I bought one of those discounted produce boxes for $6 and it ended up being mostly limes. Like an unreasonable amount of limes. I kept a few, then put the rest in a grocery bag by the mailboxes with a note saying free.

The next morning the limes were gone and someone had left a bag of potatoes in the same spot. Then another person added two unopened boxes of pasta. Its been about three weeks now and the little corner basically turned into an unofficial food exchange. Yesterday I traded some instant oatmeal I hated for canned tomatoes.

My favorite part is getting rid of stuff without wasting it. Our landlord hasn’t said anything yet and everyone keeps the area clean.

I never thought I’d be the person saying cash is king but here we are.
When I use my card I noticed Ibarely register that I’m spending money. It’s just tap, Face ID, approved.
When I take cash out for the week it’s different. Watching the bills get thinner actually makes me stop and think. I find myself asking “Do I want this enough to hand over this $20?”
It’s weird because the amount is exactly the same, but it feels completely different.
I still use my card for bills and online purchases, but for everyday spending cash has honestly helped me cut back more than I expected.

Edit: Since no one can use their imaginations to possibly wonder how large language models that can write and generate images could negatively affect some particular industries, you've won. I'm a writer. Congrats.

Edit 2: Seeing AI-written comments upvoted and engaged with while I was accused of being a bot... Classic. Should've expected that. lol

Put free talk as flair because I'm welcoming advice in any aspect.

My career was built on a skill that companies now believe can be fully replaced by AI. I am senior level in my career and should be able to get a job, but I've been unemployed for almost a year. Just living off of savings which are quickly running out.

I did not get a degree. I made several attempts, but had to drop out without credits every time for various reasons. I can't financially support myself to try again. Every trade school program I've found in my area is full for the current enrollment period, but I'll confess that I don't know about the ones at colleges you have to apply for first to see availability.

Before my career, I worked retail management. So I've applied for retail jobs. Even minimum wage jobs. With referrals from current employees! I haven't even gotten an interview for any of these. Recently I learned this could be due to something called 8fold, which gives employers "social credit reports" of job applicants. No idea what's on it, but that's the only explanation I can think of for the lack of interviews. My resumes get good feedback from my HR friends.

My rent just went up nearly 10% (they wouldn't negotiate when I emailed them), and I found out from a neighbor that I could've stayed at my current rent if I had sent a certified letter to their main office... but I only learned this the day after I signed the lease renewal.

I could maybe move, but I've grown a really good community in my neighborhood. They care for my dog for free when I need them to, they take me with them to Costco, we share tools and food, they look out for me and I look out for them. Moving away from my support system seems like a really bad idea. I also don't think I can afford it (breaking the lease, paying for help moving, deposits, etc).

I don't have family to rely on. Getting a roommate would be very difficult because of the small 1-br and my dog. Giving up my dog is not an option.

I'm going to have to start selling my belongings. Maybe I can make it to the next enrollment period for a trade school that way, but I don't know if that program will even pay my rent.

Any advice is welcome. Please hold criticism because my mental health is tenuous at best right now. I blame myself for this situation.

About to lose everything. I don't eat or shower everyday because I can't. About to lose my apartment. All I do is stress and hope for another day just to wake up very depressed. I'm not living like a regular human. I try to hope or have faith. But it's been too long since I felt comfortable or happy. I know this isn't the right page to bring this to and it might be taken down. But just know this is what being poor does to you. And at this point I'm not really scared. Or feel pain or hunger. I feel freedom because I know it'll all end soon. This society makes us feel this way. No help or a way out. I don't have a family or a support group clearly now. So I'm just riding on this thought that it'll all be over soon. I tried finding help. But I just keep thinking that none of this shit is worth it anymore.

Last year, I suffered trauma to my mouth and lost a tooth. Insurance didn’t cover the post implant, so I had to pay $4000 out of pocket to the oral surgeon, and now my dentist is quoting me another $4k (with insurance!!) for just the cap.

I am at the last step of the process so I’m not worried about having to go back and forth a few times. I literally just need the cap, and based off of some basic poking around, a flight to San Diego or El Paso and getting the work done in Mexico is cheaper than just going to my dentist down the street

Anyone ever go this route? Any tips or advice is greatly appreciated.

My landlord prefers cash rent. I’m not used to having this much cash at once so once a month the cat and I have to have a lil fun with it before it’s gone!

My partner and I are in our 30s. His mother is 70.

Currently, she lives by herself with a dog in a two bedroom apartment. My partner has contributed nothing to our household for the entire time he's lived here because his income is going to her. He pays at least half of her rent. This is not a sustainable situation for us.

In my opinion, she needs a roommate and that would solve her problem. But my partner absolutely refuses to make her do this, because "she has had problems with roommates in the past."

She is already on social security. She is a veteran and gets healthcare through the VA. She is also already on food stamps. Housing is the biggest issue.

My partner is IT support and makes around $50k a year. Not enough to be supporting a grown adult like this. He also has his own future that he needs to worry about, because he has a progressive kidney disease and will be on dialysis in his 50s. He needs to save more for retirement. Thankfully he does at least contribute enough to get the employer match. But he's not going to have enough saved himself if he continues supporting her like this.

How in the flying fuck can we make this work? She refuses to get rid of the dog and refuses to get a roommate. She claims that she can't work. She also has no car.

Thanks.

My husband purchased his house before we met. When I moved in, it was dual income. We live super rural. My husband works and is in the national guard. He deployed shortly after we were married and I was pregnant and worked all through his deployment. I lost my job because we couldn’t secure childcare. I was work from home, we have no friends or family members. It was fine on one income at first, but now we’re rounding the second year. All the places I apply won’t go around my schedule, and even though jobs are supposed to work with military families.. they’ll give you some other reason why they won’t hire you. “Hey sometimes I need two weeks off, I deff can’t promise entire weekend availability and if I a mission comes up, I might need a month.”

The house he bought was a fixer upper and it’s on something called an “owner held mortgage”. That means it’s rent to own basically but we are responsible for all repairs. We are becoming HOUSE POOR. How does everyone survive without dual income? I am TRYING to find work like I said, but we also can only afford one car. How did yall pull yourself out of being house poor with a child?
Again, daycare isn’t an option. One car, 45 min drive to daycare and my husband is working two jobs. Before you call us stupid, he bought the home from a family member who owns the mortgage. My child has everything she needs.. there’s just no room for a car repair or really all the house repairs he’s trying to accomplish. Anyone have advice on survival or loopholes to an owner held mortgage?

I made the decision to carry with me only the money I intended to spend. When I get to checkout and find something I like, I have to think carefully about whether it is worth replacing something else that I have chosen already. Because of this, I have become more mindful about my shopping habits. Although it's not foolproof, I have managed to stick to my budget for the past three grocery trips.

If you have an Aldi anywhere you can drive to go and get ground turkey meat. Its just 2.19 at my Aldi. I use beef bouillon to make it taste good just don't use salt when you use beef bouillon. Its great in hamburger helper with a bag of frozen vegetables and as taco meat. Its also good if you're trying to eat less beef for health reasons.

Also refried beans and a can of tomato chiles and some taco seasoning is a great quick cheap meal. I usually put it on tostadas with hot sauce and shredded cheese.

basically my family and I are struggling, we live in SEA and we arent doing well financially. I have a job but the salary isn’t great and I don’t have any savings to go abroad and get a better job. we have a business that’s currently the only thing that brings us money but the season is low and so maintaining it is costing us more money and we are in need of a serious fix to keep it running.

i want to know how I can help my family what genuine ways to help get out of this situation (we’ve thought of selling but with the situation of the country it wouldn’t give us much money so is there any point) we’re all doing our best but it’s really affecting our mental health. I was hoping to find something I could maybe do online, invest in stocks anything to keep us going . Any advice would be appreciated

Like the title said I lost pretty much everything extremely quickly and I feel like my mental health is rapidly declining.

To start, I work in the field of ABA. For those who don't know what that is, I essentially work with kids on the autism spectrum helping them learn life skills, how to communicate, etc,. A few weeks ago my company sent out an email stating the company will be shutting down effective July 10. They gave about a week and half notice to the employees and everyone was freaking out bc that's really not enough time to find and start a job without a lapse in payment. Now during that specific pay period a lot of my clients cancelled sessions due to illness going around, families going on vacation for summertime, parents taking their children to other clinics for evaluations, etc., and I of course was not getting paid when clients cancelled sessions.

I have never had a problem finding a job in this field in the 5 years that I've been an RBT. Nowadays, it's incredibly difficult to find a job in any field so, unfortunately, I didn't find a job before my company closed down and I'm still struggling to find a job.

Again, because a lot of my clients were cancelling when the company announced it's closure my paycheck was not enough to cover Julys rent. I had already spoken with my leasing office letting them know my situation and asked if I could have more time to pay the rent (had no idea how but I usually figure shit out when I need to.) Leasing office ladies told me I can bring in half of the rent by the 15th of July and sign a promise-to-pay to pay the other half at a later date. I also called them multiple times throughout those weeks to be 100% sure that the ladies in the office knew what was going on with me so there were no surprise eviction letters or anything.

July 15th came around and I called again at 10AM when the leasing office opened to confirm how to make the payment. The leasing lady told me to bring in a money order or cashiers check with half of the rent and she informed me that the rest would have to be paid by the following Friday to which I agreed. I went and got the money order for $800 and brought it to the office at about 11AM (keep in mind I just had a convo with this lady less than an hour ago.) She told me to sign the money order to pay -apartment name- and sign it so I did but when she looked at the amount she was confused and asked why it wasn't the full amount of the rent. I reminded her of the multiple conversations we had about this and she handed me the money order back saying "the policy changed recently and we're no longer accepting partial payments or doing promise-to-pays." Again I just spoke to this woman an hour ago and she didn't say anything about that. She ended up telling me that since I don't have the money they're going to start the eviction process immediately and should have some sort of court thing within the next couple weeks.

Luckily, my bf and I were already talking about me moving in with him but nothing was really concrete until I was told I'm being evicted. I'm currently in the process of selling a bunch of my stuff and packing up.

Even though my bf is letting me move in with him, I have been feeling so defeated and hopeless. I've been looking for jobs everyday but I haven't been getting many call-backs, or they're wayyyy too far or they're not paying anything near what I'm used to making (I was at $26/hr at my last company.) I've reached out to a few companies I applied to and some have told me that they're not even actually hiring??? I feel like a huge bum everyday seeing my bf get up to go to work and I just stay home in bed applying to the same jobs over and over again or applying to ghost jobs. I hate feeling like I'm a leech. I hate feeling unproductive. And I hate feeling like my bf is going to start hating me if I don't find a job soon (he's never said that or given any indication of that but my anxiety is terrible.)

If anyone has any advice on finding a job quick or switching careers that would be greatly appreciated. ❤️

--Edited to include I reside in AZ

--Edit 2: My unemployment claim finally went through now it's just a matter of putting in my weekly claims to start getting some income. Still need to find a job but at least I won't be 100% broke 🫪

What’s up everyone,

I’m looking for some serious advice on how to get my life on track, become financially independent and just be wealthy with a happy life. I’m currently 15 (turning 16 soon) and live in Germany. I'm going into the 10th grade of "high school" (leading to a diploma that allows university entry).

My parents aren't poor or something but I still want to have some bread in my pocket so I don't have to ask them 24/7 for something I want. I want a different future for myself. I have a lot of drive and already applied for a job at TJMax so I can work there on Saturdays only. I got a MacBook too, maybe I could do something with it to make money?

I have two main goals and would love your input:

Short-term (Making Money): Since I am still in school full-time and it’s pretty demanding, what are the smartest ways for a 15/16-year-old to make some money on the side? I can legally work part-time here now.

Long-term (Building Skills): I want to use my free time properly instead of just wasting it on my phone. I want to invest in real estate or own a company and build my wealth like that. How I will build the capital or whatever, like what job I wanna be in, that's a mystery for now. What are some high-income skills or subjects I can start teaching myself right now for "free"that will give me a massive advantage in 3-5 years? I was thinking of video editing on adobe premiere pro or something like that since I have a MacBook that would make sense..

Any advice on jobs, time management, skills to learn, or even just life lessons from people who have been in my shoes would be hugely appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

What’s up everyone,
I’m looking for some serious advice on how to get my life on track, become financially independent and just be wealthy with a happy life. I’m currently 15 (turning 16 soon) and live in Germany. I'm going into the 10th grade of "high school" (leading to a diploma that allows university entry).
My parents aren't poor or something but I still want to have some bread in my pocket so I don't have to ask them 24/7 for something I want. I want a different future for myself. I have a lot of drive and already applied for a job at TJMax so I can work there on Saturdays only. I got a MacBook too, maybe I could do something with it to make money?
I have two main goals and would love your input:

1. Short-term (Making Money): Since I am still in school full-time and it’s pretty demanding, what are the smartest ways for a 15/16-year-old to make some money on the side? I can legally work part-time here now.
2. Long-term (Building Skills): I want to use my free time properly instead of just wasting it on my phone. I want to invest in real estate or own a company and build my wealth like that. How I will build the capital or whatever, like what job I wanna be in, that's a mystery for now. What are some high-income skills or subjects I can start teaching myself right now for "free"that will give me a massive advantage in 3-5 years? I was thinking of video editing on adobe premiere pro or something like that since I have a MacBook that would make sense..

Any advice on jobs, time management, skills to learn, or even just life lessons from people who have been in my shoes would be hugely appreciated.
Thanks in advance!

I genuinely feel so uncomfortable when there is an data company whose name I don’t even know making a 65 page report on me and selling that info for $$$ and then that cooperation they sold to then pushes ads and does “dynamic pricing” where they charge me more based on “how much I can pay max for an given demand of the item for me”

The idea of an company legit squeezing me even more dry of money while I am already low in money just sucks. Why can’t lawmakers put limits on them or force these companies to be obligated to pay us for data that’s ours? It’s like they come to our lawn and steal our vegetables.

Banks already try their best to squeeze us dry and now supermarkets and big tech companies want to do the same. It genuinely is not ok.

For anyone knowledgeable about credit please help, credit not so good (high 500's) was pre approved for a Secured Credit card with "TD" bank, made a $500.00 deposit. currently waiting for the approval and card in the mail they haven't took the money yet.

• Have a couple minor (cheap) collections accounts, and a Charge off on my account from "Capital one" of around $483.00 that is really hurting my credit.
• Can anyone please give me any tips or advice on how to proceed in my current situation to improve my credit, also what cards should I be applying to with my current credit, what cards to stay away from? or any of your experiences in regards to my current predicament?

I would really appreciate any assistance , thank you for your time!

I have been worried about my new property tax assessment for a few days and I just cannot make the numbers make sense. My assessed value increased a lot this year on paper. My escrow is going up and it is not a small amount to just shrug off. The thing is, nothing about my house or neighborhood changed. I pulled recent sales on the same street and a couple of blocks over and they are not even close to the new number they put on my notice. I also checked the listing photos and my place is pretty average compared to those. So if I go with appeal, what does it take to get anything changed?

I have a share in a large amount of credit card debt. Payments can be made but it's like one step forward and two steps back when it comes to the interest.

I tried to get a debt consolidation loan but my options were bottom of the barrel. One would have covered 99% of the debt with very reasonable monthly repayments

But at the end of it, I'd be paying back nearly three or four times what I was loaned.

I was so desperate to be out of credit card debt that I signed all the documents and was on the verge of submitting a few more pieces. But the whole process felt so wrong.

In the end I've cancelled the application. I'm going to seek financial advice and explore my options.

I'm just sharing my story because I've no one else to talk to and not be given a lecture.

Thanks for reading.

Hello all! I’m reaching out for advice regarding my mom, single parent, one grown child living at home. The other day she spoke about not having enough meat and had to mix other ingredients to make burgers. While that’s not very alarming, I am worried about her food security. Heart attack, and 2 strokes leading to a several month stint in a horrible nursing home have left her incapacitated in many ways. My brother 22, does not seem to be interested in getting a job, and while he is autistic he’s very smart and in my eyes capable.

I myself just turned 26, and I’m working very very hard to drag myself out of childhood poverty. I’m trying to save for a house so I can bring her to me, but I’m spending so much money taking care of her and I think a lot of it is being split between her and my brother.

Are there any ideas on how I can help without breaking the bank, and breaking my spirit. I make roughly 47,000 per year and have 2,500 in cost each month just for myself.

Edit: Thank you so much everyone I did not expect so many people willing to give me advice. I’ve got a pretty comprehensive plan on what I’m going to do to help and what I won’t be doing. Thank you again, very grateful.

dealing with what feels like an insurmountable cluster fuck. in fall 2024 i purchased a car from carvana (my first big mistake). i live in a city where it is basically impossible to have a good quality of life without a car. carvana are some of the few people who would sell you a car with shitty credit.

i knew my car was over-priced and that carvana was exploiting my desperation. at the time, i didn't mind because i had a good job and was budgeting well and knew that i was gonna pay it off. i have never had a late payment.

three months ago, my car got towed and the back axle snapped in half as a result. i called geico and geico got it towed for an estimate. today, geico called me back and said they will not be covering any amount of the repair because the axle snapped because it was so horrifically rusted that the repairs fall under their "betterment" clause.

I cannot cover the cost of the repairs on my own at all. All of my savings have gone into preparing to go to grad school in September. Self financed. Now I have a car that I cannot drive, cannot afford to repair, cannot sell for any real money to put a dent in what i owe. I do not know what to do.

all feedback, advice, critiques welcome.

From when I was 12 - 18 (19 now) i was homeless. Slowly I got so depressed that I stopped brushing my teeth or doing basic hygiene. Now my teeth are ruined and full of cavities and chips and literally rotten. It’s so embarrassing but honestly I’m terrified it’ll spread to my brain. I went to a dentist (my old children’s dentist) for the first time since COVID last October and she was saying it could be fixed but I didn’t have the money to even pay for a consultation because I’m no longer under 19 and covered by Medicaid. I could probably swing the payment now with my new job but honestly I’ve been putting it off because I’m anxious they’ll say there’s nothing I can do or that I won’t be able to afford the surgery required. If there is any tips that yall know I would really appreciate it! I just want to be healthy again.

I’m not sure if this has been said many Times before but I’ve been extremely broke before. After my son passed a few years ago I stopped going to work (I’m a nurse) and lost my cars, home and everything else that wasn’t tacked down and when I got desperate I untacked those and sold them. I was drinking a bottle of alcohol a day and wandering the streets in the freezing cold. My motivation for leaving the house and walking the few miles that it took to get to wine and spirits was the knowledge that once I got there and took a few chugs I’d be warm walking back. My doctor at the time had written me a prescription for Ensure while I was pregnant that I’d forgotten about because I couldn’t keep anything down so I ended up with many many cases of ensure (strawberry) and they honestly may have saved my life during that time so I’m sure that insurance covers it and the doctor can write a prescription for many many reasons even if you’ve simply lost weight and aren’t getting enough nutrients.

Does anyone have any advice for finding free or very low cost period supplies? I have been very broke and using toilet paper from public bathrooms but I'm wondering if there's any places that distribute period supplies? I tried contacting 311 and also my local food pantry but haven't had luck.

Went to a new laundromat because the machines at my apartment have been broken for weeks. The washers were only $3.75 each, but every time I tapped my card the laundromat placed a temporary $20 hold. I used three washers and two dryers, so my bank balance suddenly dropped by $100 even though the laundry itself cost less than $20.

I had money, but it was in a separate account and transferring it instantly would've cost another fee. I ended up leaving my grocery cart at Aldi because my card declined and I had no clue what happened until I checked the pending transactions.

The laundromat says the holds can take up to 7 days to disappear. I know the money technically isnt gone, but when your account is already low, temporarily losing $100 might as well be the same thing. Why does being broke require having extra money available just to prove you can afford something?