The Unofficial Kiwi Poorfag Resource Thread - share recipes and resources for your area (both government and personal) here

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

Keeping an eye out for clearance and mark-downs at stores is rewarding, but you always have to keep in mind how much things usually sell for.

Once you're looking for those red/orange/yellow stickers, you fixate on it like your monkey ancestors would fixate on known-edible berries, and it gets easier to spot them. However, now your instincts are telling you "buy," but it might not actually be cheaper than the generic, or even the regular price at a different store.

At the local supermarket they have specials like "2 for €4" but it is still more expensive than buying two at the regular price of another store. It's not cheaper just because it is on sale.

Also please learn what price per kilogram/lbs actually means. People buy a net/container of veggies for 3 money because it seems cheaper than the loose ones that cost €15 per kilo yet the net/container works out to €20 per kilo and you can't even pick and reject the ones you actually want.

 

[Hongourable Madisha]

At the local supermarket they have specials like "2 for €4" but it is still more expensive than buying two at the regular price of another store. It's not cheaper just because it is on sale.

Sometimes the ones here charge ridiculously high prices for a couple of days, just so that they can put it back down to the normal price and sell it with a big "NOW 50% OFF!" sticker on it. It's a marketing scam, they'll almost never charge £10 for a box of strawberries, or even £5, but now they can advertise it as if it were a special offer.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

Sometimes the ones here charge ridiculously high prices for a couple of days, just so that they can put it back down to the normal price and sell it with a big "NOW 50% OFF!" sticker on it. It's a marketing scam, they'll almost never charge £10 for a box of strawberries, or even £5, but now they can advertise it as if it were a special offer.

Sometimes it is seasonal, like 50% off on factory farmed blueberries. Why would I pay to eat polish blueberries? I can pick my own and they are a thousand times better.

 

[lowenergy]

I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it, but part of what kept me fed in my twenties was working at various breweries/restaurants/grocery stores. The pay is often shitty, the hours are long, and your coworkers are usually self medicating with coke lines in the walk-in but one thing you can always count on is a shift meal, first pick of food to take home, etc.

Not every restaurant/bakery/grocery store is like this, but the ones I worked at would always let their employees take stuff home instead of throwing it in the trash. Especially stuff that is season dependent/goes bad quickly/can’t be resold. It was so nice to take home flats of organic berries, rotisserie chickens, etc and sometimes I really miss it.

Even if you don’t necessarily want what they’re giving you, take it and trade it. At one job we would get a case of beer a week and I would trade it to the baristas at my local coffee shop and get free coffee.

Sometimes there are hidden perks/benefits of jobs that might not pay the most that will keep you better fed while you’re in college/working your way up to a better paying field.

 

[Little oak tree]

The system we globally live in is designed to eat certain people and be sustained on human suffering, it's a garbage system that needs to be changed all together from the roots.
It's designed to keep feeding the billionaires on top, and the ones who control money.
But it will collapse on it's own weight, just start staring up instead on down into the homeless and other victims of it's gears.

 

[NOT Sword Fighter Super]

The system we globally live in is designed to eat certain people and be sustained on human suffering, it's a garbage system that needs to be changed all together from the roots.
It's designed to keep feeding the billionaires on top, and the ones who control money.
But it will collapse on it's own weight, just start staring up instead on down into the homeless and other victims of it's gears.

But I think we can all agree we need to bulldoze homeless camps.

 

[Hongourable Madisha]

Growing your own vegetables ought to save money, but it often ends up being more expensive because you're told to buy all kinds of paraphernalia like compost, plant feed, slug protection etc. I still recommend it, especially for fellow PoorBongs because of upcoming food shortages and there not being enough land in our tiny country to feed our large population.

To make gardening cheaper:

• Use your own piss as plant feed. No need to buy. Dilute it before feeding, and it makes an ideal feed with lots of micro nutrients. Meat eaters should usually dilute it to 1/10, and vegans 1/3.
• Strip the copper from old electrical wires, and wrap it around plant stems to stop slugs and snails eating your grow. Make a closed circle around the mud of seedlings too small for a stem. I saw this tip on the TV recently, but can personally confirm that copper really works, and I will not be buying copper tape/netting anymore.
• If you live by the sea, fresh seaweed (not dried) is also a good slug deterrent, and fertilises the soil.
• Your own garden mud, in most cases, will be adequate for growing vegetables. You don't need compost. Depending on your soil type, you may need special composts for some crops (eg blueberries need acidic soil).
• Which brings me to my next point, grow veg that do well in your area. Eg, carrots do well in sandy soil, pumpkins do well in heavy rich soil and like hard water. Spinach doesn't like heat, okra needs a lot of heat.
• Making your own compost is easy, all you do is alternately layer "greens" which is fruit and veg waste and fresh garden waste, and "browns" which is sawdust, brown leaves, cardboard etc. You don't need a bin unless you have animals. Just pile in on the soil. Or you can bury it among your veg and let the worms eat it.

Adding to the piss fertiliser thing (put it on the random.txt): use a menstrual cup or reusable cloth pads, and when you rinse them in cold water, use the water as plant food. Then wash the pads like normal laundry after you've rinsed them once. It's one of those rare crunchy hippie things that actually works.
You can also make your own cloth pads. Here's a tutorial, it explains the different types of fabric you need for the layers - old T-shirts and towels are good, and since they're cotton they don't give you thrush.
Also if you're somewhere that charges luxury sales tax on tampons you can save a lot of money over time like this. My cup's paid for itself several times over by now, it cost like £15 and lasts about ten years. I got a spare one for when I boil the first one, but even then it's less than I used to spend.

 

[Water-T]

I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it, but part of what kept me fed in my twenties was working at various breweries/restaurants/grocery stores. The pay is often shitty, the hours are long, and your coworkers are usually self medicating with coke lines in the walk-in but one thing you can always count on is a shift meal, first pick of food to take home, etc.

Not every restaurant/bakery/grocery store is like this, but the ones I worked at would always let their employees take stuff home instead of throwing it in the trash. Especially stuff that is season dependent/goes bad quickly/can’t be resold. It was so nice to take home flats of organic berries, rotisserie chickens, etc and sometimes I really miss it.

Even if you don’t necessarily want what they’re giving you, take it and trade it. At one job we would get a case of beer a week and I would trade it to the baristas at my local coffee shop and get free coffee.

Sometimes there are hidden perks/benefits of jobs that might not pay the most that will keep you better fed while you’re in college/working your way up to a better paying field.

Having worked in a few food service jobs, it all depends on where you work. Let me present two different examples: (Trying not to PL so i'm going to be as vague as possible)

One chain was a upper-range sit down place, like TGI Fridays except they didn't microwave anything. My coworkers were cool, my boss was super nice, the pay was decent, and we got to hook our Spotify to the PA system after hours and play what we wanted. I got a huge discount on food so I always came early so I could order lunch/dinner there for pennies on the dollar. Some days I got lucky and someone would make a to-go order online/by phone and then never show for some reason. My boss knew I was a poorfag and gave me the food instead of tossing it in the trash. I'm still friends with some of my former coworkers online, and i miss both working there and the food.

The other job was at a major chain with food ranging from OK to MEH. Lost my then job to the coof and was desperate to keep on affording rent and food. Pay was shit, the food was shit, the hours were shit, the customers were shit, and my fucking boss wanted me to do stuff way out of my job purview with no bonus pay, like do landscaping work for the restaurant. MOTHERFUCKER ARE YOU SERIOUSLY ASKING ME TO CLIMB TREES AND CLEAR 100 LB LIMBS FOR LESS THAN $10 AN HOUR? After two weeks I managed to find a better job and didn't bother to call to let them know that i quit. Fuck that place and their crap food.

 

[eternal dog mongler]

like do landscaping work for the restaurant. MOTHERFUCKER ARE YOU SERIOUSLY ASKING ME TO CLIMB TREES AND CLEAR 100 LB LIMBS FOR LESS THAN $10 AN HOUR?

That's when you "fall" and claim worker's comp.

 

[Hongourable Madisha]

Scrap jelly! Recipe

Lots of food waste can be used for things like this. Candied peel, orange oil for cleaning, all sorts.
I made this scrap jelly with apples some neighbours gave me from their tree (they had a glut), leftover stalks from wild lavender and mint, and some sugar and cheap concentrated lemon juice (which could be replaced with just putting old squeezed lemons in the pot too). Even the jar, string and paper are recycled. And when you wash up the pan, boil some water in it and you have a squash drink.

Fancy hipster fare for almost free. It's one of those things that adds a lot of value to cheap things and makes good presents, I brought this round for the neighbours in exchange for MORE apples.
Similar, bake potatoes, scoop out the flesh to make mash, and keep the baked shells to make loaded skins. Add cheese and leftover beans/chilli/stew/lunch meat/whatever you have and bake again.

 

[TokyoMeatballs]

I learned this trick from my Grandpop when we were broke as fuck.
Go around your local super market and pick up receipts people throw on the ground, and when you find one with food you like, keep it.
Write an email to the company who makes the food you want, complaining that you bought their frozen pizza or whatever and when you opened it it was clearly spoiled.
99% of the time they will send you coupons for a couple free pizzas, or your food of choice, and an apology with no questions asked. If they ask when you purchased it just attach a photo of the receipt. It's not exactly honest, but honesty doesn't fill your stomach when you're hungry.

 

[Lone Dogma]

If you have a VPN, set up a BBC account, make your address one of their headquarters and you can watch a fuck ton of stuff on iplayer, including several popular films and currently, the entirety of new Top Gear. For free, might I add.

 

[Water-T]

Scrap jelly! Recipe

Lots of food waste can be used for things like this. Candied peel, orange oil for cleaning, all sorts.
I made this scrap jelly with apples some neighbours gave me from their tree (they had a glut), leftover stalks from wild lavender and mint, and some sugar and cheap concentrated lemon juice (which could be replaced with just putting old squeezed lemons in the pot too). Even the jar, string and paper are recycled. And when you wash up the pan, boil some water in it and you have a squash drink.
View attachment 3670856
Fancy hipster fare for almost free. It's one of those things that adds a lot of value to cheap things and makes good presents, I brought this round for the neighbours in exchange for MORE apples.
Similar, bake potatoes, scoop out the flesh to make mash, and keep the baked shells to make loaded skins. Add cheese and leftover beans/chilli/stew/lunch meat/whatever you have and bake again.

Bingo. When I make peach cobbler, I save the peels and boil them with tea bags to make peach tea. Apple peels provide pectin for jam. Citrus peels can be boiled in syrup to make candied peels, or soaked in vinegar or vodka for flavored vinegars and vodkas. Save the scraps from veggies like the stems and peels from carrots and onions in freezer bags, which can be used to make stock.

 

[CptnSnshn]

Just don't be poor lol

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it, but part of what kept me fed in my twenties was working at various breweries/restaurants/grocery stores. The pay is often shitty, the hours are long, and your coworkers are usually self medicating with coke lines in the walk-in but one thing you can always count on is a shift meal, first pick of food to take home, etc.

I worked in the maritime business for some years when young. Miserable work, good pay because no sane person would want it, the perk of it all was that since I was a good worker I could take whatever seafood I wanted. When I say miserable work I mean that most people quit on their first day. But free large angry lobsters, buckets of shrimp, tuna steaks you cut yourself, king crab legs... all for free.

If you are interested in having a job like that find your local fisheries or intakes(if you're in a coastal city) and knock on their doors asking if they are hiring. Someone will always be hiring. even if they're not you should go back, on of their employees might have overdosed.
Your qualifications will be "yeah I skinned salmon at [find a company] previously". If you say that you have touched a fish and wasn't grossed out you will be a prospect.

 

[lowenergy]

Another vital area of life that they don’t teach you about in school: renting. When you’re poor, you normally have to rent your living space. Not knowing what the fuck you’re doing can send you into a financial black hole, so here are some important tips to avoiding getting screwed by landlord/property companies/roommates:
-When you move into a new place, take photos and video of EVERYTHING and note it on the move in/move out report. No matter how tiny or insignificant. Most places require a security deposit, sometimes a really high one, and they can deduct all kinds of shit out of it when you move out. Sometimes it’s justified, sometimes it’s not. Keeping a detailed record of any damage/wear to the unit before you moved in can protect you from shenanigans when you move out.
-Educate yourself on your local laws and renter protections. Not everyone has morals, and slumlords often take advantage of young, poor, or otherwise disenfranchised renters because they assume you don’t know your rights and can’t afford to hire a lawyer. Lots of major cities also have rental protection hotlines that can put you in touch with lawyers who offer legal aid for landlord/tenant disputes.
-Don’t ever communicate with your landlord about anything unless it’s in writing. Use certified mail to communicate if you can. Be polite but firm. If you have to call in an emergency, document it as best you can.
-If you have roommates, and you all chip in to pay electricity or water or whatever, ALWAYS ask to see the monthly bill. Otherwise you might end up in a situation where the person who was supposed to pay the bill suddenly moves out and you find out electric hasn’t been paid in months.

There’s probably a ton more, but those are the first that come to mind. Protect yourself, basically. A huge financial bill resulting from a shady roommate or landlord could potentially wreck your credit, screw up any future rental opportunities, etc etc so it’s an important thing to keep in mind.

 

[¨¨¨]

Probably not very useful,but nonetheless:

They occasionally sell harddrives marketed as "designed for XBOX/Playstation/[some other console]" but more often than not they will work just fine for PC (or any other system that otherwise accepts "regular" harddrives)and could be a viable alternative if you're in need of additional storage and they're cheaper than harddrives not marketed as specialized for a particular system/console.

I recently picked up this one for 150$ and it works just fine for my PC:

Game Drive for Xbox: External Hard Drives for Xbox | Seagate US

 

[CaseyTatumm]

Another pro-poor tip for tv entertainment.....if you have WiFi you can download Pluto TV for free. It has a channel for EVERYONE, not bad for free viewing with a few ads.

You are absolutely right about bartering.

Spoiler: Slight PL

Years ago I traded an old TV to the roomate for a bag of weed lol

Tubi is another good one!

Edited to add:

If you have children, Childrens resale stores are your best friend! You can bring in clothes, toys, baby gear and trade it for store credit.

Also Mercari is great for this, you can sell pretty much anything on there.

 

[GenociderSyo]

One of the easiest recipes we taught the clients was this one and it was not expensive.

Take a wrap taco size for small appettites and burrito for big ones. Squirt some robusto Italian (or regular if you don't like the bite) just enough so you coat it around for taste (like your saucing a pizza). Add in some shred cheese (I personalyl liek mexican 4 cheese for a bit more taste, but any shred will do). Then I add in a few slices of turkey on top and warp it up. A cheap cold snack sandwich that anyone can follow the directions to make.

Also as a resource, 988 is the crisis number now its easy to remember and if anyone ever is in crisis its the number to call. Your states all also have their own warmlines which are a step down line people can call if they are in distress, but not crisis.

The warmline resource can also be used just by senior citizens or others who need to talk to someone due to being alone too long.

 

[Android raptor]

Another poorfag exotic animal hack, if you have snakes or other pets that eat frozen/thawed rodents/etc, try to get in on group feeder orders with other local reptile/etc people. Lots of feeder companies will do free shipping within a certain range with a big enough order, so lots of times people will do big group orders to make it cheaper for everyone all around.

Don't buy feeders at big box stores, they $$$$