Jasper telnaga's variety advice for life

I'm not an expert on anything, but everyone knows something someone else doesn't. i've learned a lot from random people on the internet, and i'm also a random person on the internet! so here's a variety of life advice from a 20-some-year-old living in poverty.

FOOD

• buy fruit in season. look up what's in season in your location. fruits that are in season will be cheaper, quite often better, and the growers will have used a lot less resources to grow it (or transport it from elsewhere).
• to keep food fresh longer in the fridge, you can put a paper towel or clean cloth in with it. a lot of moisture seeps out and collects in containers of food, vegetables, fruits, etc, and that coalescing moisture contributes to growing mold faster. the cloth will soak that moisture up. when the cloth is wet, replace it with a dry one. swear to god, it gives even my salad mix an extra week or so.
• taken from a tip on tumblr. make a big batch of caramelized onions. separate them into small containers, and freeze them. you can toss some caramelized onions into anything youre cooking - they go good in anything onions go good in, and theyre basically onions+.
• wash and reuse a few pickle jars, jelly jars, coffee containers, etc. they're great for storing rice, pasta, beans, and other staple foods vulnerable to weevils, or just using to put some leftover food or drink in.
• speaking of staple foods, try to always keep around some rice, pasta, and beans. they're cheap and filling - that's why they're staples - and they stay good for months and months, as long as they're stored properly. be warned if you leave any of these laying around in the bags they came in for too long, they will likely become home to some rice/grain weevils. they don't necessarily ruin the food... but unless you're fine with some unexpected alternative protein, you might want to prevent it. these guys can show up wherever you are, because they hitch a ride in the food itself from wherever it was harvested or stored. but if the food is moved to a hard, closed container, they won't be able to multiply or spread to other nearby foods.
• if you ever want or need to wash fruits and vegetables - especially if you've got foraged or garden-grown food - you can use a mix of 1 part white vinegar to 2 parts water. vinegar can help with dirt removal, and is great at dealing with bugs and bacteria, so you can even just soak or rinse fragile produce with it. vinegar is also generally a great food safe disinfectant. i use it a lot to sanitize all of my equipment in brewing.

CLEANING

• if you can't get a stain out of something, try scrubbing it with baking soda. if you can't get a smell out of something, try spraying or saturating it with vinegar. additionally, a spray bottle of watered down vinegar makes for a very effective (and cost effective) odor neutralizer. it can even get wrinkles out of clothes. you don't need to buy spray softener.
• half a cup of white vinegar can be used in place of fabric softener. put it in during the rinse cycle. your clothes will be soft and clean and have less residue from detergents.
• i dont know how common this is, but i was raised on paper towels. using them at any possible moment, for food and cleaning. heaps and heaps of them. one day as an independent adult i thought "man this is wasteful. there has to be something reusable for this purpose." there is. it's cloth, or sponges.
  get yourself a pack of "flour sack towels". it's a very basic white cloth that they even sell at walmart. it can be used for a million things. as a napkin, for holding or wrapping food, for soaking up spills, for hand towels, for scrubbing dirt, for straining, even as a washcloth (plain jane simple fabric is way more exfoliating than terry cloth, and dries a lot faster/keeps clean a lot longer), etc etc etc. no matter the purpose, all you do to reuse it is wash it, in the laundry or by hand. you can keep ones for food and for cleaning separate if you like. they come pretty big, so you can multiply them by cutting them in halves or quarters! and they're pretty cheap.
  as for sponges, i'm still figuring out the best ways to use them, but they're great for wiping up stuff, cleaning anything that won't fit in the sink, and scrubbing down tough surfaces. just make sure, when you're done, to clean and dry them.
• steel wool is great for scrubbing hard surfaces and tough stains, like bathroom and kitchen fixtures. get plain steel wool, not the kind with soap in it. (that's more expensive and less widely useful ... if you need soap, just add soap, or a spray cleaner!) if you're getting it wet, steel wool is very hard to keep from rusting - unless you freeze it.
• simple green is a great general-purpose spray cleaner, it's pretty environmentally friendly and not very hazardous, and if you get a big refill jug of it, you can dilute that down a ton while still having it be very effective :)
• liquid castile soap (like Dr. Bronner's, though this has gotten more expensive and there are good alternatives) is a great general-purpose soap, and can also be diluted for a lot of purposes. while there are a lot of different kinds of cleaning products in the world, a lot of things can be cleaned with plain old soap.

HEALTH & HYGEINE

• heartburn can sometimes feel really different. if you experience heartburn with any regularity, and you're feeling some weird sensation that cant be heartburn, it feels totally different...! it could still be heartburn. i find this especially true for heartburn while you're sleeping or just woken up, or when you're inebriated.
• handmade bar soap is extremely cheap, lasts months, and oftentimes works just as well as body wash, or even shampoo. (i've been using it on my hair for years!) two tiny caveats are just that I do still need a specialized face wash, and bar soap can leave soap residue in the hair. but that's easily fixed with a conditioner rinse of 3 parts water to 1 part vinegar - which is an excellent conditioner in general. this hair regimen is great on my hair because it still cleans it thoroughly, but strips a lot less of the natural oils, keeping my hair balanced, self-maintaining, soft and clean for a lot longer than my years of using shampoo. be aware that a large part of the normalized 'hygiene' routine and variety of products sprouted from capitalism inventing problems to sell you solutions. you do not really need 6 different kinds of soap. (side note: castile soap is a lot like bar soap. great, cheap, and versatile. it's even dilutable.)
• brushing your teeth is good. it doesn't have to be on a schedule. it can be whenever you remember or feel like it. any amount is good. sometimes it's easier for me to brush my teeth this way: rinsing thoroughly with mouthwash, and then brushing, using leftover mouthwash as a neater replacement for toothpaste. additionally, brushing without toothpaste is still very good for cleaning your teeth. dislodging plaque is the main goal.
• floss is very cheap, and also feels great to use. it definitely takes more time, and it's sometimes hard to reach all the teeth, but it goes a long way towards dislodging that plaque. floss picks are more expensive and wasteful, but very helpful, and there are even reusable ones that you can just string with normal floss. when flossing, don't just pull the string between two teeth and take it back out. you're trying to scrape against both teeth.
• you can clean and sanitize your toothbrush by boiling it for a minute or two. do be warned, some super cheap toothbrushes will be totally warped by this, but most take it fine. you can also soak it in vinegar for a half hour (a nice rinse of water should get the taste out).
• if you take iron supplements, you should know there are foods that severely limit your body's ability to absorb iron, and they happen to be staples of american breakfast. avoid eggs, dairy, and coffee for two hours before and after taking your iron. (there are other foods that do this as well, but these are the worst offenders.)
• you can make an ice/heating pack very easily and cheaply by putting dry rice, corn, beans, husks, or seeds in a clean sock and tying it closed. you can also sew a minimally nicer container for it. freeze it to use cold, or microwave for 2-3 minutes to use hot. (be careful! don't burn yourself.)

LIFE

• i have chronic indecision. sometimes having a choice to make just makes me avoid it altogether. this is especially bad with activities or chores - i have free time, what do i do now? so i make numbered lists and roll a die or use random.org. it helps a lot - either in picking out something i feel willing to do, or picking out something i dont want and letting me realize what i do want.
• when you're poor and need stuff, there's a few huge things i want you to check out.
  1. thrift stores are excellent. local ones even moreso. goodwill isnt Terrible, but its very profit focused. youll find better, cheaper things at independent places, or even a chain like St Vincents. thrift stores with profits going directly to things like humane societies or local charities are the absolute best. they'll have better prices and a wider range. a drawback is that smaller places wont always have fitting rooms... but you can take it as encouragement to learn to do minor alterations :) additionally, if youre ever giving stuff away, please give it to one of the better ones. (better than goodwill.)
  2. estate sales. this is usually referring to the home of someone who's passed recently being cleared out. these are great opportunities for furniture, craft supplies, and household necessities. there are even a lot of estate auctions held entirely online. try searching around, or checking hibid, proxibid, and ctbids (these are just the ones i know of) to see if they have anything near you. (and check back every few weeks!)
  3. yard, garage, and rummage sales. yard and garage sales pop up in droves in the summer, and they're always worth checking out, you can find a lot of good cheap stuff there, especially if you have a list of things you're keeping an eye out for. rummage sales are PEAK, though. they're often run by churches, and will have tons of clothes, furniture, board games, books, etc etc etc, for single dollars or less.
  4. if you live near a college, check out college living areas during move-out season. a lot of stuff will be left out on the street.
  5. ebay. really want a specific style you cant exactly find in thrift stores, or even walmart? if you find, say, really cool shoes from a certain brand that you love, look them up on ebay. theres often people selling great condition brand items for a third the price or less. you can also often replace things you love that've worn out by finding the same exact one on ebay.
  6. facebook marketplace, and free or 'trash nothing' groups. as sad as it is, facebook marketplace is the best way to find local people getting rid of stuff. & it's the best way for you to sell off anything you might want to sell off. but anyways, free & trash nothing groups will often exist on facebook for any given city or big enough town (you might even start your own?). they'll have swaps, pickups, open offers, etc etc etc, on clothes, furniture, food, supplies, materials, containers, anything a person might have.
• go to the library. libraries are free, and often have a ton more services than just checking out books (not to downplay that at all! go browse nonfiction, find a book about gardening or origami or programming or poetry or history or architecture or or or.) they can have audiobooks, movies, video games, printers/scanners/fax machines, health/social/legal services, home delivery, community space, job search help, 3d printers, vinyl cutters, telescope kits, photo printers, drawing tablets, passport applications, computers & internet, small business help, and more. that might seem like a huge, wildly varying list, but that's all stuff even my relatively simple local library system offers. the best part is, the more you use library services, the more funding they get. social services depend on people using them. (this is also my argument for utilizing local food banks or soup kitchens if they have even the smallest benefit to you.) libraries are also just great places to work and/or study. don't bring your laptop to a cafe. bring it to a library.
• if you drive: always leave room, when applicable, for others to turn or merge. don't block intersections, and don't keep things tightly packed in traffic. when in a jam, drive smoothly instead of starting and stopping. heres a link exploring the physics of traffic jams and how just one person can clear up a jam by leaving room for others & driving evenly.
• portable air conditioners (the type that sit on the floor and connect to the window with a hose) are insanely inefficient, and cost around three times as much as a great in-the-window AC. of course, if you have horizontally sliding windows, you're pretty much limited to the portable ones. the AC companies depend on that. they could easily make vertically-oriented window ACs readily available, but they don't. but if you have a choice in the matter, the shittiest in-the-window AC will be better for your money (not to mention electric bill) than a portable one. additionally, any portable AC with a dehumidifier function will require draining, through a tube, into something below it, that you have to empty every few hours. it sucks. window ACs do this automatically, outside.
• succulents are great plants that are easy to care for and live a long time. you can also get them for basically free. you can propogate many kinds of succulents by simply taking a leaf from one, leaving it somewhere sunny for a bit until it grows small roots, and then laying it on soil. the roots will dig into the soil, and the leaf will spawn, and become food for, a new tiny plant. they're great investments in the future - all of my propogates are multiple years old, and the largest is only about the size of a quarter. they're super cute and make me look forward to seeing them slowly grow. you can head out to any garden center, or place succulents are sold, and pick up fallen leaves - or pick a few, if you don't go overboard. you may end up with a few that don't propogate, either because they're a kind that doesn't or they just don't take, so try to get a few.
  • succulent soil is basically a mix of 3 simple parts: soil, rocks, and sand. for soil, you can use regular potting soil, or just dig up some soil from a spot plants are growing okay. it might not Exactly fit a succulent's chemical preferences, but they're not too picky! rocks are pretty straightforward. you can put a mix oflarger and smaller ones at the bottom of your pot to help with drainage (and prevent sandy soil from falling out the drainage hole), but for mixing in to the sand and soil, look for ones smaller than a quarter. the best kinds of rocks are ones that provide insulation and airflow - porous ones like (volcanic rocks:) perlite or pumice, or even smashed up ceramic (unglazed). but you'll be fine with whatever you've got. sand might be harder to find on your own, but if you're scavenging, look around rivers! they'll often have parts of the bank or riverbed with sandy deposits. (you might even find some shells, which will help like rocks!) anything you scavenge from outside, sterilize in an oven! spread it over foil in a baking sheet. for soil and sand, bake at 180f/93c for 30 minutes; for rocks, 250f/120c for an hour. if you bake soil or sand uncovered, it will lose a lot of moisture, which is generally fine especially if you're planning on storing it for a while (if doing this, bake it for longer! an hour), though you will need to replenish the moisture and it may take away some beneficial properties in the soil. so cover it with aluminum foil if you so desire.
  • mix about half and half soil and sand, then half and half sandy soil and rocks. use a plant pot that is unglazed inside, and has a drainage hole. (you may be able to find small terracotta pots like this at a dollar store.) if you're working with very dry ingredients, once you put them in the pot, water thoroughly - you don't want it waterlogged, but you do want moisture to be able to spread evenly. you can lay leaves sprouting roots on the soil now. while the leaves propogate, you can sprinkle the soil with a bit of water every few days. once they're more established and showing new growth, most succulents are fine with nothing more than a sprinkling of water every week or so, though they really love replicating droughts and storms - watering thoroughly after a long dry period. the intervals will depend on your environment and how quick the soil dries, but every week and a half or so should be fine, and it's better to underwater than overwater succulents. water the soil, not the leaves. succulents like lots of sun, so keep them where you get the most. (mine have been fine in a north-facing window.)