I've been poor my whole life anyway

So this recession won't make much a difference to me at least

But here's some advice to you all if you lose your job due to downsizing, and can't get another one right away and have to live on the welfare pittance.

- Restrict all activities you know you can't afford. If you find yourself telling yourself, "I can't afford this", then you can't afford it, so don't do it. Repeat, repeat, repeat. And then beat yourself up later because you ignored your own advice (tends to be how I do things anyway. Maybe you have a stronger will than me).

- You can live on one meal a day. Just make sure it's the one right after you wake up though. I lived for a year on strictly macaroni, mixed vegies, and ketchup. If I can do it, then you can too!

- Buy in bulk. None of those one meal packages, unless you can get them on the cheap, or they're a part of the monthly food hamper you can get from a food bank.

- Know when you can get your food hamper. And don't be intimidated by the people who line up for them. If they ever got enough money to be able to groom themselves through welfare, they would do so. And don't ever let your pride get in the way of getting a helping hand. Especially if you got kids.

- Make sure you can't in any way touch your rent money. Get it all taken out of one cheque, and have the remainder for yourself. In today's economy though, with the high rent, and low income, you might only get maybe twenty dollars, but it's better than nothing.

- Learn how to live without a phone. Or cable. Or internet. Such luxuries were never meant for plebeians anyway. Besides, you can get phone and internet access at the local work search centre, and even more internet at the library. And you can get cable at the pub. And if it's internet porn you're after, then head for the nudey bar (remember my advice about pride before?)

- Get to know the names of the guys who work in the pawn stores, because you'll be seeing them a lot. Might as well be friends with them, right? But don't pawn your stuff. Just sell it outright. You don't need to be wasting time trying to ever reclaim your stuff, cause by the time you get it all back, it'll be obsolete due to new technology. Oh, and a word of advice. Never say you're thinking of just selling it outright. That's a huge, huge mistake, cause pawn shops are incredibly reluctant to actually buy anything, and if you try to pawn it afterward, they won't take your junk. Also, never ask if there's a difference in the price they'll give you for either selling or pawning, cause there isn't (and then they won't take your junk cause you mentioned you were considering selling it). That $4000 flatscreen TV is still only going to get you maybe $200 back. Just pawn it, and then abandon it.

- Avoid payday loan centres like they were the plague. Besides, they were made for those snobs who have jobs. Not broke mother effers like us. But they still loan on welfare. But still, don't do it. (It's worse than the pawn shop, cause these effers will attack and rape your bank account if they have to. And when they try to take out money that actually doesn't exist from your bank account, then your bank turns around, and gives it you in the arrears. $35 NSF fee? Bullcrap! The ATMs and Interac machines don't have a problem telling me there's dick all in my bank account! Why the hell can't the bank provide the same protection to my account from dicks that try to take out money that doesn't exist?)

- Stuff that falls off the back of trucks (and if the driver doesn't turn around to reclaim it) is fair game. Same goes for furniture in garbage bins behind apartment buildings.

- Find the loopholes in the welfare contract. They exist cause the government doesn't actually care if people take advantage of them. If they did care, then they'd fix them rather than using them every election as a prop for welfare reform promises, which are promptly forgotten upon taking office. Just make sure to do the bare minimum that's expected of you, so nobody bothers to raise a fuss.

- And finally, get a bike. It'll save you feet from walking KMs upon KMs fruitlessly searching out a job.

Crossposted at Troy's Scribbles