Here's another REALLYPOOR idea : the 'for free' listing on Craigslist! Most people know about Craigslist by now: we look for local jobs, shop for rentals, houses etc , find bicycles, RVs and anything else imaginable, locally or nationally on Craigslist. What many may overlook though, is that CRAIGSLIST has a 'for free' category in every city.
When I first looked into the 'for free' category I expected mostly a lot of junk other people did not what to pay to have hauled away. Surprisingly though, while there is plenty of stuff that polite people would not even photograph or post, there are many many varied offerings by nice people in nice places that are entirely worth the war. One may even furnish eventually an entire house FOR FREE by keeping a close watch on the free listings on Craigslist.
For example, I just went to FREE STUFF on CL and the first listing is a free ceiling fan:
You could pay 50 to 100 dollars for a ceiling fan with lights! Or how about this 'curb alert':
Drive by this fellow's curb, and you can have a little table and a lawnmower: it might work perfectly, or might be repairable, or need nothing more than a spark plug, but in any event, next to the cheapest at about 200 dollars, its a great deal even if it only lasts a year. Some REALLYPOOR people actually can do things like small machine repair, which makes this a great deal.
One of my favorite things about FREE STUFF is that no child should ever have to go without a piano again. Take a look at these offered for free in the Minneapolis St. Paul area:
Some are actually quite nice, and some are a really poor nice idea.
How about a sofa? Often you can find an extremely nice sofa, well cared for, that only has a few minor flaws: the owner may be doing nothing more than updating a style, or moving and starting over, and you benefit, for the mere cost of getting the thing to your house or apartment somehow. Here's an example of a nice offering:
Though occasionally they also have others that are better dismissed:
But it depends on the person: being poor does not mean being without skills: if you have upholstery skills, this would be acceptable, or maybe you know how to refurbish leather : I don't! The point is, you can fnd everything, from the most expensive hardly used iterms in all categories all the way to things that even poor people think would be better as firewood or rag content!
No birthday present for a child? How about a used bike?
Or a play kitchen?
The above would take about ten minutes of elbow grease to clean up, and any little girl up to about 7 or 8 would find it neat-o. In the background, this offer included a free high chair which leads to another category of baby supplies:
One of the things I discovered, was a plethora of office supplies, though you have to watch for them: one office, closing down, was offering a hundred or so ring binders for organization, which are ten dollars a piece at stores like WalMart: that's a thousand dollars worth of slightly used binders for free!
A free desk ( I thought this had to be on the sale portion:
I tried this and it worked: it is taken from a recipe I found on Pinterest, but I added some zucchini and took away the butter. It's 'really poor', but it tasted fine, although it was a bit too costly for a regular dinner, so maybe near payday. _______________________________________
Ingredients:
3 yams cut into 1/4 inch slices then quartered
2 chicken breasts cut horizontally in half
chicken broth
2 tbs oil
seasoning salt to taste
garlic salt to taste
chili powder to taste
1/2 onion cut into pieces similar to the yam above
1/2 zucchini cut the same way
1-2 TBS flour
1/2+ cup milk
1 to 2 TBS vinegar
about 1/2 to 1 cup shredded cheese your choice
______________________________________________ Cut up all the cut up stuff. Put aside for the moment. Turn on oven to bake at 350. In skillet, take the filleted chicken, and cut into bite sized pieces. (Or, you can cook the chicken first, then cut into bite sized pieces, because you are free.) Sautee the chicken in 1 to 2 tablespoons of oil: season with listed seasonings. When chicken is done, add the chicken broth and let cook till boiling, then turn down heat. Cook down to where there is about 1/4 of a cup in the pan. Add the vinegar and stir. Sprinkle flour over the chicken pieces as though you were making sausage gravy. Stir until mixed with the chicken and broth, then add milk and stir: cook down until it has the consistency of gravy. In a 9 x 13 skillet, put the cut up onions, yams, zucchinis or whatever you like and spread evenly. I used a spray cooking oil with no calories on the dish to avoid sticking and make clean up easier. Sprinkle in 3 handfuls of shredded cheese and mix around. Take the chicken gravy mix and pour it evenly over all the vegetables. Add some more cheese on top. Bake. The pinterest recipe this is based on said 20 minutes, but the yams don't cook in that time. It took a good 30 to 35 minutes in my oven so you will have to watch it the first time. It doesn't look like it was made by Chef Ramsey, I've got to be honest. But it tastes great: even my son who thinks he is a gourmet and isn't loved it. Serves 4 or 2 going back over and over for another section reasoning about how the cheese doesn't really have many calories. Cost: 2 chicken breasts: $2.00 zucchini .20 yams .50 (on sale) onion free leftover milk .19 broth .10 about: we bought a box of broth for 2.00 _____________________________ roughly 2.99: not too shabby: cheaper if you have a garden and grow your own veggies. At least its something different.
Note: the Exquisite presentation: culinary excellence is at least half in 'presentation'.
Well, the day before payday, even though you may have found a good job, until you get a few paychecks, you have to live on whatever is left in the cabinets. Here is a little wonder that we tried, and even though it sounds horrible, it is actually edible and very good, made out of leftovers. We were going to go for, like , Ramen or something, but I went in to the kitchen and found eggs, leftover shredded cheese, a half a can of beanless chili (hot dog chili will do), a bit of milk and a box of stuffing. Couldn't stand to make scrambled eggs with stuffing, it was well, 'reallypoor' so voile' as with all great ideas, I just combined them in a different way: Here's the recipe:
6 eggs. 4 might work, but, well no guarantees. 2.00/dz that makes it 16.7 cents x 6=about 1.00
1/2 can of chili: free because you included it in your costs last time
1 box stuffing: cheap as .88
most of a bag of shredded cheese: on sale this week, unusual, they were 3 for 5, making the cost 1.67 (alot, but you need most of it)
2/3 cup milk to 1 cup. technically around .21 or less
Easy to make:
Crack 6 eggs in a bowl and stir thoroughly. Pour in 2/3 cup milk or cream, or even sour cream depending on what you have left over. If you pour in sour cream you may have to add water.
Get a long dish, best is pyrex about 13x9 or in that range. Grease the bottom of the pan or glass.
Cook the stove top stuffing either in the microwave or oven according to instructions. Let sit 5 minutes.
Then: the magic
Spread the stuffing on the bottom of the dish.
Then, take a spoon, and spoon on in like 6 glops the rest of the can of chili. (optional)
Then, take the shredded cheese and sprinkle it all over the dish on top of the chili and stuffing.
Then, take the milk and egg mixture, and pour it out over the whole dish.
Bake for about 30-35 minutes at 400 degrees. A fork or knife should come out clean in the middle if done. Best to strategically place the baking dish in direct center of the oven for even cooking and not over-browning on top.
This was a real risk: it was the last food we had, so if we ruined it we were back to splitting a pack of Ramen. Maybe we should have called it 'gamble casserole': in any event, it worked, it was wonderful, we ate more than we should, and you can substitute and experiment at all points of this recipe's ingredients. The dish is very filling, and tastes very good: it will however probably horrify social workers and neighbors whose salary has already come in.
Total cost: 3.76
This sounds like an awful lot, but it can easily make two meals for 2-3 people especially if at least one is under 4 feet tall. We had it for breakfast and lunch the next day and it was great as long as the refrigerator is still running. If it isn't, better just eat the one meal the night before. Other wise it really would be a "Really Poor" idea!
Well, it's been awhile but here we are with another great idea: how about a ReallyPoor Move! We just made one. First of all, we were in a REALLYPOOR state: Wisconsin, and after 10 years, we decided there just had to be another world out there: places where my son could find a wife whose favorite hobby wasn't cheese curds and majoring in respiratory therapy. Places where Weird Al Yankovic's "Stomp the Weasel" isn't an actual day and event in Valders. We wanted a change from a state where the following didn't look like the Manitowoc Christmas parade:
and where the annual Sputnik Space Trash Festival occurred with what they thought was the center piece of Sputnik on display at the Rahr Art Museum:
Sputnik IV stayed in its useless orbit until September 5, 1962, when it fell screaming from the sky over Wisconsin. All 7 tons, including the dummy cosmonaut, burned up in the atmosphere -- except one 20-pound hunk of metal. That piece crashed into the street outside of the Rahr-West Art Museum. (A rival 14-pound piece, found on a loading dock in Sheboygan, was later dismissed as doubtful.) from RoadsideAmerica.com , January 16,2015
I include this quote because most people outside of Manitowoc would think I was making it up but they truly have the place it landed right outside the Museum, the Museum display, and a festival to celebrate space junk falling on Manitowoc. They dress up like aliens and put on skits before going back to work at Manitowoc Ice and Weyerhaus. Here is a picture of the place it landed:
I don't think it left the metal ring when it hit, I think that was a monument funded by the city, but its still all the rage and brought fun and laughter to Manitowoc once a year. It was truly one of the best REALLYPOOR ideas for a field trip I have ever come across.
Anyway, I was supposed to be writing about the REALLYPOOR move to another state. We had all kinds of 'REALLYPOOR' ideas in this move! For example, we had to move in the dead of winter so we moved JANUARY 1st early in the morning even as there were still a few drunks on the highway getting out of parties. The worst part of it was the blowing snow drifts all the way into Minnesota, so after a thoroughly planned precision pack and move, we ambled out of Green Bay about 7:45 or so in the morning, and took almost 7 hours for a 4.5 hour drive because of weather conditions and going 35 mph. Arriving in our destination though in the Twin Cities area, we found how 'reallypoor' it can be to move furniture up three steep flights of stairs: we did at least feel free when we finally got here.
During the move though (and we have had many as so many people today); we learned a few tips that may help to save a lot of money in moving. These days, many are called to move out of state or even to another coast or country in order to take a job or start a new life. Many young college students who are still on a college student budget can't afford a few thousand dollars to move and it can easily run into the thousands even in a self-move. A U-haul or similar type truck can cost several hundred dollars, the cost of which expands with gas costs, equipment costs, purchase of boxes etc, meals, lodging, on top of already making long distance arrangements, paying apartment deposits or house down payments, getting utilities turned off and on, and other peripheral costs. A few tips may help though in keeping expenses down:
Tips for "Really Poor" Moving
1. Strip to the bare bones for low cost moving. Most people, even poor people have too much 'stuff'. Old chairs that should be thrown away, sofas they don't like, cracked dishes, a thousand knick-knacks, etc. This move, we took a long serious look at what really had to be moved, and we sold almost enough furniture to make the move. One doesn't have to let go of antiques, or the chair Dad had before he died, etc, but the truth is, we can all let go of furniture and items in our life that are more expensive to move than they are worth. Start over fresh. Craigslist and Ebay are reasonable places online to advertise your furniture: most that was going to sell, sold within about a week. We sold some items we were very happy with: our sofa was only 1.5 years old, but we knew that to take it would have meant renting a more expensive vehicle, carrying it up impossible steps because it was so heavy, and possibly ruining the sofa. Because it was newish and in good repair, we got a reasonable sum for it.
A lot of times when you make a move for a job, you are not sure the job will last, so investing in new furniture, expensive housing etc, is not wise for the first year. During the transition though, it does not mean you need to live and sleep on the floor: Craigslist has a 'free' option on its 'for sale' column where people all over the city you are going to give way free furniture and materials. Some are great and better than you would normally buy, and some is weathered and moth-eaten: you have to decide yourself, but it means particularly for tables, desks etc or cheap tv's , you do not have to go without items until you can afford new, you can compensate with free or low cost items off such classified pages as the above. MOVE SIMPLE.
2. Take your own food on the move. For the cost of stopping at fast food joints, you can take everything you like, or prepare sandwiches in a cooler and so forth. On the road with coffee, drinks, meals etc you can easily drop fifty dollars depending on how many people are with you: for that price, at a thrift shop you can pick up a twin size mattress, a chair and a table, etc. Think poor.
3. Don't take cheap dinnerware and kitchenware. Now, we all really love our Corelware dishes with the black rims and tulips, and we've kept the silverware from our wedding even after the divorce, but be practical: a lot of it has built up scratches, cracks, bacteria etc. If its sentimental, that's another thing, but from a pragmatic point of view, do you really need to move it, or can you buy a similar item cheap? You can get dishes for .88 at WalMart, or a set from 10 to 20 dollars brand new. Carefully shopping at FamilyDollar, Dollar Tree, and other discount stores, one could easily replace a whole kitchen's worth of dishware and utensils for under a hundred dollars, and it doesn't all have to be done at once. Start clean. It's good for your family, and again, thrift shopping can replace at least your own worn plates and cups, though new is not costly even if you are poor.
4. Throw away old towels and bathroom items. Bathroom items collect bacteria more than any other part of the house, so this move we decided to throw all those old perfumes, colognes, toothbrushes, old razors etc away, including bleach stained towels even if they were top of the line ten years ago. Towels are best bought new, but Big Lots, and the stores above, particularly on clearance racks include towels for as low as 1.50 a piece: it you can't drop $6, for 4, then buy one every time you go grocery shopping for a few weeks: soon you will have all new towels. I always budget on our worst budget for just $3 of the grocery money for household items each time: over a year you will have 52 new items for your house including bowls, gadgets, towels, and skip 3 weeks you will have a sheet set. One just has to be disciplined and discerning. On the perfumes etc, you can always pick up gift sets in the first garage sales in the spring: alot of people never even open Christmas and Easter gift sets, and sell them in brand new quality for a dollar or so. Better than moaning over Chanel No. 5.
5. Invest in tape and a tape gun. Well packed is well saved: you won't lose anything in the move through breakage and spilling out which also creates more work. My son's first job was in a UPS store, and he taught me this little extra expense can make a move much easier than just throwing stuff in open boxes.
6. Check coupons, deals and days on moving trucks. We found a truck for 2/3rds of what we thought we would have to pay. Some companies have discounts on special days.
7. Organize and Mark. Get a black marker, and on the outside of a box write the room it goes in, and briefly what's inside: e.g. bdrm, stuff in desk drawers. office: cords and mice. etc. When unloading the truck, take them directly to the room to which they belong. Before the move, when all is disassembled and packed, move the same-room boxes into sections in the room nearest the door. We were able to look at everything and pre-plan mentally the packing of the truck before we picked it up, so packing went quickly and lock-step. We woke at 5, and by 6:30 everything was packed and in the truck, with floors vacuumed and counters wiped. Mental planning, 'cognitive' planning is 80% of moving. 8. Research your New Area on Google Maps . Weeks before your move, go to Google or Yahoo or Bing Maps, and type in your new location, and the option showing you 'what's nearby'. This way, you will know exactly where to return the truck, or trailer, where to buy groceries, where to buy the immediate things you left behind (e.g. plates and cups), and other things interesting to you: e.g. state parks, libraries, specialty stores, churches etc. What you can do mentally also prepares you for a smooth emotional transition with a lot less fights and a lot less anxiety.
Let's face it, moving, no matter how efficient and low cost, still costs real money, that most poor people don't really have. Pre-planning is the key. I hated to see him do it, but my son worked every available hour he could get in two jobs in the couple of months before we moved, meaning he did not have to dip into his regular budget to move. It's a little disheartening to think of how much had to be spent just renting a truck, but it had to be done to move ahead in life. Make the move in your head and heart before you make arrangements. It's one way to accomplish a 'REALLYPOOR' move (!).
Well, we will be back shortly, but ReallyPoor has come to the Internet, and found the trials and misfortunes of free hosting. We were at reallypoor.blogspot.com. We were called "Really Poor" but for the moment we are called "ReallyPoor" because we are too poor to keep up the middle space. In the words of one little bus kid, "We're so poor we don't have hair. Back with recipes etc shortly, but somebody thought they were even more 'reallypoor' than us, and deleted most of ReallyPoor's backup files!!! Now that's REALLYPOOR. We here at reallyPoor, think that by far it was a classic REALLYPOOR idea! They, whoever they were, were so poor they had no morals!!!! So we are going to lend them a few, and just begin again.
Drive by this fellow's curb, and you can have a little table and a lawnmower: it might work perfectly, or might be repairable, or need nothing more than a spark plug, but in any event, next to the cheapest at about 200 dollars, its a great deal even if it only lasts a year. Some REALLYPOOR people actually can do things like small machine repair, which makes this a great deal.
