But still interested in feeding yourself? What if I told you that there’s a woman with a blog who had to feed both herself and her young son…on 10 British pounds ($15/14 Euro) per week?
Let me tell you a thing.
This woman saved my life last year. Actually saved my life. I had a piggy bank full of change and that’s it. Many people in my fandom might remember that dark time as when I had to hock my writing skills in exchange for donations. I cried a lot then.
This is real talk, people: I marked down exactly what I needed to buy, totaled it, counted out that exact change, and then went to three different stores to buy what I needed so I didn’t have to dump a load of change on just one person. I was already embarrassed, but to feel people staring? Utter shame suffused me. The reasons behind that are another post all together.
AgirlcalledJack.com is run by a British woman who was on benefits for years. Things got desperate. She had to find a way to feed herself and her son using just the basics that could be found at the supermarket. But the recipes she came up with are amazing.
You have to consider the differing costs of things between countries, but if you just have three ingredients in your cupboard, this woman will tell you what to do with it. Check what you already have. Chances are you have the basics of a filling meal already.
Bake your own bread. It’s easier than you think. Here’s a list of many recipes, each using some variation of just plain flour, yeast, some oil, maybe water or lemon juice. And kneading bread is therapeutic.
She has a book, but many recipes can be found on her blog for free. She prices her recipes down to the cent, and every year she participates in a project called “Living Below the Line” where she has to live on 1 BP per day of food for five days.
Things improved for me a little, but her website is my go to. I learned how to bake bread (using my crockpot, but that was my own twist), and I have a little cart full of things that saved me back then, just in case I need them again. She gives you the tools to feed yourself, for very little money, and that’s a fabulous feeling.
Tip: Whenever you have a little extra money, buy a 10 dollar/pound/euro giftcard from your discount grocer. Stash it. That’s your super emergency money. Make sure they don’t charge by the month for lack of use, though.
I don’t care if it sounds like an advertisement–you won’t be buying anything from the site. What I DO care about is your mental, emotional, and physical health–and dammit, food’s right in the center of that.
If you don’t need this now, pass it on to someone who does. Pass it on anyway, because do you REALLY know which of the people in your life is in need? Which follower might be staring at their own piggy bank? Trust me: someone out there needs to see this.
❤
She’s amazing. She even argues with UK politicians
This will likely end up being really important to me
There is a similar project by Leanne Brown, who did it for US SNAP recipients. Includes a free PDF cookbook that was her MA project.
So a new blog has started called “Is There Rape In It”. Basically, it’s a blog dedicated to listing movies, TV shows, and videos game that have rape in them, so that victims and survivors can avoid triggers.
Since they have just started up, they don’t have full lists yet. So if you are aware of rape in any of those forms of media, please reblog their lists and let them know!
I was definitely a profit killer when I worked in a pharmacy (which honestly was my favorite job in the entire world, but it was short-lived and nowadays you can’t work at a pharmacy like that, it’s all tied in with corporate retail and no one should ever trust me with a cash register ever). It was not, however, actually a profit killer for the pharmacy, just for the drug companies, so no one cared. These days I do medical billing, which means I actually bill OUT from hospitals so I’m mostly spending my professional time taking money away from insurance companies.
I will now impart all of my profit killing resources onto you, in case you don’t know them. I think most of you know them, now. But just in case you don’t.
THIS IS US-CENTRIC. I’M SORRY.
1. GoodRx – this thing has an app now, so you can look up the best places to get your expensive medicines at the lowest possible prices without insurance on the go, and you no longer have to print coupons because you can just hand over your phone or tablet. Times have changed for the better with GoodRx. Definitely use it before trying to fill your scrip, because it will tell you the best place to go. (You can do that on the website, too.)
2. NeedyMeds– Needymeds is basically the clearinghouse of drug payment assistance. They have their own discount cards, but also connections to many patient assistance programs run by drug companies themselves. They are good assistance programs, too.
3. Ask your county – This is not a link. This is a pro tip. Most county social services will have pharmacy discount programs for people with no and/or shitty pharmaceutical coverage. You can often just find them hanging around at social services offices; you can just pick one up and walk off with it.
4. Ordering online – There are a few safe online pharmacies. I keep a little database in a text file on my computer. Most of them are courtesy of CFS forums, my mother or voidbat, so a lot of that is a hat tip to other people, but if you’re in need of a place to get a drug without a prescription … first I’ll make sure you 100% know what you’re doing for safety reasons and then I’m happy to turn over a link.
5. Healthfinder– A government resource that helps find patient assistance programs in your area. This might also point out the convenient county card thing. RxHope is something a lot of people get pointed to via Healthfinder that’s a good program.
6. Mental Health America – Keeps a list of their best PAPs for psychiatric medications, which can be some of the most expensive and a lot of pharmacy plans don’t cover them at all.
This is so important ppl.
Signal boost the shit out of it!
Booooooooooooooooooost
Good Rx Saved my family a hundred dollars a month while I was getting signed up for CHIP seriously it’s a life savor especially for ridiculously expensive drugs like abilify
Useful info, friends! 😉
❤️ the pharmacist told me to go to epipen.com & i ended up getting them for freeeee
Use GoodRx. You’d be amazed how much drug prices can differ between pharmacies.
Also, if you know anyone with a membership, Costco. I used to get my meds from CVS just because it was the closest pharmacy to me, but when I lost my health insurance I called about pricing and it was going to run me almost $400 to pick up my prescriptions from there. At Costco, my total is about $33.
I used to work for an HMO, these are pretty good resources.
These are screenshots from the website I’m working on creating. Essentially it’ll be a place where people can find black hair stylist in their area and a directory of online black hair resources (youtube channels, natural hair recipes, tutorials, online stores, etc) in one place that members can add to
I have a quick9 question online surveyI need at least 40 people to respond to (right now I am 4) so that I can improve the site before it goes live.
Pleaseeeee do the survey and/or reblog this!
I see this is still making the rounds but i gotta say the site: is called BlackHairEverywhere.com and well…
IT
GOT
MUCH
BETTER
Boost this!!!!!!!
Yooo
Oh my god this might change my life, the last time I went to a salon a white lady gave me chemical burns bc she didn’t know what she was doing
Heyyyyyyy guys, if this kind of thing is your thing, I invite you to drop some change in my little sister’s crowd-fund to take her play to Edinborough Fringe. They are smart great kids and good actors.
Reblog for Monday Morning!
For those curious, my sister is the one with the short brown hair, in the blue dress with the sweater on top.
Pledge rewards include things like knitted hats, rehearsal videos, and also ad-space in the programs given out at their performances at Edingburgh Fringe, since I think I have a few people doing etsy shops or other selling-things-online stuff.
And a reblog always helps get more eyes, so that’d be great too. ❤
Sometimes my boss likes to read particularly horrendous resumes out loud. Yesterday morning, I decided that I can’t sit by and do nothing when hard-working people are losing opportunities because their resumes are poorly written. I told my boss that instead of criticizing the resumes and then dismissing the applications, he should forward them to me so I can reach out to the applicants and offer to help them work on their resumes.
I am a certified proofreader and copy editor with six years of experience in job readiness training and I want to help.
If you or anyone you know has need of an editor- someone to work with in improving a resume, cover letter, personal statement, manuscript, fanfiction, etc- please contact me with the details. You can message me here or email me at laloreleiproofs101@gmail.com
A friend is currently in a situation where their cat, who is living with their family while they are elsewhere, seems to increasingly not be safe with that family, and is trying to find somewhere safe for him until immigration stuff in Montréal is sorted out and she can bring him across.
The cat is in Georgia, but my friend is willing to try to work out some way to get him more or less anywhere in North America. Sadly me and most of the people I know DIRECTLY all own at least one cat who wants to kill all strange adult cats on sight (the fluffhead survives because we brought him in as a tiiiiny kitten), so.
If you think you or anyone you know can help plz email to keepondreamingboy@gmail.com. Thnx for attn.
So with my new “I’m going to art the shit out of my problems” life plan, I’ve got some cool things you might be interested in.
First! I have a series of erotic/romantica short stories available on Amazon – four stories in the series, and the fifth/last one to come shortly. Want to see if they’re your cup of tea? For this week (so May 2 through May 6), the first one is FREE. The rest? Ninety-nine cents, which is less than a candy bar and full of much more nougat.*
(*Nougat content varies.)
Click on the cover below to take you to the first story in the series:
But wait! THAT’S NOT ALL.
I’m starting up (again) my youtube video series “Stories About Stories” – which none of you know about! BUT NOW YOU DO. I take public domain books, short stories, ballads, and plays and tell them in much the same manner as, say, someone who only remembers half of what’s going on at any given moment and also uses accidental puppets. Behold one of my favorite eps, soon to be close captioned because I want to be a good bro:
FINALLY: You may have heard me talk in the past about my concept magic shop. Well, bros, I have made it real. I’ll be creating individual supernatural/paranormal art pieces, one of a kind, and selling them for reasonable prices. What kinds of things? Check it:
As these things are updated/created, I’ll put up new posts so you can follow along.
And if you like anything you see, or if you want to support my dangerous art habits, check out my Patreon (linky here). There are cool goals, and nifty rewards, and generally a good time had by all.
THANK YOU AND GOODNIGHT AND SORRY FOR TOMORROW’S REBLOG.
Looks like the geniuses who run UC Davis never Googled the words “Streisand Effect.”
After a police officer pepper-sprayed UC Davis students in a widely reported 2011 incident, the California university contracted with SEO consultants for $175,000 (or maybe more) to scrub unfavorable online items about the incident and boost online reputations of both the university and Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi.
The Sacramento Bee reported on the SEO scandal, and based their story on documents newly released in response to requests filed last month under the California Public Records Act.
In January 2013, UC Davis contracted a Maryland firm, Nevins & Associates, for a six-month contract that paid $15,000 a month. Nevins was the first of many “reputation management firms” paid off by the university administrators. And that payment was just the start.
I never thought I’d say I was glad I didn’t choose to attend UC Davis, but I’m glad I’m not an alumnus of UC Davis.
FYI, if you are an alum of Davis and you’re ashamed of their behavior but not sure what you can do, here’s a thing. Speaking as someone who works in fundraising, one of the very loudest ways to get the attention of school administration is to tell them why you won’t be giving them any money, ever. Tell them you don’t want your money going to scrub images of their shame off the internet, and you don’t want to pay the salaries of the people who caused it. Don’t tell them to take you off their solicitation list – just tell them, every single time they solicit, through mail or email or by phone, that you won’t be giving them any money and you won’t be engaging with the school in any way (engagement is a new metric and many schools measure fundraising success in part by how many people attend events, tweet positively about the school, et cetera).
Tell them you’re ashamed of your school and that you’ll tell every alum you meet. And this doesn’t just go for Davis – if your school pulls this kind of shenanigans, tell them you won’t give them money, you won’t engage with them, and you will tell everyone you went to school with why. Tell them every time they ask you for money you’ll tweet about their shame, or you’ll find someone on linkedin who went to your school and tell them not to give either.
Some schools have a “lost generation”, a few years to a decade where something they did so appalled or traumatized the students that there’s just no way that most of them will ever donate or support the school. Most schools would do anything to get that generation back. And if they see an impending “lost generation” of alumni because they chose to scrub these images instead of owning their mistakes, well. It can’t fix what’s broken, but it may prevent it from happening again.
Unis really do depend on not just the financial support, but the social support of alums. The bigger the uni, hilariously, the more this is the case.
Alums are basically free advertising. Invaluable free advertising. They are the most important part of reputation. Harvard is what Harvard is in no small part BECAUSE THAT’S HOW PEOPLE THINK OF HARVARD.
Kimchi and Justice 