Bruce’s Poor Man Survival Bulletin
A Digest of Urban
Survival Resources
ISSN 2161-5543
In This Issue:
1.
Extreme discounts, get rebates, food saving
2.
Homesteading for busy folks
3.
Find missing money
4.
If a garage sale isn’t worth it, use
ItsDeductible
Someone stole all my credit cards, but I won’t be
reporting it. The thief spends less than my wife did. — Henny Youngman
The Realities of Recession – Not everyone is hurting
During the Great
Recession about 25% of the population was out of work. Today, it’s roughly the same when you factor
in those who have stopped looking or those who are working part time jobs. One area of the economy that thrived during
the depression was the entertainment industry.
Escapism, even if for a short while, was a best-selling commodity.
Attendance at movie
theatres and theme parks set records in those years (of course the price of
admission was a fraction of what it is today).
Entertainment and
escapism are doing well today for the same reason. Illicit drug sales in this country are
staggering. People always find extra
cash for pleasure. Despite an estimated
10% reduction of today’s middle class numbers and record numbers of people on
government assistance, there are still a large percentage of people with money
in this country as witnessed by sales of high end vehicles, corporate airplanes
and auction sales of celebrity and historical items.
Even our nation’s
“poor” live well by most international standards. Few of the poor live without a cell phone,
cable TV and other ‘necessities.’ If
you’re genuinely poor you get free health and dental care, free cell phones,
help with utilities, housing and more.
For many middle class
families, that lifestyle has been significantly watered down, with many finding
it difficult to keep up with such costs as skyrocketing health care, college
tuition and ever increasing auto insurance rates (ours jumped by $400 despite
having a clean driving record) along with deteriorating workplace benefits. Record
numbers of young people, for instance, are moving back in with mom and dad.
Despite this, most corporate profits are breaking records. For a large percentage of Americans, the sky
is falling, but many still haven’t gotten the memo.
As always, I invite your thoughts…how can we all work together to restore the
American Dream?
Use left- over zip loc
baggies for shipping cushions…just blow them up like a balloon, seal and place
into packages to protect them during transit.
PM’s ‘Betty Shocker’ Compendium of Useful
Resources
Sometimes a garage sale just isn’t
worth the trouble…
You have an
item marked a dollar. It originally
retailed for $25. Someone comes along
and asks “will you take a quarter for it?”
You might be better off donating the item and taking a tax
deduction. The SalvationArmy.org has an online calculator to determine IRS
allowances for donated goods (you’ll be pleasantly surprised). You can also register at this site to get an
estimate. Enter your filing status,
items you’re donating along with their condition and the site will calculate
their value and how much you might save on taxes. ItsDeductible.com
Don’t Miss Out on Rebates…
Millions of
product rebates go unclaimed primarily due to being sent in late or many folks
simply forget about them. Use this free
site to avoid that problem. Rebate-Tracker.com
Save 90% on Food
I reported
on this topic several months ago…Extreme discount grocery stores. Stores such as Save-a-Lot, Bottom Dollar and
Aldi, take dented or slightly damaged cans and sell them for up to 90% off
(they’re safe to use). Now there’s a
site you can use to locate these stores:
ExtremeBargains.net/store/Independent_Discount_and_Salvage_Grocery_Directory.html
If you’re like most Americans, you
throw away up to 30% of your food
The newest
trend in couponing helps resolve this problem by giving you recipes and a link
to the best available coupons for each ingredient, free of charge. Go to: ReadySetEat.com
Another good food
saving resource:
www.SuperMarketGuru.com
MissingMoney.com is a national database established
by the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators (NAUPA).
MissingMoney.com enables owners to perform comprehensive searches for lost
assets required by law to be turned over to the states. Just go to the site,
type in your name and state, and see if there is any unclaimed property waiting
to be returned to its rightful owner.
Damp, moldy basement or other area? Use PDZ, the same product used in horse
stalls to absorb urine can be used to absorb basement moisture. Find it at
Tractor Supply and other retailers.
Homesteading for the Busy People
Develop a new
preparedness skill through small-scale urban farming…
Learn About
Permaculture: One of the goals
of permaculture is a garden that is efficient and self-reliant; needing little
input from you, while producing maximum output. It takes its lead from natural
ecology. For example, when was the last time you had to prune or water the
trees in a forest? Healthy forests take care of themselves. Permaculture
enthusiasts attempt to create edible gardens that are self-sufficient and
"grow on their own."
Container
Gardening: You don't
need much space to start weaning yourself off the Big Ag distribution chain.
There are a number of ready-made herb growing kits for your kitchen counter you
can buy at garden centers or online. If you have access to a patio, sunny
window, rooftop, or yard, your options open up even further.
Anything you grow and consume yourself adds to your
self-reliance. Plus, you can use your excess production (or your knowledge) to
trade with others. However, be cautious about selling your self-grown produce,
because many city bureaucracies have ordinances that regulate, or even forbid,
this kind of entrepreneurship! Make sure to check your town's regulations.
Community Gardening: In many communities, urban and otherwise,
municipalities and community service organizations offer small garden plots for
nominal rent. This is a great way to meet like-minded individuals and pick up
many insider tips on food security.
Edible
Landscaping and Guerilla Landscaping:
In their book, The Urban Homestead: Your
Guide to Self-Sufficient Living in the Heart of the City, authors Kelly
Coyne and Erik Knutzen describe these two methods:
>Every inch of land
is a potential location for growing food: Vacant lots, the center meridian on a
road, or even a dirt path between apartment buildings.
If you don't have
land, work out a creative deal with a neighbor with a yard.
Get a good
return on your landscaping dollar. Many edible plants, trees, and shrubs are
very attractive and should be used in landscaping.
A directory of legal aid
offices serving low-income individuals can be
obtained through the National Legal Aid & Defender Association
(202-452-0620; www.nlada.org).
Potatoes and onions last longer in your cabinet than
in your fridge. Bananas and tomatoes
last longer on your counter.
The Nanny State
Updates…
Rewarding failure is a fundamental
precept of The Bureaucratic Code, which helps to explain why government’s regulatory powers
grow in spite of its incompetence. Examples are legion, of course, including
the recent case of the State Department and passport fraud. The General
Accounting Office (GAO) has on several occasions investigated the department’s
procedures for processing passport applications and found them dangerously
wanting. In 2009, for example, the GAO “easily” obtained passports using
counterfeit documents. A 2010 investigation also yielded passports despite
numerous discrepancies and suspicious indicators within each application.
Every business must comply with a
mind-boggling range of regulations, but the latest regulatory “guidance” on the Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA) may be the last straw—literally. Hotels, restaurants,
airlines and the like must now modify “policies, practices, or procedures” to
accommodate miniature horses as service animals. The new guidelines, effective
March 15, elevate the regulatory standing of the pygmy ponies over chimps,
pigs, goats, iguanas, birds, and rats—all of which have been claimed as service
animals by their owners but are not now formally recognized as such.
Reader Comment
on our national debt…
Let’s see..cut
military spending by 10%, eliminate secret service details for former
presidents, no pension healthcare for politicians serving less than 16 years in
office. 8% luxury tax on salaries and bonuses over $5 mil, 1% import tax, 1%
fed excise tax on security trades, eliminate earn income credit, cut child tax
credits, cap welfare so people quit having more kids to have more income. Cut
agriculture and energy subsidies. And quit leading the fight in every battle
around world...Yeah I think after all that we would again have a surplus to
start fixing our @#$% problems here in the U.S.A
High humidity can ruin electronic products - save silica
packets that come in shoeboxes and other containers and tuck one inside a zip
baggie with your gadget.
The Parting (short) shot…
Americans are
tired of a government that overburdens us…
Once again the
White House and Democrat rhetoric engages in class warfare, deploring the idea
of not raising taxes on "the wealthiest" of Americans. However, what
we've seen from Democrats and this White House is that anyone with a heartbeat
and a paycheck is considered wealthy (and the paycheck is not a mandatory
criterion). The American people already pay out the nose in taxes, and for this
government to refuse to cut its spending and instead saddle more of a burden on
the backs of middle-class Americans is unconscionable.
Obama's Quiet Gun
Crackdown
While the debt-ceiling debate grips Washington, the president is discreetly beefing up gun regulations in the wake of the Gabrielle Giffords shooting, going over the heads of powerful NRA lobbyists - http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/07/11/obama-s-new-gun-control-regulations-exclusive.html?om_rid=NlSRQu&om_mid=_BOG05LB8cSpV2K
While the debt-ceiling debate grips Washington, the president is discreetly beefing up gun regulations in the wake of the Gabrielle Giffords shooting, going over the heads of powerful NRA lobbyists - http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/07/11/obama-s-new-gun-control-regulations-exclusive.html?om_rid=NlSRQu&om_mid=_BOG05LB8cSpV2K
Yours from the
‘fortress of solitude,’ the Poor Man
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