Wash your clothes by hand! I do it in my bathtub by stomping on them. I do this while drinking wine, pretending I’m stomping grapes, surrounded by nubile women.

Make your own cleaning products! There’s tons of recipes online, and it’s dirt cheap.

Grow a fucking garden! Educate yourself on edible weeds! There’s stuff growing on any city corner that’s edible after a good soaking in vinegar water.

Beg or borrow a bike, don’t take the bus!

Lastly, never, NEVER buy anything pre-made if you can make it yourself. The one thing I’ve learned being fucking broke throughout the years is that saving money requires investing a lot more time in daily living…but damn, it’s way more satisfying.

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One tip I would add is that if you suddenly get lots of money, put that shit in a savings account prontissimo. It’s really easy when you’re broke to suddenly see a huge checking account balance and be like “yay! I am rich!” and then spend it all (this mentality is the reason most lottery winners go broke within a year, in fact) so it’s better to keep most of it out of reach until you really need it. If you’re like me, you generally think twice about transferring money from the savings account for non-important matters, whereas you’re not as protective of what’s in your checking account.

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It predicts my spending based on patterns and lets me know if or when I will be negative. Anyone who wants one, I’ll send it to you. Email me: p.j.c.brackett@gmail.com

You just have to input the money values in the right spots, and BOOM! You’ve got your budget! Or you can tell me what you spend, and I can set it up for you.

And for the record, I think Carmen is talking about a debit card, not a credit card. If you have to remember your spending habits, money won’t fly out of your hands. I know I am much less tempted to spend my money when I can’t see it.

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