Ghetto Life Hacks

[Sir Salty]

Honestly, there wasn't a tag for Life or something. So I just wanted people to talk about some of their "ghetto" life hacks. And I mean in this fashion, is instead of having X you have Y.

For example, I needed a sifter to make a cake, but since I don't have a sifter I used a slotted spoon to sift my flour.

^That's ghetto life hack number 1

Another one, just last night. Was at the gas station they have these shots of espresso. A normal person would just take the shot of ordinary coffee. I made ghetto coffee yesterday by pouring the damn thing into a mug, watering it down with some water, and making coffee out of it.

^That's number 2

I have more.

But what are some of your poor hacks you've have performed?

 

[ᴛᴏᴄᴋᴀ]

Duct tape. Duct tape solves all of your problems. >_> Unless it's fighting kids, then it's illegal to use it.

 

[Sir Salty]

Duct tape. Duct tape solves all of your problems. >_> Unless it's fighting kids, then it's illegal to use it.

Wait it's illegal to duct tape your kids?


*me stares at his kid duct taped to the chair*

Hummm

 

[ᴛᴏᴄᴋᴀ]

Wait it's illegal to duct tape your kids?


*me stares at his kid duct taped to the chair*

Hummm

Pay me enough, and I didn't see anything. >_>

Seriously though, I have a few.

-Laundry scent boosters, water, and baking soda in a squirt bottle make a pretty decent air freshener. Or you can put dryer sheets in your vents.
-Zip ties can hold pretty much anything together. My hubby's an electrician so we use them for pretty much everything.
-Baking soda makes a pretty decent carpet powder if you've got a vacuum that works well. Just sprinkle it on, let it sit overnight and vacuum it up the next morning.

 

[Sir Salty]

Pay me enough, and I didn't see anything. >_>

Seriously though, I have a few.

-Laundry scent boosters, water, and baking soda in a squirt bottle make a pretty decent air freshener. Or you can put dryer sheets in your vents.
-Zip ties can hold pretty much anything together. My hubby's an electrician so we use them for pretty much everything.
-Baking soda makes a pretty decent carpet powder if you've got a vacuum that works well. Just sprinkle it on, let it sit overnight and vacuum it up the next morning.

Oooo. Sweet. Might try the dryer sheets in the vents.

 

[Kagayours]

Apparently, nail polish remover is pretty good at removing body paint sealer from wood surfaces.

Signed, a cosplayer who accidentally got body paint sealer on the wooden desk in her dorm room and had to go through quite a bit of trial and error to figure out how to get it off.

 

[Indabayou]

Once my stepdad and I wanted to make a cake, but we had no cake pan. So stepdad took a screwdriver to remove the handle from a metal pot and we baked the cake in that. It came out pretty nice actually.

 

[Brovo]

Duct tape.

Duct Tape & WD-40. If it can't be fixed with these tools, throw it out.

Idk. Let me share a few.

#1: Make a budget. Do it, faggot. Take every bill and record it on a spreadsheet for a month to estimate next month's costs. Get into the habit of squirreling money away on a repeated basis until you can pay next month's bills with this month's pay cheque. Once you can do that, you can make the best of even the smallest amounts of money.

#2: Cannibalize your own stuff whenever you can. If something breaks, make it into something different. Make it serve a new purpose.

#3: Break your addictions, even caffeine. It's not helping you to have a money sink.

#4: Fuck cable. Just take an Internet package. If you can live without the convenience of a cell phone, cut that and go with a home phone. You can get pretty decent home phone packages for 10 bucks a month and if you package it with the same company that does your Internet, you can usually get a small bonus in savings for doing so.

#5: Only buy that which you will use. No binge buying. No random purchases. Not even subway, you live in a ghetto you fuck, your first goal should be to escape the ghetto.

#6: Since college won't help us (we live in a ghetto, we proletariat, not bourgeois!) look into certification programs. Look around for jobs that'll pay you more than what you're getting paid now which only require certification programs to do. Certis look good on a resume too, even for jobs that don't need them.

#7: See if there's any government programs that'll help you. (If you're a single white male though, don't bother, you're fucked. Government don't give two shits 'bout you if you don't got no dough.)

#8: Be conscious about the amount of resources you use. (Every light, every heat source, every shower--costs you money.)

#9: Never take a loan. That's how the bourgeois come to own your ass. Especially student loans, jesus christ, the interest rates on those. The only two exceptions are house mortgages (because they're inevitable) and car payments (if you live somewhere that public transit just isn't practical.)

#10: Look in a mirror. See what's lookin' back at you. It's fuckin' perfect, don't let anybody tell you otherwise. It don't matter how many people mock you for your ratty clothes or impoverished state, fuck em'. You'll make it. Doesn't matter if the government won't help you, fuck em'. You'll make it.

 

[Pahn]

Meat is expensive. To have a good intake of protein and iron, eat nuts and légumineuses (beans, chick peas, lentils) because those are a good source of food. Buy them dry or canned - those stay good for a really long time.

I'm a strong believer in investing in things. For example, I think it's better to save up for an extremely expensive A+ AC unit rather than having to buy one every two years. On the long run, you save money. But I understand this is something you can afford to do once your head is above the water.

 

[Sir Salty]

Duct Tape & WD-40. If it can't be fixed with these tools, throw it out.

Idk. Let me share a few.

#1: Make a budget. Do it, faggot. Take every bill and record it on a spreadsheet for a month to estimate next month's costs. Get into the habit of squirreling money away on a repeated basis until you can pay next month's bills with this month's pay cheque. Once you can do that, you can make the best of even the smallest amounts of money.

#2: Cannibalize your own stuff whenever you can. If something breaks, make it into something different. Make it serve a new purpose.

#3: Break your addictions, even caffeine. It's not helping you to have a money sink.

#4: Fuck cable. Just take an Internet package. If you can live without the convenience of a cell phone, cut that and go with a home phone. You can get pretty decent home phone packages for 10 bucks a month and if you package it with the same company that does your Internet, you can usually get a small bonus in savings for doing so.

#5: Only buy that which you will use. No binge buying. No random purchases. Not even subway, you live in a ghetto you fuck, your first goal should be to escape the ghetto.

#6: Since college won't help us (we live in a ghetto, we proletariat, not bourgeois!) look into certification programs. Look around for jobs that'll pay you more than what you're getting paid now which only require certification programs to do. Certis look good on a resume too, even for jobs that don't need them.

#7: See if there's any government programs that'll help you. (If you're a single white male though, don't bother, you're fucked. Government don't give two shits 'bout you if you don't got no dough.)

#8: Be conscious about the amount of resources you use. (Every light, every heat source, every shower--costs you money.)

#9: Never take a loan. That's how the bourgeois come to own your ass. Especially student loans, jesus christ, the interest rates on those. The only two exceptions are house mortgages (because they're inevitable) and car payments (if you live somewhere that public transit just isn't practical.)

#10: Look in a mirror. See what's lookin' back at you. It's fuckin' perfect, don't let anybody tell you otherwise. It don't matter how many people mock you for your ratty clothes or impoverished state, fuck em'. You'll make it. Doesn't matter if the government won't help you, fuck em'. You'll make it.

Already do number 1, when I had money to squirrel away, lol

2 I mean I try to do this as best as I can, water bottles I tend to use as canning jars for all my sauces

3 Errr I disagree with this only because I got a nice coffee pot and have a big tin of coffee that last me almost two months....so yeah

4 Already doing this too

5 I try to do this very often, from time to time though I do buy a luxury. Like this week I am buying myself metallic pencils because I draw quite a bit

6 I cannot work, my disability limits me in a lot of areas

7 Already trying to get Social Security and am on Foodstamps. problem Is I am a very white single male who is disabled

8 already do this too

9 I don't have a loan out thank god

10 we can only hope, if I am dead in a ditch somewhere you'll know, lol, sorry grim humor

 

[Rainjay]

I've used keys to open paint cans in lieu of a screwdriver.

My cat can't open the door to my room because the edge was sanded down too far. So when it closes, it just sinks into the door frame instead of resting against it. So I put a tissue box between the door frame and the door to keep the door open so she can come in and out.

I needed to 'soften' my butter for cooking this last weekend. You can't melt it because you get a greasier consistency. But it wasn't softening up quick enough. So I warmed up the oven and held the butter by the door of the oven. Softened enough to bake with in about ten minutes.

My friend substituted eggs in brownies for bananas. Would have turned out great if she cooked them in an actual oven. Instead she used a toaster oven and they came out kind of raw.

I've also used whipped cream as a substitute for milk.

My old laptop was kind of fucked. The keyboard didn't work and eventually some of the USB ports failed. So, I had to connect my mouse and keyboard to the same USB port. Even better, the mouse needed an adapter to fit. So I had a split port USB thingy (it allowed you to plug in two things to the same USB port, not sure what it's called), and then used two converters so that my little circle-shaped plugs on my keyboard and mouse could fit in rectangular holes. Before I started using a keyboard on that laptop, I had to copy and paste letters in order to 'type' to people.

For a bake sale at school, we were letting kids decorate their own gingerbread men. Problem was, we couldn't make the icing in advance, because it would harden. So, we made it on the spot. We didn't have proper tools... So we put confectioners sugar and milk (That we stole from the cafeteria) into plastic cups and mixed it with spoons (also stolen from the cafeteria) and then poured that into plastic baggies (makeshift icing bags).

Glue bottle clogged, grab q-tips, open lid, dunk q-tip and apply glue.

As a kid we used chopsticks to stir things a lot when the dishes weren't done.

When my cat pukes on the floor, I clean it up with paper towels and then scrub the floor with wet wipes to clean the stain. Works pretty well, actually.

My charger didn't reach my bed (I forget to charge my phone during the day) so I duct taped it to the bed post so it wouldn't fall down behind the bed. I also duct taped a notebook and pen so I can write down late night thoughts. I hung up Christmas string lights above my bed and didn't have anything to hang them with, so I used duct tape to hold them up.

We use rocks to hold doors open at school.

When you have a fruit cup or yogurt with an aluminum lid and no spoon, curve the lid and use it as a spoon.

I have long hair. And it gets all over the floor and clogs up the vacuum. Good way to remove it from the floor is to put on a shoe like a croc, and then use your feet to pull the hair into a pile. The rubber picks up the hair (Static electricity, I think) better than most other things. Works on couches too.

I've used putty to hold my glasses together when they've broken.

And I put rice in my salt shakers to keep it from clumping in the humidity.

 

[Kagayours]

When my cat pukes on the floor, I clean it up with paper towels and then scrub the floor with wet wipes to clean the stain. Works pretty well, actually.

...Is there any other way that you're "supposed" to clean up cat puke? Because that's what I've always done. I never even realized there was supposed to be a fancier way to do it. O_o

 

[Rainjay]

...Is there any other way that you're "supposed" to clean up cat puke? Because that's what I've always done. I never even realized there was supposed to be a fancier way to do it. O_o

Most people I know use like a spray cleaner. Spray it on and then scrub it clean. Too much work if you ask me.

 

[Sir Salty]

My friend substituted eggs in brownies for bananas. Would have turned out great if she cooked them in an actual oven. Instead she used a toaster oven and they came out kind of raw.

This isn't really ghetto. I am vegetarian so I don't use eggs in my baking you can use a lot of things to substitute for having no eggs. Bananas is one, apple sauce is another, when I make peanut butter cookies the peanut butter is binder enough so you don't really need eggs in PB cookies anyway.

 

[Sidhe]

...Is there any other way that you're "supposed" to clean up cat puke? Because that's what I've always done. I never even realized there was supposed to be a fancier way to do it. O_o

You can get Nature's Miracle pet stain cleaner (they even make one just for 'cat stains') at any pet store. Probably even Walmart. That shit works like a humdinger. I would also never feel like the floor is really clean if I just used wet wipes...

 

[LogicfromLogic]

• Rice, potatoes and ramen will keep you alive. Peanut butter will suffice until you've gotten supplies
• Never underestimate the use of a multi-tool
• You can use what you don't use to trade. There's always someone who needs something, you might just have what they are looking for.
• Cloves will help with toothaches.
• Salt water will disinfect a wound if you don't have anything else.
• If the power goes out and you have no candles, you can use crayons.
• House smells bad? And you have a fan or air conditioning? Tape a dryer sheet to the AC or fan. Or just clean your nasty house.
• Put bees wax on your shoes to waterproof them.
• Doritos make great kindling.
• Use frozen grapes (white grapes for white wine, remember this well) to chill wine so you don't water it down

 

[Greenie]

Sheets and cloth-pins/thumb-tacks make good temporary curtains.

 

[Tempest]

Sheets and cloth-pins/thumb-tacks make good temporary curtains.

And walls where you need more "privacy" cuz you have more people living in a space.