You can buy all kinds of necessities cheap on AliExpress for $1.99 or when they have sales every month for $1.79 this special section only available on there mobile app. Also most cities have food-banks or some churches giving out free food and clothing. There is also a Freecycle.org community kind of like craigslist but for free stuff.
When you just starting in linux and thinking of switching this can be a good thing. I think its better for users to choose and learn on there own instead of recommending them specific distro.