“How To Use And Repair Everything”: 40 Skills That Help People Thrive In Tough Times

Same here. I was a janitor for my first jobs. It keeps one humble.

I was a nursing assistant. Minimum wage job, worked all overnight shifts and weekends to get the little bit of extra pay. I LOVED that job. Wiping butt's while maintaining a patient's dignity...I was good at it, appreciated the elderly I worked with, did not get paid enough to sustain life. 😔 Left that job to make more money. Now that I am nearing retirement (2 yrs 1 month, 25 days) I am looking to renew my connection with the old folks. I will be one of them someday and I hope to pay it forward now. The character of a person is determined by how they treat those who can do nothing for them. Quote from Malcolm Forbes. And so very true.

I'm generally nice to everybody, unless you're an arsehole, and then I can be an arsehole back.

that isn't a poor vs rich thing. that is just an a*****e vs not a*****e. a lot of rich people are nice to service industry people, and a lot of poor people are a******s to service industry people.

I don't think this depends on being rich or poor, but on your upbringing and your empathy. I know several people who were poor as rubbish when they were young, they studied (with scholarships) AND were lucky, and they are the most obnoxious, classist m***********s on Earth. Much worse than people who were born upper middle class or rich. Lots of formerly poor people think they are especial, "chosen", and they are extremely entitled. My granny used to call them "resurrected lice", because they are lice but they think they are the Messiah.

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Grace Note

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Me too and I have contempt for those who don't treat service industry workers with common human decency.

ingrained

Always have been. Worked a lot of same jobs. When COVID hit. They were like " we got toilet paper, lysol, etc just in. Want some?" Plus not an a hole.

Everyone should be.

This one should be universal.

People always treat me like I'm a woodland sorceress when I tell them I sew up holes in my clothes

This is why I am so thankful for the childhood I had. It was JUST bad enough to make me realize it wasn't that bad. Yes there was abuse, some foster homes in there. But at the end of it all I turned 18 in a loving home (my uncle). And I can look back and be grateful for what I did have, and take what I didn't as a lesson.

this should be at the top

I'm very proud of you.😁Always keep your washer, dryer, dishwasher and air conditioner clean. It'll save you A LOT of money in the long run.

I am a jazz pianist. I wished I had the improvisational skills with food, herbs and spices like I have at the keyboard.

Same. Have eaten the same breakfast for about 20 years, and I still wake up almost as happy as my cat, just thinking about it.

In my personal experience, work ethic is instilled, I've known rich and poor with both solid and lacking work ethic.

I do this at any store. I am in the process of paying off my debt and avoid using credit cards.

That's pretty creative actually.

I disagree. Some who are rich have been homeless at one point in their lives.

I have a very broke 38M friend. His goal is to own an F-350 Platinum (fanciest giant Ford truck, $150,000~) by the end of the decade. Not his own home, not any personal development goals, a big expensive truck. He doesn’t need a truck at all, he would treat it like a car. He lives in his grandma’s basement because his parents finally kicked him out for refusing to pay rent or help with the house. His only goal is this expensive truck so he can look cool to his friends. It’s more important to him than being a cool or good person or having new life experiences or enjoying friendships. I’m so glad my ego isn’t like that lmfao.

At 69 years old I am daily thankful my father taught me to use tools. When I meet snobbish people who have to hire someone for even the simplest of repairs, I feel sorry they never experienced the satisfaction of repairing or building something themselves.

Yeah, resilience 100%....... I was living on my own by the time I was 16.... you learn to look after yourself pretty quick when you have no one to turn to....

We planted 140 tomato plants amd now they are all bearing fruit. Canning tomorrow and I'm already tired!

Wth? Who does that? The thigh tastes better anyway.

Yes, the art of being self entertained and self contained.

I used to walk 2 hours every day to work because work started at 6am and there was no public transport. Most I did was 8 hours walking 24 miles overnight to do a 12 hour day. On several occasions. Looking back I don't kjow how I did it but know if i had to id probably do it again.

I moved out of a gorgeous basement suite because my bf at the time thought I could do better. It was $675 a month (when everything else was about $1000 a month) and had a huge bedroom with wall-in closet and screen door to the backyard, lighting was perfect, I was so happy. I was 22 at the time and it’s one of my biggest regrets lol, I shouldn’t have listened to him

You can get designer stuff at thrift stores if you go right when they open and beat the regular resellers. The Salvation Army sells brand new mattresses for a couple hundred bucks. Still a bit steep for me right now. Last time I bought one was about 13 years ago. I need to replace it soon, but it's lasted many years. It's one of those things that don't last forever.

So true! My job is stable, I'm going no where, and thankfully, they agree. My budget is already made out a year in advance so I know where every penny is going and what is potentially expendable if needed (or selfishly wanted come my birthday and mothers day).

Wow, not many people know how to use a vernier caliper!

This has been my biggest lesson, too. Once I was left by an abuser when I ran out of psychological/emotional elements for him to break. Realized he has isolated me so much I had no bridges left, no job, no drivers license (he convinced me not to renew cuz he liked driving me around yuck), not a dime to my name, etc....i had to just let the eviction happen and took a sack of clothes and my dog and started all over. Years later I ended up in a roommate situation where they lied about paying the rent and had found a way to cash my rent checks. They hid all eviction notices (I worked nights) so I had no idea until I came home one day and every single thing I owned was gone (I always had my dog with me even at work). Being broke kept landing me in bad situations and although I broke that cycle, I still exist with the possibility at the back of my mind. And it comes in handy from time to time when things break or something. "Ah well, it's just stuff."

Again, probably a quality Donald Trump never acquired.

Buying dried beans after you get your paycheque, just to be sure you have something to eat when you run out of money.

Your wife is setting herself up to be mugged.

I'm pretty sure that comes naturally to everybody if they don't get enough to eat.

My Toyota Camry is 23 years old. I just keep replacing the add-ons because the engine and transmission just keeps going.

You can’t lose anything when you already have what you need

I wonder if Donald Trump ever learned how to fix any of life's problems. I would assume he always paid someone to fix them or make them go away.

Yesterday I woke up hot as heck and wondered why my air conditioner hadn't cut on. I looked at the thermostat and it was blank. I finally decided to pull the cover off before waking up my husband. The batteries were dead. A small feat, but I'm proud of myself. 😁

Anyone who can survive being poor, or worse, turns out to be a very resourceful person who doesn’t waste time feeling sorry for themself or freaking out or giving up or panicking, but gets right to work getting themself through it and out the other end. There’s time to cry or freak out when they’re finished and in better shape and safe—-and believe me, that delayed reaction does come. They also learn to read the signs and can “smell” trouble, as well as prepare for it, before anyone else even knows it’s coming.

I was homeless at 15 due to extreme abuse at home for being "perverted" because I "acted like a boy" turns out I'm transgender and of course, in a fundamentalist evangelical home, it was decided I was "welcoming demons"blah blah blah. The fridge group (cult, really) my parents had us in meant no friends out of the church, no tv, no hair cutting etc. and we lived where out secular neighborhoods were more than 3 miles away. I had exactly zero social skills when I ran for my life. Eventually I was starving, which was worse than scrambling for shelter in my opinion. Extreme fatigue and pain. One day a gutter punk (look it up? :) saw me looking in the trash outside a restaurant. He scare me, but he taught me that this trash wasn't going to work, and from there I learned to dumpster, turn on electricity and heat in abandoned houses, ride trains, etc. I know now, that so long as capitalism is a thing, corporations and the rich will waste EVERY kind of thing and you can find it. I can survive

I was barely scraping by for over 10 years and have bad anxiety so I definitely did panic, all day every day for years 😅

That's not a fix. The tripped black button is a sign that it needs repair, possibly scale built up inside.

Yes Bilbo.

I can sharpen pencils with knives, but frequently lose part of the innards in the process. I can cut papers by folding and tearing (Hint: use your nails to make a super sharp fold.) I also once met a Romanian who could open a tin can with only a knife don't know how to do the others, does anyone know how to attatch papers together with rics or folding?

Conversely, how to throw one.

Or you read people well enough to pick the easy targets.

So, stealing?