/ot/ - off-topic

Sadly the most effective saving tactic in current year is to live with your parents. Also do not have children or pets.

I will start writing down every single thing I buy and its price because there's no other way for me to control the little guilty pleasures I allow myself every week (2-3 chocolate bars, a little brioche or cupcake here and there…). I am slim because my job is physically very demanding but I get paid the minimum and I cannot waste much more money on sweets.

GET PET INSURANCE IF YOU HAVE PETS. i got almost everything i spent at the emergency vet this last time back. went right back into my cats medications and blood tests for this thyroid. also buy from chewy. not just for the prices but multiple times now they’ve messed up and processed my order twice and since they messed up i got two packages of dry food, two packages of probiotics, two packages of medicine syringes/droppers and two packages of joint supplements for FREE. over a hundred dollars worth of stuff. they’ll probably fix it soon but it’s happened to me like three times at this point and they refund the original order to apologize for charging you twice. also if doordash fucks up and doesn’t give you a refund you can report them to the better business bureau and they’ll give you your entire order refunded plus some credits sometimes. i also managed to get an entire year of dash pass refunded because i tried to cancel it and they charged me again and i reported it there. i only wanted a refund for the past month. don’t be afraid to be a karen just call and politely say there’s been a mistake, make small talk and be like i know it’s not your fault i’m so sorry to the customer service agent. you’ll probably be the only non soul crushing customer interaction of the day and they tend to go out of their way to reward just basic civility. i always mention sorry to be difficult i’m a student so i don’t have a huge budget. you can always do this if you’re not actually a student. honestly just be a person they are able to sympathize with instead of a cow and they’re gonna choose you over the corporation.

>>2317904
I have a full time job and I'm paid above minimum wage, renting in my city became even more expensive than usual because of covid and a lot of people moving here, so I still live with my parents even though I don't like it at all. I'm saving a shit ton of money that way and can indulge in a lot of things that I wouldn't be able to afford if I had my own place. I'm considering moving out very soon because not having any privacy is a pain in the ass, but everyone in my age range around me is telling me I should consider staying for as long as possible because they're struggling with rent and bills, even the ones living with roommates or their bf or gf.

>what you make at home now vs take out or buying
When I started my current job we were located in a different smaller office with no kitchen and when we found out the fridge was full of cockroaches and it took months to replace it I was so disgusted I just ordered takeout for lunch breaks and never stopped. I need to start cooking more often to save money, but on the other hand just thinking about this incident makes me want to throw up.

>>2318104
>I need to start cooking more often to save money, but on the other hand just thinking about this incident makes me want to throw up.
Get a thermos or some other vacuum food jar and an insulated bag. I never, ever, <i>ever</i> put my food in the breakroom fridge. Ever.

>>2317915
What pet insurance do you have?

I've found that with grocery shopping, it helps immensely to create a menu as you look through the circulars. I used to just buy stuff and try to figure out what to make later, but that "I've got nothing to eat" mindset was still there. Now I write out Breakfast/Lunch/Snacks/Dinner/Misc. and read through the weekly circular to come up with ideas. If a pack of chicken breasts is on sale I'm immediately thinking of chicken with pasta, chicken on top of salads, etc. I buy the bulk from Stop in Shop, taking advantage of any digital coupon I can as well as their reward system (1 point per dollar spent which can be cashed out later OR trade in points for free items). Their produce quality is pretty crap for the price so that's where the local markets/fruit stands come in. Don't be loyal to brands and picky when it comes to your "essentials"! What I mean is if you exclusively drink non-dairy milk (and assuming you have no allergies) consider buying what's on sale for the week rather than what's not. I like oat milk but more often than not almond milk will be on sale WITH additional store coupons.

What are your favorite hacks for still eating healthy while living frugal? For me it's:
>frozen vegetables ($2 a bag)
>walmart brand rice (between 97 cents and $2 a bag, depending on how much you buy at a time)
>cheap meat such as bottom round steaks or pork chops ($4)
>a bottle of sauce from the asian isle ($4)
That's several meals right there and it's extremely nutritious and filling.

I just steal.

sign up for food boxes. Most of my clothes are hand me downs or stolen, I found some cute boots in the dumpster once

>>2318324
Lifehack!

>>2318323
Lentils, beans, tofu and chickpeas are cheaper and healthier than meat.

In my experience, a lot of people are really bad at finances and that's why they aren't reaching the goals that they want to reach. I didn't learn a lot of important life-skills as a child, and that included proper financial literacy. When I was a young adult, I struggled to make ends meet and I struggled with my finances for a while. I was in denial about my own faults, and instead of admitting to them, I blamed the economy for all my woes. Looking back, I'm a little embarrassed by my behaviour back then. As I got older, I got sick of it and decided to take more responsibility for myself and for my actions. Through a lot of self-work, learning, research, and formative experiences, I'm much more financially literate now and I'm proud of the progress I made. I wanted to share a bunch of my tips, but as I was typing out my first one I got kind of carried away, so this post will just have my tips when it comes to food.

>The problem with food and nutrition.
I think food is one of the biggest hurdles for financial freedom and independence. I've seen it again and again: a random 20-something with a cushy job complaining about how food is so expensive nowadays, all while sustaining themselves on fast food ordered from Uber Eats or DoorDash, all while struggling to fry an egg. A lot of adults my age, in their mid-20s, don't know how to cook; they don't know how to effectively shop for groceries; they don't know how to plan meals; and, most importantly, they don't realize how important it is to be frugal when it comes to food.

>Take-out food & delivery services.
Before I talk about anything else, you have to realize that take-out and food delivery are some of the stupidest things that you can do if you want to save money. Every type of food that you want from a restaurant can be made at home for cheaper, with a lot more nutrition value. I'm not saying "oh, never go out to eat," but what I'm saying is that a lot of restaurants are rip-offs, especially fast-food restaurants. When you couple the high price of fast food with the even higher price of food delivery services, you end up draining your wallet quickly. On most food delivery services, the price of the food there is inflated by around 10-30 percent, e.g., McNuggets ordered on UberEats are about 20% more expensive than the McNuggets ordered from the drive-thru. One of the best things that you can do for your wallet is to re-categorize how you view eating out and going to restaurants. In your budget, eating out should be categorized under "entertainment." Eating out is an experience, and it's a luxury, it isn't just nourishing your body. It's about going to the restaurant, sitting down, being waited on, enjoying conversation with friends or family, etc..

>Knowledge on cooking.
I'm not sure why this is, but I've noticed that a lot of friends my age don't know how to cook. They might know how to cook in theory, but they don't understand the idea of cooking. You want a balanced meal, one that's nutritious, delicious, and balanced. Every meal should have some protein, some carbs, and some fat. If it doesn't have all three, it's not a meal. For example, ramen noodles from a cup isn't a meal on its own. If you don't know how to cook, there's thousands (if not millions) of recipes that you can find online for beginners. There's really no excuse for not knowing how to cook anymore. My parents never taught me how to cook, but I learned all on my own from the internet and from cookbooks. It took me a while to get good at it, but now I'm way better off for it.

>Shopping for groceries.
A lot of my friends that work minimum wage jobs think that they're above couponing, and they shop at the most expensive grocery stores. Obviously, this is a big mistake. If you live in an area with a lot of different grocery stores around, take a day where you just go in and look at the prices of things. For me, grocery store A always has cheaper meats and cheeses than grocery store B, but B has cheaper baking supplies and grains than A, so when I go grocery shopping I go to both stores to maximize my savings. I always go to the grocery stores that advertise themselves as budget-friendly. Besides shopping at appropriate stores, I also make sure to stay up to date with coupons and sales. Where I live, grocery stores do new sales every week. They upload fliers online, so I go to their websites and check out what the sale is for the week. If they're having a sale on essential things that I'll always need, like say shampoo, body wash, toilet paper, dried goods, canned goods, etc., I'll be sure to allocate funds to buy a decent amount of that product. For example, I usually buy a 4 month supply of toilet paper whenever it comes on sale, because I know it's a product I'll always need. Another good idea is to look at the price per gram of food items, most of the time this will be posted on the price tags, but if not you can do simple math to figure it out. For example, at my grocery store, 500g of rice costs more per gram than 1000g of rice, but 1000g of rice costs less per gram than 2000g of rice. So whenever I need rice I always buy the 1000g option because it's the lowest price per gram for the item. This is especially important to consider if the item you're buying comes in a variety of different size options, because the biggest (or heaviest) option doesn't always equate to the cheapest

>Planning meals.
This ties into the tips on cooking and grocery shopping. You should be planning your meals for the week before you go grocery shopping. Planning your meals can provide better nutrition, save you time cooking, and it can help make grocery shopping easier and cheaper. You can find calculators online to discover what your ratio of macro-nutrients should look like, but, in general: a meal should be composed of 50% protein, 30% carbs, and 20% fats. With this in mind, you can plan out your meals ahead of time so that you can get proper nutrition every day. Before I started meal-planning, I exerted a lot of time making a decision on what I should eat for the day, but with meal-planning it makes it so that I don't have to exert energy on decision-making. Planning your meals makes it so that grocery shopping is a lot simpler and more efficient, especially if you consider sales and coupons when you plan your meals. E.g., if I know there's a sale on tomatoes that week, I'll make sure that a lot of my meals will have tomatoes as an ingredient. When you plan your meals effectively, you reduce food waste and wasted money. For example, I never buy frozen french fries because although they're quick and easy to make, I know that my money would be better spent on buying a bag of potatoes because potatoes are a much more versatile ingredient; they can be made into a lot of different meals, rather than just french fries.

These tips are just one way to improve your financial well-being when it comes to food. We all need food to live, but a lot of people spend way too much money on food, sometimes to the point that it becomes one of their biggest spending categories. Food will always be something that you need to spend money on, but with these tips you can minimize the amount of money that goes towards food and maybe make some better choices that will positively impact your financial situation. I wrote a lot, sorry to sperg out, but I saw the thread and wanted to contribute something that others might find helpful.

I get a durable freezer and then buy perishable food when it's on sale. Balanced meals with the right ratio of meat/vegetables/carbs with the right ratio of vitamins/nutrients/essential elements whatever. Thankfully my culture's meals are pretty balanced and my mom breathed down my neck every time I cooked anything as a child telling me to add more vegetables or more meat to balance a meal so I don't need to worry too much about balance.
Or I just stuff things in my bag, the workers at supermarkets aren't paid enough to care. Garlic is roughly 30 US dollars a kilo here so I was shoving bulbs in my bag today.
I try not to buy instant meals, instant noodles, they tend to cost way more than buying ingredients and cooking in the long run and they're not especially nutritious. I will shove cans of soup in my bag though.

>>2318360
I don’t understand the disdain some people have for coupons. I had a brief moment in college where I was obsessed with couponing and finding really good deals and I admit I did go a little crazy but the people around me would act like they were too good for the simple fast food coupons from the mail. They would just say “I’m already in debt so I’ll just take out another student loan”. I hope they never get to use their diplomas kek

>>2318360
Well said nona, this is the expanded version of what I was getting at earlier >>2318319
>>2318371
Couponing also gives a bit of a rush imo. I don't live somewhere that allows stacking hundreds of coupons the way they do on Extreme Couponing, but seeing the "You Saved…" section on the receipt is always exciting. Aside from in-store deals/coupons did you have any specific websites you went to for couponing?

Getting a library card saved me a shit ton of money. I had one for free and another one for just a few euros, more or less the price of one book, for another city but since both cities are very close to each other I can easily access both of them. When I started university I finished classes very late and had lectures almost every Saturday, and I was busy with assignments so I couldn't go to the library anymore, it got me in a bad habit of buying manga and novels that I ended up not liking all that much so I sold them later but in the end it made me lose what was a lot of money for the broke student I was. So now I read whatever I can get in the library and will only buy what I really liked. I also borrow DVDs and save money on online streaming subscriptions.

>>2318188
I really should. I was already gifted a bottle like that a few years ago, kept taking it with me in the previous office but the only way to get more water was to either take the plastic water bottles the company bought for us or fill my own thermos bottle in the sink in the bathroom so I also lost that habit. I also always had to take it home with me all the time because no lockers. I should use it everyday again, none of these things are an issue anymore so we don't get anymore free water bottle paid by my employers. It would help me be less tempted by sugary drinks as well when ordering takeout.

>I never, ever, <i>ever</i> put my food in the breakroom fridge. Ever.
I do it the few times I can't finish my meal but once someone threw my leftovers in the trashcan so I don't like putting my food in there either, even though cockroaches aren't a problem anymore. More than half of the people in the office are people I don't know so I can't trust them and they're always in the kitchen.

Top tip for ginger and garlic: if you don't end up using large quantities of ginger - stick it in the freezer and then grate it frozen whenever you need it. I've had the same knob in there for like 3 months. With garlic, make a paste and freeze it portioned out.

I also reuse baking paper, just use common sense and don't reuse it if it's completely trashed.

The whole "see, smell, taste" is a winner for so many foods, the use by dates are a suggestion rather than a rule. Obviously don't eat old ass meat, but use your discretion on most other things.

This is more dependant on where you live and whether you have the space, but obviously pickling and fermenting things is a godsend if you live in a cold ass place that has horrible vegetables for like 6 months of the year. Obviously need some investment in the beginning if you don't have jars and the like, but most people have a collection of random jam jars in some cupboard anyway.

Baking bread is of course a meme from covid times but I live far away enough from the store that its become a habit and I keep it simple, no wild kneading/rising rituals - just basic whole wheat.

As nonnies said above, food is the biggest culprit to financial flexibility that's actually variable. There's very little you can do to pay less rent for example, your electricity bill will probably be around the same because those habits are pretty standard, you'll still have to pay for insurance/gas for your car. So definitely integrating some of the suggestions in this thread with food/cooking will make a difference.

Eat rice, it's more filling than bread, and it doesn't take so long to prepare. One rice cooker and a few bags in your basement and you're all set.

>>2318429
>The whole "see, smell, taste" is a winner for so many foods, the use by dates are a suggestion rather than a rule. Obviously don't eat old ass meat, but use your discretion on most other things.
IMO it's just better to play it safe and eat foods within the suggested dates, unless it's something that lasts a while like apples/beets/etc or can be frozen. Old food might not make you completely sick but can still give you really bad stomach cramps, as I've experienced. Plus I kind of feel that if you have food sitting around beyond its expiration that means it wasn't being eaten anyway.

>>2318418
Yeah a library card is great. At my college they use interlibrary loan so I've been requesting books from other libraries instead of buying them. I grew up in a town without a library so I had always bought a lot of books instead of seeing if a library had them first.

>>2317904
Living with parents is also one of the biggest crutches that leads to collecting a bunch of useless crap like anime figurines and videogames. As soon as I moved out it was like a switch flipped because you suddenly have over 1k in bills every month instead of 1k lying around for savings or fun money.

Not a burger, so idk how effective some of my tips are.
As for food, preserving fruits, vegetables and even meat (beef is the better option for that imo) in jars. If you don’t have empty ones, start keeping jars after you use their contents up - pasta sauce, olives, doesn’t matter, if the jar is made out of glass and the lid is made out of metal, you’re good. Jams, pickled vegetables and vegetable paste can last you an entire winter if sealed good and meat up to 3 months maximum. Yes, it’s a time consuming process and requires some trial and error, but it’s worth it in the end.
If you’re lucky and have or know a grandma who was a garden, hens or cows and can either sell some of those good for cheap or in exchange for helping her with things like errands or helping around the garden for example. If not, Facebook groups from your place can have announcements from farmers popping up from time to time with stuff that is surplus, if they don’t have inflated prices because of the “small business” excuse tho.
Byuing seasonal fruits and vegetables is also a good saving option. For example, buying forest fruits in season is better than buying their frozen version in the winter, that version tastes like nothing and is also expensive.

For entertainment, this one is pretty controversial, but cutting on streaming services. 2 streaming services are enough in my book - one for movies, one for music if you cannot pirate or YouTube mp3 your way out. Not applicable to all of course, but I have encountered some people my age complaining about how shit’s expensive, but they got 4 streaming services minimum that they pay for monthly.
Not entertainment necessarily, but subscriptions for data plans are garbage most of the time. Depends on where you live, but prepaid offers are much better. The only 2 downsides are not having the offer for an entire month (20 something days here) and not being automatically renewed when it’s over.
Borrowing books from a library or even a friend if you don’t like eye strain that comes with reading PDFs.

Apologies for the spergout, I hope my rambling might help someone.

Grow your own vegetables if you have any land for it. Some salad or soup greens is enough. If you have an apartment then maybe the balcony.
Don't get a dishwasher or dryer, the time it takes to load the dishwasher and rinse the dishes is longer than just hand washing them. Sun dry everything, it also kills bacteria or that awful cold wet smell if you leave something out for too long. I don't care about clothes that supposedly require you to dry them in shade though

>>2318437
>IMO it's just better to play it safe and eat foods within the suggested dates
This is the frugal thread, not the normies obey the arbitrary corporate rules thread. If it doesn't smell, taste, or look off, it's fine
>>2318510
Microgreens are also a really good choice if you live in an apartment. It's a two week commitment that you can stop anytime.

Thrift everything. It's also trendy and cool to do that now so take advantage of it while it lasts kek. Grab all the shirts from the $1 clearance section.

>>2318512
>This is the frugal thread, not the normies obey the arbitrary corporate rules thread.
Just because you think it's fine to cut mold off of cheese and bread doesn't mean everyone else has to take a risk with their food.

>>2318517
Too late.

>>2318512
Some harmful bacteria don’t change how food looks or smells, so it’s good to check storage and expiration too.

>>2318519
"Thrifting has turned into another consumer nightmare. People are buying just to buy, or worse, to resell online at absurd prices. A couple of years ago, finding good stuff was so much easier. My local thrift stores are boring now. I almost bought a nice chair recently but hesitated—then saw someone selling the same chair online for a fortune the next day, using the store’s photo! Same with a piece of furniture: €80 in-store, flipped to €800. I can’t stand these people.

I'm a burger, so advice might be burger-y. Biggest hacks for me have been prepaid phone plans (T-Mobile gives you 5GB of data for $15 a month), pay-per-mile car insurance (if you don't drive a lot and have decent credit, it'll save you sooo much money), religious coupon clipping/taking advantage of sales and buying staples at places like Aldi, eating out max twice a month, and also pirating all my media and cancelling Spotify/Netflix. Spotify Premium is getting harder and harder to properly crack, so I'm planning to set up a tiny home server to replace it. Oh, and if I want a big purchase (something over $100), I set up sale alerts on secondhand stores and patiently wait for good deals. I especially like Swappa for secondhand electronics. I also do anything I can to save money at the local library. My library has 3d printers for example, so if I want nice QOL stuff like pill boxes and toothpaste squeezers, I just print it for free. Free scanners, free printers, free books, free DVDs, free park passes, free tote bags during events, just really lots of nice little gems.

>>2318437
You've been brainwashed nonette, if it's in sealed, not bloated packaging you're 98% fine. And like I said, discretion is key - use your senses, you have them for a reason. Milk is a good example
of something that usually has a super deceptive use by date, and is very obvious when it's "off", so why waste it? Anecdotally, I've never noticed any stomach issues while doing this.

>>2318518
>Actively seeing mold counts as appearing good
Your reading comprehension is either on the level of a first grader, or else you are the stupidest person alive.

>>2318607
Clearly you don't eat cheese

>>2318568
Sometimes senses don't work, as >>2318522
has mentioned. I also put in my original post that I've had personal experience eating food past the date that seemed fine while eating, and gave me severe abdominal pain hours after eating it. It's not worth my time to get sick from old food.

>>2318443
It depends, I'm saving a lot of money that way, but my little sister who also lives with us is spending money on dumb shit like a botox injection that makes her look like a Bogdanoff and ugly fur jackets while telling us she needs to save money for her driving lessons. Several people posted in the consoomer threads are also like that, I forgot her name but there's that fujoshi and danmei fan with crazy expensive bjd and merchandises who shares her room with her sister. If I were the sister I would have fought with her for being this irresponsible.

>>2318418
I meant more like a thermos food jar so you can heat your food up in the morning and put it in the thermos to take to work instead of using the fridge (gross) and/or microwave (doubly gross) at your office or wasting money on takeout. I have them in two different sizes, and my food was always still piping hot enough to burn my mouth when I was ready to eat it at lunchtime. Add an insulated bag for cold stuff or just to put the food jar in to keep it extra hot, and you're all set. If you go the food jar thermos route, also pick up a canning funnel. Makes filling it so much easier.

>>2318443
>Living with parents is one of the biggest crutches
100%. A lot of people my age are in denial about this big time. Friends around my age that live at home spend way too much money on frivolous things like food delivery, merch, plastic garbage, drugs, etc., all while having no goals for the future. I have an acquaintance that makes more than I do, but at the end of the month she has no money left over even though she lives at home and doesn't pay any rent, meanwhile I still manage to stash away money towards savings while renting. It feels like way too many people over-rely on their parents, and in doing so they hit pause on their own personal development and halt their financial progress. I think there's way more benefit to living on your own, outside of the family home, just in terms of personal growth and discovery. I grew up a lot in the first year I moved out of my parents' house, and I changed a lot for the better. The sooner a person enters the real world and has bills to pay and rent to pay, they start gaining experience and learning. If someone stays at home forever, they're always missing out on that experience and when they finally do move out of home they're under-prepared. I have friends that are close to 30 that still don't know how to pay phone bills, use public transportation, or rent an apartment. These are major hindrances that they're dealing with now because most of us learned all that stuff a decade ago.

I always hear the "but rentals are too expensive now" line, but it's always coming from people that want a 2 bedroom apartment all to themselves in a downtown core. I rent a 3-bedroom unit and I have roommates, and that cuts down the cost of renting by a lot. A lot of people feel entitled to living alone, but that is definitely a luxury.

Obviously this doesn't apply to everyone, I have friends that live at home but save a shit ton of money because they wanna skip renting and just buy a condo to move out into. I guess it all depends on personal goals. I think everyone should have a 5-year financial plan that they're working towards.

>>2319332
>I think there's way more benefit to living on your own, outside of the family home, just in terms of personal growth and discovery
It depends on where you live and what's the average wages in that location. Sometimes I hear about rent prices in some cities and countries like the big cities in the US, in Australia and in Ireland and if I had to live there by my own I'd be worried sick over not earning enough money to pay for the bare minimum. A good compromise would be if adult kids who work treat the family they live with like roommates they're related to and like and not like mommy and daddy giving them everything on a silver platter. The other extreme is when kids are stuck with insane parents who see them as walking wallets and they make them pay a full rent for staying in their room as soon as they turn 18 so they can't save money to get out and invest in other things like driving lessons, school, moving out.

I knew in university a lot of classmates with rich parents who lived alone, skipped classes to have part time jobs, seemed responsible on the surface but then they admitted their parents paid for everything so they bought stupid expensive things all the time for no reason. The same classmates thought I was an immature kid for living with my parents and not working while attending classes until they learned we were so poor I could get a scholarship, but that meant I wasn't allowed to skip classes or I'd have to pay the scholarship back. The people I know who moved out the earliest were crazy rich kids whose parents own several houses and apartments so they never really learned, except for one who moved to another country after graduating and got married to a local.

>>2319386
It definitely depends on the country a person is in and the wages there, but at the same time I think it should be the ultimate goal to move out and start your life on your own. I live in a HCOL area, and I can still make ends meet by having a full-time job in my field of study, by being a freelancer on the side in domains that I have skills in, and by making smart financial choices that serve my long-term goals.

A lot of people from poorer background don't have a strong grasp on financial literacy, that's actually one of the reasons why they're poor in the first place. In my poorfag household growing up, we never saved, we never invested, so when I was an adult I had to learn all that stuff on my own. My family is still poor, and the more financially literate I become the more I realize that their economic situation is caused in large part by their ignorance and poor financial decisions. If I stayed at home forever, I wouldn't have been exposed to the financial stresses that challenged me to overcome my ignorance and to become more financially literate, I would have carried on just like my parents did and stayed poor forever.

>I'd be worried sick over not earning enough money to pay for the bare minimum.
It's normal to worry, I don't think people should be scared of this. I actually think too few people worry. Obviously it shouldn't consume you and keep you up at night, but I think a normal amount of worry is healthy and actually pushes us to make smarter choices and to re-evaluate our situations. When I lived on my own, I was stressed out about making rent all the time. That stress ended up convincing me that it'd be better if I lived in a shared-apartment with roommates, and that choice was great for my finances and for my social life. When I was stressed out about the amount I was paying for streaming services, that helped me look into ways to get these things for free and I taught myself how to pirate stuff. Stressors can help us grow and change for the better.

>A good compromise would be if adult kids who work treat the family they live with like roommates.
>Parents who see them as walking wallets and they make them pay a full rent for staying in their room as soon as they turn 18.
This is part of the problem. A lot of adult children want to stay at home for long periods of time without actively contributing to the household finances. A person can't be treated as a roommate when they don't pay rent. When I moved home for a year after university ended, I still paid my mum money for my rent. I don't think its fair for adult children to stay at home rent-free. My mum hated the fact that I paid her, and it was a fight to get her to accept money at the end of the month, but I think it was still the right thing for me to do. Paying rent (or mortgage) is a part of life, the sooner that a person learns how to do this, the better it is for them. Some financial guides say that rent should consume no more than 30% of your monthly salary, so if a person lives at home and doesn't pay rent, then they should be saving at least 30% of their monthly earnings to emulate paying rent to prepare themselves for when the time really comes.

>The same classmates thought I was an immature kid for living with my parents and not working while attending classes
Judgemental people are everywhere, it sucks that we can't support each other and be free of petty stuff like this. I'm happy that you got the chance to go to school, & I'm sorry you had to deal with the quick judgements of richies while there.

>>2319401
>it'd be better if I lived in a shared-apartment with roommates, and that choice was great for my finances and for my social life
A few years ago when I was looking for my own place I was also considering living with roommates but I found out it's usually just as expensive to have roommates than to live alone in a smaller place in my city because the rooms are usually in very big apartments. I gave up looking for my own place when my father got very sick though so maybe that's not the case anymore. Everytime someone posted that they were looking for roommates online they kept insisting that everyone in the house should eat diner together and hang out with each other, it was very weird so I'd rather spend more money to live by myself. I spent a semester abroad after graduating and lived with roommates but they were very nice and we all minded our business so maybe I'm paranoid. Right now I'm with my parents, pay them every months for bills and groceries because they own our place so they don't pay rent, it's way cheaper but I don't like the neighborhood so I'm considering looking for my own place again.

What foods should one cut off to save money? If they have essential nutrients/vitamins/elements then what can they be replaced with that's cheaper?

>>2319451
list too long. cut out anything pre-made.

>>2319451
Well, this is kind of a big question. For a few quick answers:

>Dedicate 3 days a week where you don't eat any meat.
A lot of people over-indulge in meat, which can usually be one of the more expensive things purchased at grocery stores. You could try substituting it for tofu some days. Tofu is a very cheap food, and like chicken it takes on the flavour of whatever seasoning you add to it. If you can dedicate three days a week to eating a meat-free diet while still getting the required protein for the day, it saves a lot on grocery bills.

>Cut out all snack foods in favour of proper hearty meals.
People tend to snack on food when they're not really full or nourished by their meals alone. This is usually because a person isn't eating enough protein in the day, as protein is the macro-nutrient that keeps you full for longer. Most snack-foods are unhealthy, and in the end they don't actually satiate your hunger. It's better to save money and avoid buying snackfoods.

>Choose generic or store-brand foodstuffs over branded foodstuffs.
Sometimes store-brand or generic items are cheaper than branded items. For example, my usual grocery store has a generic brand of cheese that's 40% cheaper than branded cheese. Sometimes, generic will be pricier than branded, and sometimes generic will taste "off" compared to branded, so it's kind of a live-and-learn situation.

>Frozen goods over fresh goods.
Why buy fresh fruits or vegetables at premium prices when frozen fruits or vegetables are very nutritionally similar and much cheaper? The general rule is that if you're baking with vegetables or fruits, or if you're cooking with them, opt for frozen varieties. Fresh fruits and vegetables work best when you're just consuming them raw. E.g., if I'm making a smoothie, I'd opt for frozen fruits, but if I was just plating fruits to serve with whipped cream I'd go with fresh fruits.

>Buy a bulk protein powder
This is sort of a weird one, but I bought a huge bag of protein powder for like 60 dollars, and it's good for 150 servings. Whenever I'm feeling hungry, or like I didn't eat enough, I just make a smoothie with the protein powder. Protein fills you up, and usually a lot of protein powders are also enriched with essential nutrients and important vitamins, so it always leaves me feeling fuller and energized than just snacking on something or ignoring my hunger pangs.

You could also read posts like >>2318360 & >>2318319 to get a better idea on how to save money when it comes to food.

>>2319451
Not food but only drink water, no soda, no alcohol, only water and maybe some fruits juice from time to time. It depends on whether you live in an area where tap water is good or not though, there are places in some countries where nobody should drink tap water unless they don't mind getting sick.

Re-contextualize money. Use your hourly wage as a guide for purchasing.

For example, let's say you make $20/hour. If you want to buy something that's $10, think to yourself "hm, I'd have to labour for 30 minutes to have this item, is 30 minutes of my time worth it for this?" Or: "Hm, this item is $200, so I'd have to labour for 10 hours to afford this." Doing this helps me determine is something worth the money or not.

I really wanted to buy a new sofa recently, even though there's nothing really wrong with my old one. I did the math, and I'd have to work 36 hours to have the money to buy it. A new sofa isn't worth 36 hours of my labour. I found another sofa that was only worth 12 hours of my labour, and that seemed much more reasonable to purchase.

Before I started doing this, I looked at money differently. It was like in my head, money and labour were divorced. I could only contextualize purchases based on their monetary value instead of the value of the work I did.

>>2318360
I love you nonnie