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kecske posted:as a student we used to reverse the tails on the electric meter. it was an ancient unit - a little metal disc that span faster the more power you were using which also ran up a number. if you switched the polarity on the incoming supply it would run in reverse and the number went down. later mechanical meters were designed with a little ratchet device that prevented them being reversed to prevent exactly this being done. if you did it too much you'd get rumbled and fined when the power company guy came and saw a house with 6 residents using £4 of electric a month. When I was a couch bum at a friend's stoner flop house the water would often get shut off, prompting one of the lease holders (a trust fund kid (???)) to go pry open the meter box and turn it back on. I don't know what the ramifications were, I can't imagine they love it when households do that.
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Jun 20, 2019 20:34
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Kazak posted:When I was a couch bum at a friend's stoner flop house the water would often get shut off, prompting one of the lease holders (a trust fund kid (???)) to go pry open the meter box and turn it back on. In Houston the water bill for myself and a roommate was like $4 a month or something, it was very inexpensive and the city must have had some kind of threshold for turning off the water due to non-payment because we would skip paying the bill for months at a time then they would come and shut it off and we'd go pay it later that day or the next. At some point we realized that the previous tenant of our house had left a water-wrench tool in the garage that we could use to turn the meter back on so then instead of paying it we would just turn it back on and continue our lives and then pay it at some point in the future. Fast forward about 10 years I was living in a small town in Texas and for whatever reason forgot to pay my water bill one month (and it wasn't because I was poor anymore). They shut off the water and I thought "oh well I'll just go turn it back on and then go pay it tomorrow" only to discover that these fuckers had a little lock they could put on the meter to keep it off.
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Jun 21, 2019 10:13
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Ate pussy  Not for money though. It was my lunch.
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Jun 21, 2019 10:53
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Used credit cards to pay bills while unemployed.
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Jun 21, 2019 12:34
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Uhhh, just lived my everyday life.
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Jun 21, 2019 13:34
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I prefer to call it "unfettered by material wealth", namaste.
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Jun 21, 2019 14:05
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Colonel Cancer posted:I prefer to call it "unfettered by material wealth", namaste. i took a "Vow of Poverty" giving me a +4 to AC, a +2 wisdom, and a bonus feat
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Jun 21, 2019 14:12
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The cheapest meal I could live off of was buying a ten lb bag of rice and a carton of eggs. You cook a cup of rice, then you break an egg in the hot rice and stir it up. I stole soy sauce packets from the bulletproof Chinese store for flavor. I ate this twice a day for a few weeks while I waited on food stamps to kick in. Growing up we really tried to mix it up but we had months where GOYA rice & beans were the only things we could afford and so that’s what we ate. People at church heard my dad died and sent some ladies to go check on us unannounced cuz they thought my mom was on drugs because she was so skinny. When they realized she was just malnourished from keeping us fed and living off grapes and crackers the church started dropping off groceries twice a month. It was nice but then I felt obligated to go to church for like the next few years and that sucked, but it made my mom happy, so w/e
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Jun 21, 2019 14:42
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Bust Rodd posted:The cheapest meal I could live off of was buying a ten lb bag of rice and a carton of eggs. You cook a cup of rice, then you break an egg in the hot rice and stir it up. I stole soy sauce packets from the bulletproof Chinese store for flavor. I ate this twice a day for a few weeks while I waited on food stamps to kick in. What kind of church? I could see hanging out with the Episcopalians or Methodists maybe, but years of hardcore Baptist Christians and I'd rather starve.
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Jun 21, 2019 14:58
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My parents and 3 siblings would house-hop every 6mos to avoid rent, all us kids were like between 10 to 2, me being the oldest. When the power company came to shut off the meter and lock it, my dad would be out there right after they leave busting the lock off and slotting pieces of flattened copper pipe into the meter box to bridge the connectors and get the power back on with just a pair of pliers wrapped in electrical tape. He could have died so many times. We spent some extremely cold winters with frozen toilet water and zero heat. If we were lucky, we’d be in a house with a wood fireplace and burn everything we could scavenge, one month we burned like 300 phone books we stole from the neighborhood. This was in the US of loving A in the late 80’s. Just lucky we made it through ok... gently caress its depressing to think about.
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Jun 22, 2019 04:43
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Rad-daddio posted:What kind of church? I could see hanging out with the Episcopalians or Methodists maybe, but years of hardcore Baptist Christians and I'd rather starve. Baptists don't help people.
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Jun 22, 2019 05:22
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shout out to all my parents'-stress-bearing homies
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Jun 22, 2019 06:12
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Slayerjerman posted:
...The ingenuity of this kinda rules. I'm sorry about the situation you were in but something about the way you handled it makes me grin.
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Jun 22, 2019 06:19
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Skipped eating so I could get my cat some food. Ate dry catfood a few times.
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Jun 22, 2019 06:24
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You can make edibles with vaped weed no need to keep roasting it.
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Jun 22, 2019 07:15
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One time in college I decided to stay on campus over spring break. What I didn't realize was that my meal plan wasn't active so I had no way to eat. So I took the bus to the grocery store and tried to figure out how to buy a week's worth of food with something like six dollars. Being a dumb By day four my poo poo was the color of freshly cut grass. Should've went with rice.
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Jun 22, 2019 07:43
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The silliest plan I ever enacted was they were doing this deal where if you test drove a car you would get a 15 dollar voucher at a CD store back when those existed. I did the test drive(armed only with a learner's permit stupid motherfuckers) and bought a couple used CDs with my voucher. I then walked across the street to a different music store and sold those CDs for 4 bucks and hit up the McDonald's dollar menu. All in a worthless days work.
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Jun 22, 2019 08:32
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Noblesse Obliged posted:This is one of those threads that will make me realize that i only thought I was poor because I lacked perspective on what poverty really is. I'm one of the very lucky ones who was raised in a stable, middle-class family with two parents who were caring and supportive. I never experienced poverty, I never missed a meal unless I intended to, and I never worried about where I was going to sleep. The worst I can remember is when my friend and I were setting up a studio in her garage. We had spent every thing we had on the supplies like wallboard, tape and mud and had absolutely nothing left. I had a full tank of gas and payday was 4 days away, so I was not worried, but for that moment, we had nothing. It was August, it was insanely hot in the garage and we were sweating like fiends. We decided that we needed beer. I dug under the seats of my car and found $2.00. The Fedco down the road had a twelve pack of Drewry's beer for something like $1.75. So, at my worst case, I was forced to drink beer that cost 14 cents per can. I'm still lucky in that I have a great career, am paid well and have no real problems. I've been able to help out other people who were actually bad off. Usually, it's one of my students who I've bought groceries for. It's hard to do well in class when you are hungry and worried about your family eating.
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Jun 22, 2019 09:37
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Monday_ posted:One time in college I decided to stay on campus over spring break. What I didn't realize was that my meal plan wasn't active so I had no way to eat. So I took the bus to the grocery store and tried to figure out how to buy a week's worth of food with something like six dollars. Being a dumb ramen and hot dogs wouldn't turn your poop green lmao
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Jun 22, 2019 12:46
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Monday_ posted:Should've went with rice. In college my friends bought a disaster relief sized bag of rice so they could save their food money for booze and got hell shits pretty quick
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Jun 22, 2019 13:29
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Tragically lost my family estate and fortune by spending it all on nickel blowjobs.
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Jun 22, 2019 13:40
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Bust Rodd posted:The cheapest meal I could live off of was buying a ten lb bag of rice and a carton of eggs. You cook a cup of rice, then you break an egg in the hot rice and stir it up. I stole soy sauce packets from the bulletproof Chinese store for flavor. I ate this twice a day for a few weeks while I waited on food stamps to kick in. My strategy was a bigass bag of rice, a value pack of chicken breast, and a can of ragu. Cost me something like 12 bucks for a weeks worth of food for my brother and I. Learning how to make the 10 cent ramen packs taste decent also helped a lot. Also, wore shoes until they literally fell apart. Also used the electric bill winter trick and would only pay rent and internet while torrenting literally everything for entertainment.
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Jun 22, 2019 13:43
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Money laundering for a jenkem cartel
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Jun 22, 2019 13:50
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Rad-daddio posted:What kind of church? I could see hanging out with the Episcopalians or Methodists maybe, but years of hardcore Baptist Christians and I'd rather starve. Dutch Reform Protestants in Upstate NY, it was genuinely a loving and caring community until our pastor retired and we hired a much more progressive woman to take over and her “everyone should love everyone” vibe rubbed people the wrong way and it sort of fractured the church community. All the extremely old white people didn’t like her preaching blanket tolerance and acceptance, so all the young, gay couples in town stopped going to church. Those people loved and took care of us, and we’d have gone to bed very hungry without them, but they were close-minded and we probably wouldn’t have gotten the same help if we’d been darker skinned TBH.
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Jun 22, 2019 14:43
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Finally managed to pull off buying a house in the Midwest that costs way less than rent. The year leading up to it I spent most of my income on tooth repair(removal) and almost have that carecredit card paid off. Still haven't gone to the doctor in a out 11 years. I seem healthy so gently caress it. There was one time I called out 2 days in a row due to hot and cold flashes, severe headache, extreme sweating and a weird bumpy rash on the lower part of my neck. Day three I woke up feeling great and the rash went away a few days later. Edit: ok so it's been 9 years since I dropped out of "college"(art institute of Phil). I still have 50k in debt from it. During my time there, we would go to the dollar store in suburban station and buy eggs bread and cheese. Definitely rolled butts from the ashtray. Guess I was poor but not really now. I just feel like since I've been making 65k for the past couple years, tracking 80k this year, I would have something to show for it. But no I still come within a couple hundred or so to zero before payday interwhat fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Jun 22, 2019 |
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Jun 22, 2019 17:00
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Bought stuff that was on sale at one store, returned it at another of the same chain in town where it was not on sale. Usually I got refunded more than I paid for it but obviously I had to pay for the item in the first place so I didn't gain much from doing this, just enough to buy food.
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Jun 22, 2019 17:03
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Got a job
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Jun 22, 2019 17:20
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After all expensions paid my food budget was £10 a week at one point. Lost 5 stone during that time.
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Jun 22, 2019 17:27
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I stole a sub sandwich from Publix when I was broke in Atlanta. I went to the deli, had them make a huge sandwich and then took that sandwich to the bathroom, put it in my purse and walked out of the store. It was the best tasting sandwich i ever had. Then another time I was broke and hungry I walked to Piedmont Park after dark because I figured the worst that would happen is i would get murdered but at least I wouldn't be so hungry. Luckily there was some food thing happening the next day I guess and there were these little concession carts with no one watching them. This was at like 1 am. I stole a bag of hotdog buns and taco shells and ate like king seagull that night. Later that day I gave a friend my leftover hot dog buns they needed for meatballs and they gave me a cap of Molly and some meatballs. Atlanta was a fun chapter in my life.
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Jun 22, 2019 17:30
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