(Part 2) Best products from r/povertyfinance

Every job I've had has been blue collar, or at least a mix of field and office work. Currently, I'm a woodworker, so I'm sure you can imagine how often things like splinters are a thing. I first started carrying the emergency knife when I worked at a climbing wall. It was there to cut a harness or potentially even a rope in the event of extreme emergency, but it was/is also good to have in case of a car accident or something (window breaker and seat belt cutter). I'm thankful that I've never had to use it. And that's what a lot of my gear is for. Things I want to have ready to use, while hoping I never do.

Emergency knife This isn't the one I actually have, but it's similar enough. You can find this same design in a multitude of places, at all different price points.

Normal use I also have a cheap little $6 Ozark Trail one that I've used for around 12 years or so. Long as you care for your knife, it will last and serve you well. You don't have to have a top-of-the-line one. I do greatly prefer the single-hand operation ones, though. They have the little pin near the base of the blade so that you can just slide it open with your thumb. And I usually prefer the liner lock, which allows you to unlock the blade with your thumb, and close it with your forefinger. With enough regular use, it all becomes one swift motion that you don't even think about

Swiss army knife I was gifted mine and likely wouldn't have bought it on my own, but I found myself very appreciative of it and think it's worth the money. If mine gets lost, broken, or whatever, I'll likely buy a replacement.

Bonus! Gerber multitool This has been on my key ring for 6 years. I use it almost daily, and think it is probably one of the best EDC purchases I have ever made.

I hear you on winter arriving, it was 31 degrees when I woke up this morning.

Windows- use window film. It's incredibly effective. Get insulated/thermal curtains, they're incredibly effective as well.

Get inspired by tapestries. They're a pretty, inexpensive way to add a little extra insulation to exterior walls. If you have any pretty quilts you can use those. If you don't then get something like this or one of those mandala design cotton sheet things, then hang a cheap/thick blanket next to the wall for insulation (fleece works well) and put the pretty thing on top so it looks nice.

Whenever possible, heat yourself and not the air around you- it will save you a ton of money. Set the heat at 60-62 so the pipes won't freeze, put on a sweater and fuzzy socks, wear a hat. Get an electric blanket for your bed and an electric throw for using on the couch, they're cheap to use and will keep you incredibly toasty. Electric throws are so so nice on a cold winter's evening!

Learn to cook. Learn how to use herbs and spices to develop better flavors.

I learned to cook at an early age primarily by using the 1980 Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook that someone had given my mom. It's really dated, but the illustrations and methods explained are really hard to beat. To this day, I'd recommend this cookbook to any novice. I own a lot of Good Housekeeping Cookbooks, and still think this particular edition is the best "teaching" cookbook.

Kid me wanted to try out all kinds of interesting things, but didn't have access to any non-basic ingredients (to include wine) and my mom wasn't going to spend extra money to get them either. That didn't stop me. I learned to substitute and experiment (bless my family, really). That process taught me the art and the science of cooking. I had to learn early on not to disregard a recipe because I didn't have saffron (and I still don't have saffron) or some other odd ingredient. Learning flavor "families" helps. Taste things. In my area, we have Sprouts that has bulk spices available, so you can buy a tsp of something if you just want to try it before you spend 6 bucks on a jar, or whatever.

As u/Iriltlirl said, stock your fridge/pantry with staples, but staples you'll eat. If you don't like black beans, don't buy a bunch and leave it sitting in your pantry for 10 years. I have always maintained a solid pantry, even in my very poor days. Don't be afraid to buy meat in the family size packs when you can and they're on sale -- they're usually a better price. Separate it into freezer bags and freeze. Some people even put the marinade/spice rub on before the freeze, then it's ready to go when you thaw it.

If you're in a place where it's feasible, start your own herb garden with things you like. Many are perennials, so they come back year after year. What to choose is personal. If you've got a green thumb, start with seed, as it's cheaper. Fresh herbs will make almost anything stand out.

I want to echo the Amazon plug. I was super nervous too but Amazon, unlike other online retailers, is really good about the customer service. If you get it and don’t like it they will fix it or give you your money back.

Also most of the ones on Amazon are memory foam and I don’t like those either. I looked around a lot and ended up buying this one. It’s a spring mattress that is super comfy, I’ve had it for two years and it’s still good and you don’t need a box spring for it so that saves another cost. I got this one for less than $300 2 years ago and it’s more now so look for things similar but know the value.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B016E9MHG0/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_mCJXCb6JNC9AW

In coming wall of text.

Ok, so water heaters. On demand water heaters suck for various reasons. First and foremost of the savings. The savings they give is tiny, the cheapest water heater available here uses 73W in standby. Some quick math: 73W = 0.073kW 0.073kW *24hours *365days /year = 640kWh/year. Now that's a fair chunk of change, but a whole house on demand water heater is going to cost about $1500 normally for a decent one, installed. If you don't have to make any changes to your electrical panel, which is iffy depending on where you live and what the electrical service is now. But what does 640kWh cost you might ask. At $0.12/kWh, the national average in the US, it's about $77/year. That cheap as hell water heater is only about $400 and can easily be installed by a home gamer. That would take about 14 years to pay for itself, right there. But I'm not done yet. On demand water heaters also use more power to heat the same amount of water because in the process of trying to heat the water so quickly they lose a lot of heat to the surrounding area while they heat. I don't remember the numbers off the top of my head, but it's not insignificant.

Then there's maintenance. Because on demand water heaters put so much heat into the water they often boil the water right at the elements (the resultant output is fine because that very hot water mixes with cooler water) this causes sediment to fall out of suspension from the water and it gets deposited on the elements. This means that on demand water heaters lose even more efficiency and require maintenance every year to chemically remove the deposits.

Finally there's the issue of what those water heaters do to the grid. That instant demand change wrecks havoc on the grid and because of that those demand changes often cause peaker stations to be required. Peaker stations are much more expensive to run and much more expensive to buy power from (at the utility level) and they create a lot more pollution. On demand water heaters use so much power that some utilities in the US have started a different fee structure. They record the homes highest usage over a 15 second time frame and charge a much greater fee for that power vs the power that is averaged out over the month or two months between meter reads.

Between all of that, even if you do live in an area where the ground water is warm enough that you can go with a reasonable sized on demand heater, I highly doubt you'll ever see any savings.

Which sucks because you want to save some money, right. Well, there isn't really a product on the market that's going to work the miracles we'd both like to see. There's heat pump water heaters, which is a fantastic idea, but almost all of them pull heat from the space they're in, they need a near by drain, and they make a lot of noise. There is one mini split heat pump water heater on the market in North America, but it's retardedly expensive. It's in the realm of $5000 installed. I personally, am waiting for more competition to come to that segment of the market and I have every intention of getting one when they're reasonably priced.

So, what should you do. You're not going to like this, but here goes. Get a next step from the bottom of the barrel water heater. It should be in the realm of 50W in standby. It should have ~R10 insulation and heat traps installed in the inlet and outlet. Then, add one of these R10 blankets, and put one of these and two layers of this under it. That should get you in the range of about 30W in standby or 262kWh/year or about $32/year.

Optionally: Put in the powered anode to reduce your maintenance costs and make the job easier. And to greatly reduce the time it takes to do the annual draining of the sediment in the water heater, replace the drain valve with a 3/4" ball valve, 3/4" hose barb, and a 3/4" hose.

I have the above listed setup. My annual draining of the water heater takes about 30 minutes vs the old valve that took about an hour.

Now, if you want to save even more, lets talk low flow shower heads. Niagara Earth has two models of shower head, one is 1.5gpm the other is 1.25gpm. We have one of each and they work really well. There was a difference vs our old 2.5gpm shower heads, but it's still a very liveable shower than for the $8 on Amazon the price can't be beat. A 2.5gpm shower head, used for 8 minutes/day, uses about 1670kWh/year. With the 1.25gpm shower head that's down to 835kWh/year.

If you do laundry in hot water, stop. There's simply no need to with today's detergents. An old washer uses in the area of 40-50 gallons per load. It takes a 3000W water heater an hour to heat 13.1 gallons, so each load in an old washer uses about 10kWh/load. If your a family with kids that can easily be 5 loads per week or about 2700kWh/year, just for laundry. A high efficiency washer doesn't use nearly as much, so the savings there wont be as high if you switch from hot to cold laundry, but still, it would be significant.

Also, stop using hot water for hand washing. Typically most people are done washing their hands long before the hot water ever reaches the tap. Then all of that hot water that did flush into the pipe is just going to cool down and heat the house up. Meanwhile the water heater also has to reheat more water.

And finally, use the energy saving setting on your dishwasher. There's a ton of variation in how much dishwashers use, so I wont bother doing the math.

You do all of that, and I guarantee you'll see a significant difference on your power bill.

Maybe I should make a separate post for this...

Also, if you made it this far, my hat is off to you. Most people can't geek out over hot water like I can.

Also broad index funds are unmanaged funds, so you're not paying anyone on Wall Street to pick the stocks. If you buy something like a broad index fund based on the S&P 500 the stocks are picked. You don't pay someone. All you pay is a very tiny amount for keeping track of the money.

There are other mutual funds that are managed, which means Wall Street types try to 'beat the market' by picking the winning stocks and knowing when to buy and sell them. Problem is, you have to pay that person, it's part of the fund management cost. And it's actually pretty rare (forget the numbers in a study I just read but it was like 10% over a 5-year period) for managed funds to beat the market once you take out those fees. So you're still trying to get lucky there.

For anyone interested in reading about broad index funds from an admittedly biased view of a heavy proponent, I suggest reading The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns by John Bogle, he updated it last year and it's a very easy-to-follow explanation of the benefits of index funds and not too horribly long.

I'd be careful with large-dose Ibuprofen. It can cause stomach bleeding if used regularly for more than a week or two. for chronic or recurring pain, my doctor recommended switching between NSAID (Ibuprofen/Aleve/ etc) and Tylenol. One is processed by kidneys, the other by the liver IIRC. a week on one, then a week on the other, helps prevent overdose/toxicity/stomach bleeding/ other problems.

I'm on my feet a lot, so here are some things I've found helpful:

• change socks and shoes during lunch breaks. keep an extra set of shoes in your car or locker, trade them out once a day. shoes and insoles get squashed flat after a few hours and can be less effective. Crocs can be very good, that's why so many nurses and docs wear them in hospitals.
  
  
• stretch. stretch all the tendons and major muscle groups each morning, each lunch break, and after work. especially stretch your Achilles tendon and feet. best case, buy a Strassberg Sock and wear it on each foot for at least 30 minutes after work. if you can't afford one right now, just loop a towel around the ball of your foot and gently pull back for at least 15 minutes.
  
  
• I've had better luck with ice-cold water for sore feet, than warm water. YMMV. on a bad day, I stretch my feet THEN put them in cold cold ice water for about 5 minutes. the first 20 seconds are almost painful -- but then you adjust and it's very soothing.
  
  
• I fill plastic coke bottles about 70% full of water and place them in the freezer. they're cool and relaxing when you roll them under the arches of your feet (Coke bottles have that swooped shape and seem to be better than other types of plastic bottles YMMV)
  
  
• if there are no soft rubber/plastic mats to stand on at work, ask them to provide rubber mats. they can help a lot.
  
  strassberg sock:
  
  https://www.vivehealth.com/products/plantar-fasciitis-socks?variant=34481640196&gclid=CjwKCAjwndvlBRANEiwABrR32IejpgXpEYX2v-g2GATr96QAA_9IdfpTnc8x2xUUT0oIOZUjhtTB_xoCBJYQAvD_BwE
  
  https://www.amazon.com/Strassburg-Sock-White-Regular-around/dp/B00JB2UDTQ

There is a book called Blender Baby Food which I was fortunate enough to find at my local public library. (I did end up buying it because it was so useful.) The recipes are excellent, all whole foods. And the cool part is that maybe half the recipes are good for adults too, you simply blend them up for baby. Many of the recipes are freezable. It's been 15 years and I still use their pancake recipe!

I saw "Super Baby Food" also recommended. I used their homemade cereal recipe for awhile - definitely more nutritious than rice flakes. That book has a ton of good finger-food ideas for toddlers too.

Not sure if this is an option for you but I posted this on r/FemaleFashionAdvice

There’s also these! Much smaller. Not automatic but better than handwashing.

Best Choice Products Portable Compact Mini Twin Tub Washing Machine and Spin Cycle w/ Hose, 13lbs. Capacity https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01ICBLBL0/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_lTkEAbB0TV7F8)

There are other brands.

It is actually what we were going to buy with this portable dryer (XtremepowerUS Portable Ventless Clothes Dryer, Dryer Rack w/ Heater https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01IDSLR7K/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_2UkEAbZNGDP0H) prior to discovering the automatic one.

This video shows a pretty good example of how one works: https://youtu.be/Sdq834PUJAI

Hope this helps!

Edit: There are cheaper models, as well as automatic ones. I also live in an apartment and bought the automatic Magic Chef was her and the mini dryer. When I bought them, I paid $400 for both. They’re a little more expensive now, but it works!

Besides the obvious quitting, the way way I got by on smoking on a budget was by getting a nice electric tube injector and packing my own cigs. Expensive investment but it saved me a fortune in the long run. Once I found a few types of tobacco I really liked, I blended them together and ended up liking that much more than factory made cigs. They had less of the other chemicals in them too which made it a lot easier to transition off of when I finally decided to quit. Switched to vape, lowered the nicotine over a few months, and now I'm basically completely quit, besides the occasional cig or cigar when I'm out drinking with friend.

Your writing skills are pretty good. That's a sign of an intelligent brain. Avoiding debt is smart too. I'm not going to discount what you are telling me though about your experiences in school. I don't want to dismiss your experience.

I don't really know what else to tell you though. People aren't going to pay you more money unless you can sell them something that costs more. Unfortunately, the prices we are paid for our services aren't based on what we need to have humane standards of living. They are based on supply and demand. If there are a lot of people who can provide a service because it's not too hard to learn how to do it, wages will be lower because competition between workers will bid wages down, so if you want to make more money, you'll have to learn a skill where there's a shortage because suddenly that skill is needed a lot more than in the past or where the barriers to entry are higher so you won't have as much competition.

If you are dealing with depression, I recommend talking with a kind therapist (there are mean ones out there, so choose carefully). The more kind people you can find and the kinder your actions towards yourself and others are, the better your chances of things turning around.

You exist to experience well-being. If you didn't, you wouldn't care about experiencing misery. We've all inherited imperfect resources. We all have to deal with situations that we'd rather not have to deal with. We do have the power to choose how to respond to the circumstances we find ourselves in. Personally, I think if you choose to be kind to yourself and others, you create the best chance of succeeding at experiencing the well-being you want. I find this book helpful. Maybe you will too. Good luck!

https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Self-esteem-Rational-Emotive-Behavior-ebook/dp/B003N647B6

Lol.... Yeah.... Idk. I mean we only have one window, so sometimes we turn it on. But our bedroom that's 1/3 windows barely ever has a light on.

You should get some super efficient tiny LED bulbs lol. I got like a 5 pack for $12 or something on Amazon. They're tiny and take like 5W.

Edit: NVM it's 4 for like $4 lol https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B073WVQ9B8?psc=1

I bought a Shark on sale about four years ago. It is bagless and came with a stair attachment. It’s really sweet because it comes apart in all different ways so you can push it like regular, you can make it like where the suction part is on a long pole (I don’t know how to describe it), it has various attachments. You can hand wash all the filters so you don’t need to keep buying them, and there’s a ring that allows you to adjust the suction. It works as well now as it did the day I bought it. Highly recommend.
https://youtu.be/s4AAwtNInpI
Shark Navigator Lift-Away Professional NV356E https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005KMDV9A/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_c_api_i_TCQkDbRHNQKKZ

I used one of these and a 5 gallon bucket to wash clothes for a couple of years. That was for two adults, a toddler, baby, and included cloth diapers. It’s quite an arm workout, but was doable. It was tedious to hand wring everything out before hanging it to dry, but overall saved us so much money in laundry costs. It’d be a really great option for a single person.

I got some great quality storage containers (as a gift) because it saves me money in the long run. Also, bulk bins may be your new best friend! I plan my meals for the week, then buy the exact amount I need. The joys of small apartment living...