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.
Here’s the trick I used when I was young and poor. I worked for cash with an estate liquidator, and I saw the passion some of the customers had for their collectables. I decided to develop that flavor of passion for a collection of $20 bills.
For me, the hardest part of saving money (assuming it’s even a possibility) is avoiding the trap of saving to spend. The savings itself has to become a goal, and that can be really, really boring.
Another tactic I used was to always save double the value of a large planned purchase: if I started with $500 and I wanted a $200 item, I’d save until I had $900 before spending. That way my stack never felt like it was diminishing.
A lot of times you don’t need to buy containers, you can reuse the ones where your food came from.
For example inside my freezer there are three ice cream pots, but none of them has actual ice cream - it’s tomato paste, chickpeas, cat food. In the past I’ve also reused margarine and requeijão pots to store leftover food, as makeshift planters, etc. The requeijão pots even worked as drinking glasses in my uni times.
Kubuntu on my desktop and Fedora KDE on my laptop. I probably should explore some other DEs (I have some experience with cinnamon and xfce) but just really like KDE lol.
Windows
but used to be on Gnome Wayland, Arch
why did i go back? temporarily, just wanted to try out new windows stuff in windows 11, they actually improved the os quite a lot (package manager is a nice bonus feature).
Still going to return to linux eventually, probably to KDE 6 on Arch or Debian Sid once it’s released and stable
Sign up for a health savings account and USE IT. (United States specific advice.)
It lowers your taxable income. The only caveat is you have to remember to use that money to buy things you were already going to buy anyway. Convenient hack to know what you can and can’t use: Doordash now labels HSA-eligible items at CVS. You don’t have to actually use Doordash to see which items you can buy with your HSA card.
You actually don’t have to spend money with an HSA, ever. You can invest it, and it rolls over. FSAs must be spent within the year you contribute, though.
Sorry, I didn’t say that clearly. What I mean is you have to remember to use the damn HSA card when you go to buy Tylenol instead of your normal payment method. This is…where I tend to fail lol
It’s also good to not use it, if you can afford to keep it and spend normally. HSA space is extremely limited, because it’s by far the best retirement account available. FSAs are fantastic for spending, as they don’t have as many restrictions and don’t carry over year over year.
If you save the receipt you can send it in to your HSA provider and have the expense reimbursed from your HSA. You can do this for many many years after the actual purchase date
There is a massive list of HSA eligible expenses, too. I am not advocating that people go out and spend their HSA money frivolously, but if you need to buy something that seems medical-related and you already have HSA funds, maybe look into getting reimbursed.
The coolest one to me is if you’re overweight or at risk for things like diabetes or atherosclerosis you may be able to get your doctor to write you a note allowing you to get things like fitness classes, gym membership fees, or fitness equipment (stationary bike, treadmill, etc.) paid with your HSA funds. In many cases prevention is the cure, and exercise is hugely hugely beneficial in preventing and managing a wide range of maladies so if you stick to it you may actually be saving yourself an even bigger medical expense down the line.
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