who in this bitch makes less than 15k a year

woop woop

lol. i got paid well under minimum wage last summer, well worth it tho imo

hi! maybe in 2009 too!

let's trade secrets for getting by on nothing!!!!!

for real!

http://www.humanmedia.org/catalog/images/programpix/119-120_art_barely.jpg

l-r:

good thing i have my mom :-p

You'd think that Lionel Ritchie would have a bit more money about the place, wouldn't you?

nah jk i'm totally living high on the hog w/ my student loans + pt job but after may i'm kinda ˘\(º_o)/˘

I get by. None of my bills are on "second notice" or anything, but I'm just about to start repaying my student loans and my lowest repayment option is higher than every other bill I'm paying right now, so I'm assuming that'll change soon.

by high on the hog i mean i have no car and eat too much beans + oatmeal and feel guilty when i buy new clothes...............

More than once I've seriously considered moving out of my apartment and into the Zen Center downtown as a live-in student. It'd be for my practice, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a little bit for my pocketbook too. I'm tired of sputtering every month.

In order to keep the electric bill down we set a particular time every night where everything that's plugged in gets turned off. It saves about $20/month.

I've been "hypermiling" and getting an extra 60 miles out of each tank of gas for the last year or so, about an extra 3 gallons worth of gas per tank which saves $5-$20/month based on gas prices.

My girlfriend is a member of a half dozen "coupon trains" where she receives coupons in the mail, will take a certain number that we can use locally and then replace them with new coupons and mail the package onto the next person on the list. This, in combination with her weekly coupon clipping, saves us about $40/month at the grocery store.

whoa @ coupon train. i need to rein in my grocery spending, i should think about something like that.

I've eclipsed the $15k mark. Probably even passed $20k. But thanks to pseudo-self-employment, multitude of cash gigs on the side and non-existent personal accounting I have no real idea how much I make.

But when it comes tax time my 1099 will probably say 15.5k and all my deductions will give me a tax bill under $500.

Me! I don't have any great secrets, though. Eat a lot of beans. Take as many extra hours as possible at part-time jobs that pay around minimum wage (currently my only day off is Monday). Live somewhere with cheaper rent than mine.

(ps "get a real job" would obv. be preferable to part-time job advice, but if i'd done that i wouldn't be postin to this thread)

I try to take freelance writing jobs when I can, but thus far nothing's proven as lucrative as ghostwriting for that one preacher (who still owes me $300!!)

You guys want a pizza or anything?

40% of my monthly income goes toward debt repayment. Another 40% goes toward living expenses and 20% goes toward necessities and the occasional book or CD.

dogg i make my own pizza xp

yo i feel a hoos. i was kinda down on dough last month too but a good session at the card table is prob gonna help me out w/ spending money for a couple months

ghostwriting for that one preacher (who still owes me $300!!)

"You are the dog in the proverbial urban legend about the woman and the peanut butter!"

poverty sucks. I'm not quite at this level (I think) this year - I haven't looked at my w4s yet - but I know I've been there before.

We have a hall closet full of tomato soup that my gf canned herself, probably about a week's worth.

We have a case of MREs in the bedroom closet with about a week's worth of military meals for the two of us.

"You are the dog in the proverbial urban legend about the woman and the peanut butter!"

― Eazy, Monday, February 2, 2009 12:41 AM (28 seconds ago) Bookmark

lol what

dogg you want me to send you some flour and tomato paste?

Dag I didn't mean to make this into a list of woes or whatever, sorry homies. I mean: I live in a nice apt complex! We have a fitness center! I could probably stand to cancel my subscriptions to the NYRB and Harper's and The Atlantic and sell my 300 records and 500 CDs!

dogg you want me to send you some flour and tomato paste?

― muomus (libcrypt), Monday, February 2, 2009 12:45 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

yes please!

Dag I didn't mean to make this into a list of woes or whatever, sorry homies. I mean: I live in a nice apt complex! We have a fitness center! I could probably stand to cancel my subscriptions to the NYRB and Harper's and The Atlantic and sell my 300 records and 500 CDs!

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Monday, February 2, 2009 12:47 AM (7 seconds ago) Bookmark

I have plenty of blessings is what I mean.

lol what

Scroll down to Louis.

I could save a lot of money by not being a drunk with expensive tastes.

On getting my last payslip from my former employer, I realised that in 2008 I earned exactly half what I earned in 2007. So, erm, I think I might qualify for this thread. :-(

I know the pound is worth marginally more than the dollar at the moment, but the cost of living is so much higher here that, um... it's still tight.

You msg me yr delivery info hoos and I will have Safeway deliver pizza ingredients to yr door.

I could save a lot of money by not being a drunk with expensive tastes.

― Dear Tacos, how are you? I am fine. The weather is nice. I miss yo (Oilyrags), Monday, February 2, 2009 12:49 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

Yeah when I realized one bottle of Famous Grouse sets me back about 3 six packs but lasts me just as long I made the switch for good.

I earn an amount that six months ago would have been more than $15,000 American but now really, really is not

in new york money i basically am this

Economy woes or full-time students?

Any of you guys in Miami? I can take you out to dinner sometime. (I'm not rich, just slightly better off.)

i would like to get into canning. i need a little more space though. maybe when i move out in may.

Economy woes or full-time students?

I finished school in May and (hopefully) (?) will be starting up again in August.

full-time student but economy woes also because i don't have a job for when i graduate and my intended employer (a state gov't) is struggling and probably not hiring so economy woes also

i think i will be able to get a job w/o a lot of difficulty just not government and maybe a little later than i want

I do save money by not being a drunk with expensive tastes - I think in the month of January, I bought...six beers. It kind of sucks though, I'd really like to have wine with dinner sometimes or keep liquor around. (xpost)

Economy woes, and stubbornness - I'm trying to work in an industry that's both seasonal and severely affected by the recession. I try to be grateful that at least I'm working for minimum wage in an area of my choice, rather than at Starbucks. I'll hopefully be starting school again this fall as well, though, and at most of the places I applied I'd probably make more money on a stipend than I do now.

Obama should pardon all student loans. I'm considering not even going back to school because of how expensive it is. Srsly.

yeah i feel lucky regular drinking makes me feel shitty because i buy like 1-2 six packs per month and maybe 1 bottle of cheap wine. other than that i occasionally drink at bars but it takes nothing to get me drunk anymore so i'm super cheap in that way. xp

> Obama should pardon all student loans.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck yeah.

monkeys should fly out of my ass too

I keep shoes until they have holes in them, and sometimes even then.

I have a pretty high tolerance for alcohol unless I intentionally skip eating beforehand, so that's the cheapest way for me to get drunk (lower food AND alcohol costs!), but that also gave me the worst hangover of my entire life on New Year's. So I'm still not sure whether I'd recommend that strategy.

is ground beef really that expensive? :|

haha yeah really man its not THAT expensive.

ok here is the pinto bean stew i "invented"

1 lb. dried pinto beans
1-2 dried ancho or pasilla chiles (you can find a big bag at mexican stores for like $4)
3-5 cloves garlic
olive oil
1 15 oz. can diced tomatoes
1 carrot
optional: spinach
salt, pepper, cumin, cayenne

soak the beans overnight. drain, rinse, add clean water to cover the beans by about 1.5 inches. peel the garlic cloves and cut them in half, put them in the pot along with the dried chiles and like 2 T olive oil. cook until the beans are soft. at this point i pick out the stems of the peppers but leave the body and seeds in (there will be pepper skin in the stew but this saves the step of straining out the pepper flesh). dump off most of the water. mash the beans, peppers, and garlic with a potato masher until lumpy stew consistency. add salt, pepper, and about 2 tsp cumin. drain liquid from diced tomatoes and add tomatoes to the pot. shred carrot and add that. if you want to add spinach, chop it and put it in. cook until carrots are cooked/spinach is wilted. add cayenne if it's not hot enough.

seriously hoos i swear you can take your mcD's money to the grocery store and get more meat than that and it will contain actual meat

damn i just remembered i have a tub of tofu in the fridge i need to go in on that

http://www.kania.net/images/squirrel-in-trap.jpg

dude hoos you have no right to be writing fitness for fuckups if you are buying mcdonalds patties instead of some ground beef. seriously. you're not saving money there, imo, and you're probably hurting yourself.

better yet, you can get ground turkey for like 4.99/lb. better for you.

(that is fancy like 98% lean ground turkey, btw. higher fat turkey will be a lot cheaper)

i just buy huge bags of brown rice and quinoa and fresh vegetables and some lentils and chickpeas. i think i spend probably less than $200 a month on food although it does get crazy monotonous

My upcoming budget looks like about $150/mo for food if I drink zero beers. It will be tricky.

I'm not poor in the slightest but doing a budget's made me realise I spend wayyyy too much of what little spare I have on booze and smokes. No wonder I can never have savings.

admittedly, i break up crazy monotony with peeping free food whenever i can. the other day, i ate so much good dim sum for free, it was gross.

yeah, hoos, mcd's is gross, just buy some cheapo chuck.

agreed re: ethnic markets, i miss the 'Manila Oriental Market' (aka MOM) in my old hood in SF. i once walked out of there with two steaks, a block of tofu, a bag of onions, three peppers, and an avocado...for $6. no fuckin joke.

also: BULK FOODS. quinoa and bulghur wheat and TVP and all that shit are unreal cheap when you buy them bulk.

dude hoos you have no right to be writing fitness for fuckups if you are buying mcdonalds patties instead of some ground beef. seriously. you're not saving money there, imo, and you're probably hurting yourself.

― DJ NAIR (tehresa), Friday, February 12, 2010 2:29 AM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

please also note i haven't worked on this project in months cause i don't feel qualified atm

haha yah im kinda a mooch tbh ~ bf is a sous-chef so get free food/meals out of that too.

sometimes i think about how i really, really need a live-in bf just for the reduced expenses. my rent would be sooo cheap! :\

Lol I'm totally that...except...w/o the pitching in on rent/bills/food. I'm sorta king of mooches atm. :(

lol $20.34 until friday

but i have like 3lb of chicken in the freezer + half a sack of potatoes + pasta + still tones of curry paste and spices and stuff so probably gonna spend a little on some raw veggies and enough cheapo shit to eat at lunch at work and i'll be fine. just gotta not deplete the bus pass and i'm set. ~http://www.smeggys.co.uk/images/smilies/fingers_crossed.gif~ no rain no rain no rain ~http://www.smeggys.co.uk/images/smilies/fingers_crossed.gif~

i'm about to leave yr ranks. it's about time.

godspeed

I made less than 10K last year. Living in a house my mother owns helped. Getting food stamps helped even more, sometimes in unexpected ways (all of my relatives got candy for Christmas last year).

some weird pride i can't reason with won't let me apply for food stamps. it'd probably help a lot.

swallow that pride, srsly

My dinner: corn meal mixed with powdered milk and water and fried on a skillet.

The Rowntree paper reveals that a single person needs to earn at least £14,400 before tax to afford a basic but acceptable standard of living.

Hope no-one minds me crossing the pond but ~makes you think~ maybe

$14,000/year, 3 years running.

p.s.: 2 masters degrees idling on my shelf.

y'all making me ashamed not to have savings and shit tbh. i don't live any better than when i was a student, except for having a car and renting a place with a spare room.

in the context of this thread, you are basically donald trump

I've been on UK minimum wage ever since finishing my PhD 3-4 years ago, but it's my choice.

harbl i'm making your soup recipe right now

I've been on UK minimum wage ever since finishing my PhD 3-4 years ago, but it's my choice.

yeah that statement kinda begs explanation.

damn i am obviously a culinary buffoon because that is a shockingly large pot of mush for such a little bag of beans. i wish i knew about soup back when i was a dishwasher.

If anything poverty has taught me that rice cooked in the microwave is actually better than rice cooked on the stovetop!

It's my choice in that the job I decided I wanted to do doesn't pay very well.

Though whether I still want to do that job after this time in under consideration...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdMldj71cT0&NR=1

this is the first time in a while i've had to borrow money to eat :(

hugs. it will get better.

oh yeah it's cool. i mean it sucks to borrow dough form the gf but i'll live and i'll pay her back on friday. gotta get crackin on looking for a new job though. thought i had an in for a job that would have doubled my wages, that i was even qualified for, but turns out the position was already filled.

:(

I really don't belong on this thread. I do not live in poverty. But I only made about $12,000 last year.

Good luck "arby's"

otm -- hope everything gets better asap for you dude

i'm with aimless. i live (now) in good circumstances in Boston... although i spent a good few months living out of the back of a car in western Los Angeles circa 2006. last year i made $11,000, though school loans and various debts/collections as well as career choice mean that i will be poor for the next +/- 10 years, at the minimum –– longer if my gf heads to med school.

Feel bad for everyone having these probs right now. I have a couple of casual/part-time jobs but I mostly subsist on student loans so may as well be in this situation. I am totally filling up my tank only $10 at a time right now, which is a pain but helps me budget a little better (I think)

Oh god arby's I was there for the better part of last month and part of this month. Hang in there!

haha oh man i don't deserve quite so much pity but thanks. i mean yeah my hours were cut down and i make zilch and whatever but this is totally my fault for not clamping down on my spending over the last paycheck knowing i was gonna have to buy supplies/pay for the site etc for a camping excursion i was on this weekend.

it'll all be cool.