Asklemmy

43965 readers

1975 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
[email protected]: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

275

How do you deal with being broke? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

153 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I'm in my 30s so I should be used to this by now, but this shit is getting so stressful guys. I have no savings, my checking account is drained every month with rent, and if there's ever a serious emergency I have no safety net, I'm legitimately fucked. I'm one unplanned expense away from absolute ruin. Those in the same boat as me, how do you deal with this?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It ain't pretty, but here's how I got through it until I started bringing in good money:

No takeout or eating out ever
Get a water filter pitcher and a nice water bottle. Drink only water.
Every paycheck, take out $200 or whatever you can afford. This is your "fun and gas" money. Your gas, hobbies, social life, and dating comes out of this fund. Whatever is leftover when your next paycheck hits goes into savings.
If you can rent a physically smaller place, do so. It will save on utilities.
Don't buy a car unless public transportation or biking is not viable in your area.
Meal plan with the goal of zero food waste. So if you plan to buy an onion and will use half of it in one meal, make sure you have another meal planned that week that uses the other half. Do this with every ingredient. If you're careful and creative you should never have to throw away food. - On this note, get good at cooking. It's much cheaper to cook from scratch.
Cancel your streaming services and learn to pirate safely.

This works but isn't a great way to live. You need to combine it with a plan to either make more money or relocate to a cheaper area while maintaining your current income.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

If you have the option, buy stuff you're always gonna need anyway in bulk when they're on offer. Toilet paper, pasta, rice (except right now rice prices are exploding), coffee etc.
if your super market has marked down prices for "last date" or "close to use by" stuff, that section needs a visit every time you are in the super market
if you have a freezer, you have even more incentive for previous 2 tips

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

One caveat with the food tip is that eating absolute garbage like highly processed frozen food is still gonna be cheaper. I guess it's cause they put so much preservatives and so those have such a long shelf life. Not that I'm advocating for eating that but cooking for yourself is a cheap way to eat something nutritious. But as somebody who's gone through the same grind, it's still honestly just cheaper to eat garbage. But, I legitimately just feel better, think better, and overall am better on food I cook myself. And that improvement has knock on effects for the rest of everything you do in life.