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Article created by: Viktorija Ošikaitė
In 2021, the U.S. poverty rate was 12.8%, but it varied significantly among age groups. For example, among children (people under the age of 18) it was 16.9%, while for those ages 65 and over it stood at 10.3%.
Interested in how these folks get by, Reddit user ReindeerBest8970 made a post on the platform, asking everyone who grew up poor to share what was their go-to money-saving "hack." And their call was answered. As of now, the Redditor's question has received over 900 replies, many of which paint a vivid picture of frugal living.
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#1
Find the nearest food bank and get yourself some food. There's no shame in that. In my experience they never gave you any expired/government type food it was all good quality stuff. I remember I got a whole chicken once. It fed me in my roommate for about a week the rest of the food lasted through the month.
Mary Morris 8 months ago
It never ceases to amaze me that people are embarrassed or ashamed to go to the food bank. You need to eat!
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#2
It’s not exactly from “growing up” but when I was going to my community college i knew a guy that just kept taking one class a semester for a renewed student ID so he had access to the gym and common areas and library to keep occupied and sane while trying to sort out the rest of what was going on. The gym helped him stay healthy enough and get his daily shower and the school library kept him mentally occupied.
#3
Learning how to make food from scratch has saved me so much money. Also budgeting my life away; along with having a detailed list of bills owed. It’s important to know what money is going in and out at all times.
I also think it’s important to treat yourself to something, maybe even once a month, to something you want. Even if you’re drowning. I got so caught up in prioritizing bills and debts for a couple of years that I barely even looked at myself, now I try to treat myself to something every paycheck after my bills are payed.
#4
Still poor here. One of my hacks involves groceries. I only have one reusable bag for shopping, not a super big one either. If all the groceries I buy can't fit in this bag, I start putting things back. Usually, the contents of the bag work out to be $50 - $60CDN. It's a nice way of not going to overboard when getting groceries, and this keeps me within my budget.
#5
Quit wasting $ on restaurant food, buy store brand groceries and learn to cook. Don't buy bottled water, reuse a jug and fill with tap water (might depend where you live).
#6
When soap runs out, fill the bottle up with water a little bit.
#7
The public library is my best poor person hack. It’s cool in the summer, warm in the winter, quiet, there’s fun stuff for the kids to do, clean restrooms and water fountains. When my kids were little we kept a steady supply of arts & crafts, books, and dvds from our local library and it was a god send.
#8
You can use vinegar, baking soda or dish soap to clean almost everything. You don’t need to spend money on a bunch of specialty cleaning products. Also, don’t throw away torn/stained clothing or towels. These are your new cleaning rags. Now you don’t need paper towels.
Binky Melnik 8 months ago (edited)
You’ve likely heard 1001 times that the “best” cleaning solution is vinegar mixed with baking soda. Don’t fall for it. Vinegar, an acid, and baking soda, a base, form water and carbonic acid, the latter of which has NO known cleaning properties. You may as well save your money and just use water. (Why do so many people swear by it? The placebo effect, maybe? Hell if I know.) (Me, I use The Pink Stuff; among many other things, I’ve used it to turn old, formerly-white-and-now-beige items snowy-white and brand new again!) (This includes sneaker soles, even. It’s shocking how good it is on nearly EVERYTHING.) (I say “nearly” just because I can’t think of a single thing it hasn’t worked on but my memory’s going, so there *musta* been something it couldn’t clean and I just can’t think of it!) (Sure, it costs more than baking soda and water, but at least it CLEANS!)
#9
Beans and rice are actually quite nutritious.
Binky Melnik 8 months ago
While ice is quite Darby, I use it as a “filler” item to stretch more expensive ingredients out. A huuuge potful of rice and other stuff is delicious, feeds several people, and is economical, too.) (Yes, there was a point when the price of rice SKYROCKETED and it was no longer a bargain, but it’s come back down since, thank cow.)
#10
Before you pay to have something repaired, watch YouTube and see if you can fix it yourself. Try to borrow the tools to do the job. Clean the tools before returning them in a timely manner, and it’s more likely they’ll lend them to you again.
Binky Melnik 8 months ago (edited)
I usta pay $2 every year to have a jeweler change my watch battery; when it got to $16, I’d had enough. I know how cheap batteries are so I got one, then Tubed a vid and now change my batteries myself. Likewise, I came across a $5 gizmo for removing parts of watch bands to make ‘em smaller and bought it (I have 5” wrists) (seriously), and no more insane charges to get my watchbands shrunken so I don’t look as if I’m wearing my dad’s watch! With all the money I’ve saved, I coulda bought four more watches by now!
#11
I always bought the special offer 50c fruit and veg in Aldi. A lot of them freeze well so I'd chop them and freeze them. Fruit went into smoothies or on breakfast cereal, and veg went into soup or other dinners.
#12
If you can't brush your teeth, eat an apple instead to clean your gums and freshen your breath, or use baking soda on a damp rag to gently scrub your gums and teeth.
Remember, just using a toothbrush is about 80% as effective as using toothpaste. Even if you can't afford toothpaste, brush any way.
#13
Sleeping can help you in forgetting that you’re starving.
Mary Morris 8 months ago
And food can help you forget that you're running on pure adrenaline and no sleep because you have three jobs...
#14
Potatoes are the cheapest and most underrated food you can buy and do different recipes with. Dinner was basically $0.15 each.
Binky Melnik 8 months ago
Not to the mention there are about 2048 ways to serve potatoes, every single one of which is delicious. So long as you don’t make it a staple of every meal for your entire life (they’re pretty much straight carbs), you can’t go wrong (or hungry!) eating potatoes!
#15
1. Thrift basically everything. You can find really cheap clothes, furniture, kitchenware, and more in good condition for pennies on the dollar. Especially true if you go to a thrift in a a nicer part of town.
Binky Melnik 8 months ago
Dunno how it is in other parts of the US, but in NYC, it’s no longer such a bargain. As a matter of fact, in many places, the original hang tags are still on the items, and the price is MORE THAN that on the hang tag! 🤬 Still, you *can* still find bargains in the, uh, “lesser” parts of the city (perhaps I should say “poorer neighborhoods”?). I once arrived to a Goodwill as it was open NG and there were boxes of things that hadn’t been open yet. As she was opening ‘em, the lady pulled out a brand-new pairs of Tims in the style I wear, and even better, THEY WERE MY WIZE! I looked at her with hope on my face; she said “Is ten dollars okay?” and I tried to camouflage the pee that was running down my leg. Yep, I got those bad boys! The last paid I’d bought of that model had been $160. (And sadly, the quality of Tims has dropped *drastically. The “leathers cuff around the ankle is no longer leather, and worse, when I put home and pulled ‘em on, the cuffs tore off in my hands. 😰😰😰
#16
Not really hacks, but just what I did. I read somewhere that sweet potatoes were very nutritious. So I would walk to the store and buy a sweet potato every day, then go home and bake it in the oven and eat it, plain. Also also ate tons of rice and fried plantains. Plantains were cheap at local restaurants at the time, like a dollar for a big paper carryout box.
I worked at a place where coworkers would sometimes order food (not me because I was broke). I always offered to clean up and would snag their uneaten food for myself. I even went through the trash to pick out good stuff if they ate while I wasn't around. I know this sounds disgusting but I was so broke and hungry I was wasting away. My pay barely paid my rent so I had nothing left for food. This got me by for a quite a while. This was in New York in the early 90s and there was a recession going on.
#19
Buy generic brands! It's the same things under a different label.
Binky Melnik 8 months ago
This is very true! I worked at a condiment company (ketchup, pickles, mustard, relish, etc). We made both the local brand and also the regional one. On fridays, we were ordered to swap out the regional for the local labels. Usta laugh when people expressed a preference for one over the other (especially when then said “[brand X] is SO vile!” because I knew everything was the same save for the label we put on the bottle jar). Also, think about this: You don’t REALLY think Walmart, CVS, Safeway, Target, and on and on and on REALLY has a factory to make their very own aspirin, fem hygiene products, baby wipes, socks, makeup, rubbing alcohol, sandwich bags, talcum powder, deodorant, bandaids, Kleenex, TP, paper plates, allergy medicine, paper towels … I can do this all day. Let’s shorten this: for the ease of math, let’s say there are 2000 store chains, each selling 500 generic/store brand items. That’d be one million factories.
#20
You can add small amounts of higher quality food to make a struggle meal much better for cheap. Like adding a boiled egg, green onion, maybe some pickled veg, and a few tablespoons of cut up leftover meat to a packet of instant noodles. Makes it much more filling for about a buck. The internet is full of struggle meal hacks that make cheap ingredients much better.
#22
For years I rode a bike everywhere. It is cheap and much faster than the bus unless you have to go a long distance. That was before they had bike racks on the buses.
#23
Watch your parents and learn that the only way to thrive is not to have kids or get married and at the same time stop the generational trauma that's been inflicted upon your forefathers all the way down to you.
#24
Be clean. Taking good care of hygiene, hair cuts, teeth.
Wear clean clothes, press your shirts, dress well. Yes your shirt and pants may be second hand, doesn't mean they have to be unkempt. Clean your shoes or boots, wear a belt to make sure pants fit well as possible.
Being clean and dressed will make you have a better self image, and that will project to others opinion of you.
#25
Ramen noodles!
33 cents a pop and they’ll fill you up for 4 hours.
I’m no longer poor, but just enjoyed a helping of them a few minutes ago!
#26
Foil over your windows if you don’t have air conditioning to keep the heat out.
#27
Keep an eye on sales/coupons. A lot of food stuff goes on sale right before expiration which is great for your wallet if you are ok with freezing meats and veg.
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