "capita").
Learn to fix things yourself. Mend your clothes, fix your bike or car, patch drywall, whatever. Learning to do things gives you the option of to save money doing it yourself. If you don't learn, your only option is to pay someone else to do it.
Absolutely.
Changing the oil in your car only requires a spanner, pan, and household stuff like cloth rags. You can do it in your driveway faster than you can drive it round-trip to the dealership. I've saved heaps over the years.
House painting is a good skill. I knocked over $20k off my house build price by picking up a paintbrush. It was about 2 weeks of work and maybe $1k in supplies.
Learn computer maintenance. Like, how to format it and start over. How to diagnose and fix small issues. So many people buy new computers just because their old one is clogged with cruft. I fixed computers that others threw out, and avoided upgrade costs for decades.
Most importantly - learn to cook. Home cooking is so much cheaper.
Changing the oil in your car only requires a spanner, pan, and household stuff like cloth rags. You can do it in your driveway faster than you can drive it round-trip to the dealership. I’ve saved heaps over the years.
Are your car services limited to changing the oil? Because mine aren't. They include all kinds of checks for degrading parts (filters, brake pads etc), and while I could possibly do all that myself if I had the time and could get hold of a shop manual for my car, I'd also need to acquire the parts first. On the other hand, my car doesn't need changing oil outside of the 15000km service interval.
What you absolutely should learn is how to change a tyre. So many people don't know how to do it and have to get assistance when they have a flat...
When I was new to it, I would just do the oil, then get the shop to do the other stuff. Fluids and filters are the low-hanging fruit. They charge a huge amount for something that requires little skill or equipment.
Once the dealer quoted me $300 to change the radiator fluid. I didn't even own a garden hose at that point, but I bought one, figured out how to flush coolant, and saved about $250.
Later on I started doing brake pads, gearbox oil, suspension bushes and little tidbits. The only "service" I paid for in the last 3 years is a head gasket replacement. Hopefully I get another 20 years out of it.
Same goes for home repair. Learn to spackle and patch drywall, change a doorknob, install a toilet, snake a drain, and replace a capacitor or heating element in your hvac system. These are things anyone can learn to do with minimal tools and inexpensive parts, but will cost hundreds to hire a professional.
A lot of times its even quicker than calling someone, making time and then having them work at your house.
Also spackling is the fucking best.
It also broadens your horizon because you know how things work and what to look for in them quality-wise
SLPT: Get depression! You'll lose all interest in most things, instantly cutting spending on those things by 100%!
Unless you manage your depression by trying to fill that bottomless pit with stuff on the net.
ill do u one better
get so depressed you get into calisthenics then you can do full body workouts with minimal equipment alone in your room and get shredded for super cheap. given u diet but healthy foods can be cheap in bulk/cans
I know credit cards can be a slippery slope for some, so learn how to practice financial discipline before getting one.
That said, if you're not paying with a credit card, you're paying at least 2 percent too much for everything you buy except the things that can't easily be paid for with a credit card.
That adds up big over the years.
Credit cards should be avoided at all times, unless you have the money to pay them off each month. Or if you're getting zero-interest financing and you are able to stick to the plan of paying it off before interest gets added.
Getting into credit card debt is one of the most common and worst poverty traps. Getting behind on credit card bills can ruin your credit and take years to repair, which impacts your financial stability when it comes time to make a purchase with Real Credit such as a home or car.
My best poverty tip is to not buy expensive things that are unnecessary. Also cook your own food at home, and learn to repair anything that you value. I've saved thousands of dollars over the years by doing my own car repairs, and driving old cars long past having them paid off.
A credit card is a spending tool, not a debt tool. If you buy things with a CC that you can't pay for right away you are doing it wrong.
Get a cashback $0 fee card and use it for everything you need and nothing you want.
When I started out my limit was less than I made in a month and I paid for everything with it. That was hard to fuck up and helped me build good spending habits. Currently I have one that is about 2x my monthly salary that I use for larger purchases but still the concept remains similar.
I know credit cards can be a slippery slope for some, so learn how to practice financial discipline before getting one.
My neighbors living in a slumlord's two bedroom apartment Rent to Own everything. The got a TV from Rent to Own so big it had to be delivered cause it didnt fit in their car ... i got the cheapest roku pos tv at walmart for $50.
Their daughter when she comes over to play with my kids has told me about so many frivolous things from Rent to Own they probably pay more to Rent to Own per month than in actual rent for their appartment.
As someone who used to work at rent a center. Fuck rent a center and rent to own businesses in general.
Plus if you're young it builds a credit score. Get a credit card, pretend that it's your debit card. Set up automatic payments.
This is the way. December is always my spendiest month and cash back from the previous year nearly always makes up for the difference.
On average people spend around 5% more with credit cards. That 2% cash back is a partial refund of increased spending.
Yeah, don't spend more. Use it as a debit card.
And, again, make sure to be financially responsible and literate before you get a credit card.
Any place to get a proper gist of what financially literate means in this context? I know maybe a few basics but always wondered about the best way to utilize credit to a long term benefit.
Basically use any credit card as you would any debit card. That means never spend any money you don't already have in your account. And always pay the full statement balance every month on time to avoid paying interest.
That way you will get all the rewards and none of the drawbacks.
And what happens when a big purchase comes along that I really need, like my car breaking down or just a new mattress? I always figure that's where the utilization starts going up and there's only so much that can be paid off before the next billing cycle.
Remember a lot of effort and money is spent into brainwashing us from young ages to be constantly be buying shit we don't need and to feel like we are living bad lives if we don't have it.
Remember it's bullshit, remember that you are more than the fucking trinkets and landfill filling they want you to trade all your time for.
Boycott shit, find any reasonable moral cause as a good reason not to buy something. There's almost always a good reason not to buy something that you don't need.
I feel like it would take just as much effort and basically a whole other upbringing, in a sense, to become accustomed to all the things we were raised with. So i get what you mean, but I dont know exactly how possible it really is, or none of us would really be here, for example.
learn the Maslow's hierarchy of needs and make sure your money has a most bang for the buck in regards to shelter / food / safety
The library has all your entertainment if but it does require a change of mindset
stay away from anything that only has one type of use, find things that can be used for multiple uses and try and buy it used if possible
Thrift stores sell clothing for pennies on the dollar. You can put together a professional wardrobe for less then a new pair of Levis
Mostly agree, but a lot of thrift stores in the US have gotten significantly more expensive and lower quality over the past 10-20 years. You can blame resellers (like vintage stores) for at least the second part of that, but also fast fashion in general.
I have been to hundreds of thrift stores across the country. Rarely are any two the same. Rarely are they the same store if you visit it months later. And some are expensive but if they are, they usually have better stuff. Visit the stores in the areas that are generally poor and you will still find lots of hidden jems at deep discounts to the retail price. So much so that it's always worth the extended trip outside of your neighborhood.
Heck I have a some near me that I know as different places to look for things. One area is cheaper, one more high end goods, one tends to have older stuff, just because it depends on the people donating!
I cook a lot, I strongly agree with avoiding things that only do one thing.
That slapchop looks real handy, don't it? Wait till you gotta clean it. Any time savings are instantly lost, and now you have nooks and crannies for bacteria/detritus to hide in.
Look, generally speaking: if you don't see professionals using something, there's likely a good reason for it. Maybe you're doing something smarter than a pro. But that's rare, remember that.
Sometimes the reason the pros aren't using a thing is because they have spent 10 hours a day, 6 days a week for 20 years learning how to do it that way. Sometimes the tool is just more sensible.
You're right, sometimes it is. However, in a society whose existence is centered around consumption, beware the salesman. The point is to think about the purchase: most of the time you don't need it.
To add onto this, Goodwill is the worst thrift store, so try to poke around and find some mom and pop thrift stores. They do more good with donations and charge far less when you're buying (plus will usually help you out if you are really in a bind and need something)
It requires a bit of financial discipline, but having a credit card that you religiously pay off in full every month can be a really powerful budgeting tool when money is tight. It lets you combine paychecks or borrow from a future week's budget so you can take advantage of bulk prices or a really good sale price to stock up on things you use a lot of. And once you get stocked up on all your staple items, the money you would have spent on those things gets freed up for other things for weeks, or maybe even months at a time.
Speaking of stocking up on bulk items, my Costco membership has saved me a ton of money since I've had it. It might not make the best budgetary sense for everyone, but my membership fee more than pays for itself just with what I save on gasoline. Even when they don't have the best price on something, often the quality you get for the price still makes a lot of their stuff worth it for me. But even if I don't find a deal on something it's always nice to be able to grab a huge rotisserie chicken that I can make meals out of for most of a week for $4.99.
Also drink tea, or just mix some boiled water with your regular water. Drinking room temp water when your room is cold will make you feel cold.
Get a thermos that has proper insulation and you will have a cold/hot drink for half a day.
This gets complicated. The small heater is almost certain to be resistive electric heat. Your central heat could be anything. In my area, the gas furnace is usually cheaper to run for the entire house than it is for a space heater in a single room.
OTOH, if you have a resistive electric furnace, your advice is spot on
Electric heaters may actually cost more in electric bills than you would spend on heating. It depends on the type of heating and the size of your space, but something like natural gas might cost less to keep the whole house at 65 degrees, rather than trying to warm a single room from 45 degrees with a space heater.
Well in my case we spent $500 on heating centrally and only about $200 after switching to space heaters
Brush your teeth twice a day. Floss daily
Go for a 20 minute walk a few times a week
Don't have a pet
Prevention is much cheaper than dentists and doctors in America
Pets are amazing but if you're searching the couch for extra change for a meal they don't need to be in your life.
Holy crap pets. Both of my dogs passed, but it was about $1,000/yr each for normal stuff, when you add it all up. Food, vet, boarding, toys, beds, etc. you aren't kidding.
I also know that people will skip better food and the vet, meaning they end up with unhealthy pets too.
Buy solids, don't buy liquids. Solids are cheaper specially if you buy in bulk.
Don't buy drinks at fast food restaurants.
Eat less meat.
Drive less.
Having cheese as an ingredient is not the same as melting cheese.
Find an italian pasta dish where they just boil the pasta and then fucking melt cheese on it. Barf
Butter is fat. In any case, cheese sauces are made with pasta water and are part of the cooking process. You don't just melt cheese.
It's butter and cream. It's liquid cheese in the same sense soup is if you grate some parm over it.
Fucking burgers
It equal parts parmesan and cream/butter. That's basically enough fluid to make parmesan liquid.
If you have a Sam's or Costco in your area, you can get past the membership by using a gift card. You can also buy a gift card without a membership. Sometimes they're sticklers about it if you're there super early, because that's apparently "special members hour" or some shit, but the worst that happens is they tell you to leave.
If you can save up $15-20 for a 25lb sack of rice, it'll last about 100-150 meals, which means it's about 10-20¢ per meal. Just keep it in a plastic container to keep bugs out.
Get some cheap frozen vegetables and bulk, dried beans and you can eat pretty good for like a dollar per day.
Honestly it's kinda cruel that buying in bulk saves a ton of money, but the people that need it most can't afford to.
I'm not 100% convinced that buying in bulk at Costco saves significant amount of money. At least on staples anyway.
The best deals I've gotten at Costco were electronics. But things like chicken thighs ($1.39 / lbs at Costco vs $1.49 / lbs at the local grocery store)...I don't think it's worth the price.
I bought soap there for $2 or so less than at Walmart. I'm sure it all adds up but between the shitty parking and long lines, I've been debating giving up my Costco membership.
Be sure to compare unit cost, not just overall cost. Often times, the thing you buy at Walmart for $5 is less quantity/weight than the comparable thing you buy at Costco for $4.75.
Access to their gas pump alone will cover the cost of the membership if you drive.
pharmaceuticals are probably the most notable point of savings in-store.
They also sell a lot of expensive shit, so you definitely need to be selective.
But things like chicken thighs ($1.39 / lbs at Costco vs $1.49 / lbs at the local grocery store)…I don’t think it’s worth the price.
2 things:
Combine those factors and I think it's worth it. I have things that are "costco items." Bulk spices, rice and some grains, dog food and treats, chicken, paper towel and TP, plastic wrap, hot dogs, pretty much any cheese, laundry soap, frozen convenience foods (dino nuggets, kirkland pizza, eggos, etc) and even some produce. Anyway, I go maybe once a month, and I've done the math many times over and it more than pays for itself. I wish I lived closer, because there are some things that I would buy more frequently that are way cheaper usually - milk, eggs, salad mix, fruit, etc.
But yeah, this is a 6 person house, with 3 adults and two teenagers.
Oh, last thing. Buying quite a lot of things at Costco is basically like buying an extended warranty or insurance. If you're going to buy a TV, for example, and Costco sells something that's close, buy that one. The OEM is going to offer a 1 year warranty, Costco will take that return for much longer.
In my area, a rotisserie chicken is $10 now, but it's still $5 at Costco.
The thing is, "significant" in this case is subjective. I perfectly understand why it wouldn't be worth it for some people.
Costco meats are very good quality afaik so that might be why they seem similar prices, or meat is just not something you save on at costco. Buying cheese at costco is like 75% off & cereal is like 50% off. Pretty sure I could make a costco membership worth it with 1 visit of non-perishables.
Costco's return policy and extended warranty also make it a much better place to buy higher price electronics
You aren't entirely wrong. Most items at bulk clubs aren't cheaper than other stores, just bigger. There's generally a handful of items worth getting, and everything else should be avoided. Also Costco is usually more expensive, because they have random products that are organic, non-gmo, artisan things that cost more without good justification.
It really depends on what you buy. Some stuff is crazy cheap, others are pretty much the same price. If you're buying a single shirt from Sam's you're probably better off going to Walmart. Always check the per-unit price, and only buy what you're sure you will use. My favorite brand of yogurt is cheaper per unit than the great value brand at Walmart, and is almost 50% lower compared to buying it in packs of 4... But it takes up half a shelf in the fridge. But generally meat is just as expensive at Walmart/Kroger, often you can get it cheaper on sale at Walmart/Kroger than you can get at Sam's, and it's already in packages that you can just toss in a freezer.
Also, I don't know if Costco has it, but the Sam's app lets you scan and pay with your phone, so there's no lines for checkout or anything. That doesn't work to use the gift card trick though.
I live in an area with a Sams club a inconvenient distance away and no Costco, Sam's has been getting less and less worth bothering with, as the prices are getting less competitive, and the product quality degrading as Walmart's distribution takes its toll (don't even get me started on the shit quality of Walmart these days) plus dealing with large quantities of product when you have a small home can be very annoying. At this point I only buy soaps, toilet paper and baby wipes at Sams Club and that barely comes out ahead of the membership cost, and I've already had to stop buying one of the soaps because they switched to only selling a container that would simply be too inconvenient at home.
Aldi seems to have the real food savings, although my last trip I noticed the prices had crept up a little, they still beat Walmart and the local supermarket chain on prices by far
Tell you to leave? Not if there's a pharmacy inside! Non members are allowed to use their pharmacy and their food court.
I believe the pharmacy one is by law, too.
I think they get around this by having the pharmacy hours be a few hours offset from their actual business hours. My local Sam's opens at 8 for "plus" memberships and the pharmacy doesn't open until 10 when the poor normal members can start shopping.
This may no longer be true, but when I had my own Sam's membership it was cheaper to get the business club card than the regular you imply is for the poors. They did zero checking that the business even existed, you only had to list a business name.
A huge part of living poor is buying and selling items when you no longer need them. This applies to a lot of things but I have the most experience with cars. For the love of God, research exactly what you're trying to sell. Learn everything about it, it's features, age, learn how to fairly and objectively grade its condition, and learn what the actual value of it is (not just what you want to get). If you don't know exactly what you're selling, there are so many people put there who will try to get one on you by lying about it. The other day, I had someone tell me that my car wasn't worth as much as I had it listed for "because it wasn't one of the manual ones" for a model that was only released in automatic.
These two meals kept me more or less healthy as a student, even through "omg I have 10 eur to last me 2 weeks".
Cook your own food. Ready made meals will always be made with as much cheap non nutritional filler as possible. Learn how to use a few spices, buy produce that is cheap with the season and keep track of weekly discounts in your local stores. It will save you money, you'll eat better and it's rewarding to have a tasty meal in the end.
Also I'm surprised how many people don't seem to understand pricing in general. When comparing prices, see the price per weight or volume. That is money/kilogram or money/liter (substitute with freedom units). Money per package can be deceiving if you compare 75 money for a smaller package or 95 money for a larger.
Edit: If the need to learn spices makes you overwhelmed, start out with some spice mixes! Pick a couple of different blends that are different, like one Cajun Mix and one Mediterranean and one oh idk something else culturally generic. Also salt, pepper, paprika and bullion. There. You can make lots of different sorts of foods and learn on the way what spices you like. Don't be afraid to experiment. Don't get discouraged. Some stuff will turn out meh, but others will make you go wow. All of those are learning experiences for the future!
On the cooking one, I also recommend cooking double portions when you can. If you can cook twice as much with minimal effort, that's half the cleaning you have to do afterwards and half the meal planning you have to do. You get up in the morning and know that you have leftovers from dinner ready to go for lunch in the fridge. Also, rice. Rice is cheap, good for you, and incredibly flexible in what you can do with it. A rice cooker is also a great appliance to have in general. Not only is it an easy set and forget for a pot of rice, but you can do all sorts of meals in it from steaming meats and vegetables to cooking soups and even baking desserts. An air fryer is similarly flexible and great for making meals for one person. You don't have to preheat it or anything and it doesn't cost all the energy that a full size oven does.
That's true. Food prep is great for the economy and also for the soul. You can generally find larger amounts cheaper per weight and it's nice to know them you get home and are tired that there is some good food waiting to be reheated.
If you have any public drug coverage and you can't afford food, you might be able to get your dr to "prescribe" food (stuff like Ensure, Resource, etc) and have it filled for free from public exceptional coverage.