Things the poor need to do to survive

[iamlindoro]

My cousin posted a link to this Reddit thread this morning.  He and his family have gone through extreme poverty, and overcome it to become successful, though not without a lot of emotional and financial baggage.  I found it extremely interesting and it touched me on a lot of levels-- I'm saddened to see the state of the truly poor, touched to see some of the parental sacrifices discovered, encouraged by the number of people who have bettered themselves... there's really just a whole bundle of emotions and thoughts that came up in reading my way through this.

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2sbi17/what_do_insanely_poor_people_buy_that_ordinary

And, as a mustachian, I will admit that at least a couple things struck me as clever lessons that anyone can/should do.  I admire some of the ingenuity most of all.

[iamlindoro]

I should clarify that the reason I post it here is because it reminded me of the "relentless optimism" element of the whole philosophy of this community.  Man, have we ever got it good.  How very lucky we are to be able to become outraged over policies we fear will reduce us from sickeningly wealthy to just embarrassingly wealthy.

[Left]

Learning other styles of cooking would add variety as well. Many Asian/Mediterranean/Northern African (I don't know about the rest of Africa, sorry the continent is too big for me to learn more than a few dishes) dishes can use the same items but taste different with different spices/cooking. A rice cooker is good to steam foods/make rice/bake bread too. I've just streamed veggies with rice cooking below it sometimes for a quick meal.

And farmers markets would be a bit cheaper, at least for me. I normally go when they are packing up so not the "pick" of the lot but they want to leave, I miss the crowd and I can talk them into lowering price so they can go home. But the markets are "seasonal" here, AKA not during winter. And a lot of them are great cooks, ask them what you can make with what they are selling.

edit: I must not be good with reddit, I can't find the article, just the comments to one? I see https://www.reddit.com/r/EatCheapAndHealthy/comments/2gutuk/26_2021_1592_grocery_list_meal_plan_and_recipes/ but I'm not sure if that is what you mean

[Annamal]

And farmers markets would be a bit cheaper, at least for me. I normally go when they are packing up so not the "pick" of the lot but they want to leave, I miss the crowd and I can talk them into lowering price so they can go home. But the markets are "seasonal" here, AKA not during winter. And a lot of them are great cooks, ask them what you can make with what they are selling.

We are incredibly lucky in our local market, instead of heirloom vegetables it is actually composed of fruits and vegetables that farmers could not sell on to supermarkets or export markets because of blemishes.
Plus a certain amount of staples like carrots.

This means that you have to pick your produce very carefully and eat seasonally to  a certain degree but it also means that you can save a huge amount over supermarket prices.

Overall it reduces food wastage and means that a lot more people can eat healthily.

[Rural]

Well, that was a trip down memory lane.

[plantingourpennies]

Being poor is pretty expensive...

[MoneyCat]

I have tons of these kinds of stories from when I lived in poverty.  One time, I got a bacterial infection from drinking hot water from an old coffee pot that wasn't cleaned properly.  I didn't have medical insurance, so I went about a week of being really insanely sick (like vomiting all the time, having chills, and hardly being able to see straight.)  I lived in a fairly rural area so there were no free clinics and going to the emergency room would have cost me thousands of dollars in medical fees.  I was finally able to get my hands on some black market veterinary penicillin and finally able to successfully treat myself.  It was a really, really frightening experience.

[Grid]

I definitely enjoyed reading through those comments and the ones here.  Just hearing about hard times in general gives me the kick in the butt I need now.  Thanks for posting!

[rocketpj]

I was finally able to get my hands on some black market veterinary penicillin and finally able to successfully treat myself. 

Holy crap!  That's a thing you can get?  The sketchy guy by the bus stop has never offered me that!

That said, what a terrifying experience.  I am feeling ever more lucky to live where I do. 

[chouchouu]

I was finally able to get my hands on some black market veterinary penicillin and finally able to successfully treat myself. 

Holy crap!  That's a thing you can get?  The sketchy guy by the bus stop has never offered me that!

That said, what a terrifying experience.  I am feeling ever more lucky to live where I do.

My cousin who is a vet treated my friend with animal drugs when we were visiting Thailand. It's the same stuff but kind of funny because the tablet was huge. She just asked my friends weight, crushed up the tablet and gave her the appropriate dosage.

I'm from Australia so am curious what were in these "commodities" boxes apart from government cheese?

[Rural]

I was finally able to get my hands on some black market veterinary penicillin and finally able to successfully treat myself. 

Holy crap!  That's a thing you can get?  The sketchy guy by the bus stop has never offered me that!

That said, what a terrifying experience.  I am feeling ever more lucky to live where I do.

There's also fish tank penicillin.

[MayDay]

We were pretty poor until I was 6 (my dad was in school and when he graduated things got much better).  We got "government cheese" when we went to WIC appointments and to the health department for immunizations.  But never any other boxes as far as I know.  We got health care for free because my mother befriended a pediatrician's wife (she was new to town and had kids the same age) so her husband didn't charge us for medical care. 

My mom said if my grandparents showed up to visit (usually with no warning and no end date!) she had to figure out how to stretch the meals, and decide what not to buy so she could afford cream for their coffee. 

I am the oldest and my younger siblings don't remember as much, if any.  Through middle school at least, I didn't ask for stuff because I knew we "couldn't afford it", even though we could afford it by then, and that it would upset my mother.  I had one pair of pants for much of 6th grade.  In reality if I had told her, she would have gotten me more pants. 

All that said, we always had food and the lights were always on, and my parents were well educated and able to navigate the system, so by and large I had it extremely easy. 

[golden1]

Thanks for linking that - it really helps to silence the complainypants voices in my head, hearing what real poverty is.  I am truly, truly blessed. 

[MoneyCat]

I was finally able to get my hands on some black market veterinary penicillin and finally able to successfully treat myself. 

Holy crap!  That's a thing you can get?  The sketchy guy by the bus stop has never offered me that!

That said, what a terrifying experience.  I am feeling ever more lucky to live where I do.

Yeah, you can get all kinds of prescription medicines from the black market, not just the recreational stuff, but the medicinal stuff.  You just have to know a guy and poor people network for those kinds of services.  For people without health insurance in the USA, those black market networks are really valuable.  Luckily, I didn't have to use it more than that one time, but I lived in constant fear of getting really sick and dying because I couldn't afford treatment and I wasn't poor enough to qualify for Medicaid.  To get Medicaid in many states at that time, you had to have basically $0 to your name, no car, and no home.  It's still like that in most Southern states.