How to be thrifty in times of crisis

[1n50mn14]

Or how to Just Be Thrifty:

1. Walk around your local parks and rivers if you have them, any where those darn kids hang out drinking! Collect the empty beer cans and bottles, wine bottles, vodka bottles, anything that is a liquor bottle or can, and return it to your local beer store. (Also, return all of your OWN empties!)

The porches of hippy houses are a great place to find your empties.

2. Walk along the railway tracks and collect scrap metal pieces. Find a scrap metal dealer in your local Yellow Pages, and sell the scrap metal to him. (An hour and a half of doing this resulted in enough chump change for $15 bucks.)

3. Go dumpster diving at your local grocery stores. A large volume of food is thrown out daily, simply due to a small bruise, or a blemish that does not actually inhibit the item's edibility. Be careful of compactors, security guards, and sharp objects!

4. If you are musically talented (or are even able to toot a few notes on a kazoo) stake out a street corner downtown and put a hat down in front of you. Begin!

5. Plant your own front-yard garden with seeds from veg. you've bought. (Buy your food from the Farmer's Market so that you know it's not from Monsanto, and rendered unable to reproduce).

6. Take a part time job at your local telemarketing firm (locally, it's CSI, :lol:) and make some chump change by phoning people.

7. Sell your own home baking to friends, family, and other clientele as word of mouth spreads. (Mine: 0h Cupcak3!)

[Nightshade]

and if you are doing 1 or 2 rember GLOVES!!!!!- and make sure you have all your nessearry boosters and vaccines and such- tetanus is NASTY!

[sprinks]

Over here only one of the states gives a 5c refund for empty cans and bottles.

[Chava]

On the bottles and cans, it's not just for the sake of a refund, it's also good to let these things be recycled.

Traditionally here when we have parties, the guests bring beer in cans or bottles, and it is the host that cleans up, but gets to deliver 50+cans to the store. :)

[SleepyWitch]

Traditionally here when we have parties, the guests bring beer in cans or bottles, and it is the host that cleans up, but gets to deliver 50+cans to the store. :)
that's cool!

over here, collecting empties for the refunds has been common for a couple of years now. People on unemployment benefits, pensioners and homeless people have been doing it for years. They even claim their own territories were no one else is allowed to collect.

[Sapphire]

Thank you for the tips BeccaT :)

When I was in my early teens, I used to go searching for bottles all the time (cans do not have a refund here). I remember that one beer bottle was 3 gum balls :lol: And if you were lucky, the automatic devise in which you returned the glass bottles recognised "non-refund" bottles as "refund" bottles and you would get money for stuff that was not officially worth anything :)

I guess for now I will leave it to people who are worse off than me though.

[papayahed]

ahhh the good old days, we used to have parties then the next morning go to breakfast on the money back from the empties.

[prendrelemick]

When first married we lived on potatoes for 6 months. You could buy a hundredweight ( thats 112lbs) for 5 quid.

[kasie]

Right, prendelemick, over to the Recipe thread with you: One Hundred and One Things To Do With Potatoes - my peeler is at the ready....

I don't think anyone gives money back on empties in UK any more - you're supposed to recycle them in the bottle/tin banks. And scrap metal dealers have this way of sucking in through their teeth and saying 'Well, there's no call for that sort of thing nowadays....' (At least they used to when I was trying to get rid of scrap when I worked in an engineering company.)

You need a licence if you want to busk in most towns in UK, kazoo, string quartet, whatever. And don't tell anyone if you are selling home-made food or you'll have the Health and Safety inspectors round condemning your kitchen. Even that august body, the Women's Institute, have fallen foul of HSI. Did I hear 'Nanny State' from anyone?

My thrifty tip? Cook It Yourself - I used to do that always years ago when I started out (and mortgage rates rose to an eye-watering 17.5%) but pressure of work, sheer fatigue, etc, etc, turned me to ready made meals. Now I write a menu of meals I fancy, check my freezer, fridge and store cupboards, write a shopping list to fill the gaps and stick to it (sort of...) - I've cut my grocery shopping by a good 50%, have a freezer full of meals I've cooked myself, so I know just what's in them, (cooking for one I often Cook One, Save One). Not only that, I have re-aquainted myself with all those cookery books I have bought over the years and which have been gathering dust on the shelves while I ran myself ragged doing everything but cooking nourishing and sustaining meals and which I promised myself I would use once I'd retired; and I have remembered why my mother was not the least alarmed when I set up in my first flat with not the least notion of how to cook (in her estimation) - 'She'll soon learn, she likes food too much to starve,' she said. :) I've only just remembered - I like cooking!

[TheFifthElement]

Make your own lunch. Your average pre-pack sandwich is both more expensive and less tasty than any you can make yourself. And you know exactly what has gone into it, which is a bonus.

Those of my work colleagues who buy their lunches spend, conservatively, £15 per week on your basic sandwich and crisps combo, and significantly more if they include shop prepared fruit. I spend, roughly £7 including fruit (less if I get off my a*se and go to the market to buy fruit). Less still if I can get away with leftovers (home made soup, pasta, jambalaya, and so on.). You also avoid that annoying hour of lunchtime speculation when you can't decide what you want, because you've already decided what you want and it's there so you eat it. Easy :D

[Annamariah]

Walk or use your bicycle to get to school/work.

When you buy food, eat whatever they're selling cheap this week.

Live in a crappy student apartment which has a low rent.

Live in a small town where all the shops are closed before your working day is over - you'll never have a chance to waste your money on shopping.

Never go to any parties.

Don't have any life besides your studies/work.

---

Yeah, I have such a great life :p But at least my bank account looks nice, and I even manage to save some money every month, so when I graduate, I can maybe get a mortgage and buy myself an apartment.

[dramasnot6]

ahhh the good old days, we used to have parties then the next morning go to breakfast on the money back from the empties.

That's a really great idea. Might have to give it a try.

[Silas Thorne]

5. Plant your own front-yard garden with seeds from veg. you've bought. (Buy your food from the Farmer's Market so that you know it's not from Monsanto, and rendered unable to reproduce).

or start planting in your local community garden, get an allotment, or share an area of your close friend's vege garden. And get a little glasshouse if you can. Plant things that are really dear in the shops too, but yummy.

Knit your own clothing? My wife's joined a knitting group, and she can make lots of warm clothing.

[jon1jt]

Cut your own hair. If it comes out a little messed up and your friends laugh, tell your friends it's the style. It'll take a day or two before they get the hint that you're hip and they're not. Eventually they'll ask you who your haircutter is, and be sure to send them to the most expensive studio in your neighborhood. That'll teach them for laughing. :p

[Carrolb2]

I've been shaving my own head for years. I paid $15 for a pair of clippers, I used to pay that for every hair cut!

[1n50mn14]

^__^ I do my own hair, as well. My mom knits a lot of our dish clothes, blankets, etc. But that's more of a personal preference thing than an (intentional) finances thing.

Friends of mine also live off of the land, for the most part. They have a garden, a green house, sheep, a cow, two goats, some chickens and horses. They eat their own veggies, eggs and meat year round, and one of the sisters spins wool from the sheep. =D

[Bakiryu]

Or how to Just Be Thrifty:

3. Go dumpster diving at your local grocery stores. A large volume of food is thrown out daily, simply due to a small bruise, or a blemish that does not actually inhibit the item's edibility. Be careful of compactors, security guards, and sharp objects!

They don't let you do this at the local walmart. :( They throw out so much stuff it should be a crime!


Or how to Just Be Thrifty:
4. If you are musically talented (or are even able to toot a few notes on a kazoo) stake out a street corner downtown and put a hat down in front of you. Begin!

:lol: I do this! I'm not any good, i think people just give me money to shut up and stop singing!


Or how to Just Be Thrifty:
5. Plant your own front-yard garden with seeds from veg. you've bought. (Buy your food from the Farmer's Market so that you know it's not from Monsanto, and rendered unable to reproduce).

Yeah, our homegrown veggies are so awesome! Also, if you stop eating meat you can save a lot of money!



I save money by using little light, not drinking or smoking or buying superfluous things. Making my own clothes and never throwing anything away ( i have shirts from when i was 10! and i still wear them!) We recycle most things and grow our own food. When i need money i go out on the town and play my cheap guitar or sell my own artwork (people actually buy the stupidest of things!)

Also, people will pay you a lot to babysit on weekdays, nights and holidays. Rich people will also pay you to tutor their kids (especially in foreign languages) and clean their houses!

[damaris77]

I mostly stop buying the superfluous things & don't waste. Waste not want not.

[dramasnot6]

Get an electricity meter to see how much you're using and which appliances use the most. Then work on cutting back little by little.

[NikolaiI]

Buy at the thrift store! :) Naturally.

[Chava]

Buy at the thrift store! :) Naturally.

I see you've got it all covered then. :) Seriously though, thrift store shopping is genious, I haven't bought 'real' clothes for years...