Extreme Couponing

[Cmonster]

One of my childhood friend's mom did some extreme shopping. She would always buy dented cans, cans without labels, expired food, etc. My friend grew up eating that way. I used to shudder when I would go to his house and I was served dinner. Most of the time it was some labeless dented can and the house rule was basically to eat what was inside.

I remember back when I first moved to CA and was going to college, I was always broke and did that regularly as well. I was going to school full time and interning at Stan Winston's 30 hours a week. My parents could barely afford to send me out here and help pay for college, so I would never ask them for money. Any little cash I could scrape up, I always spent on art projects or little super 8 films. I had a couple of friends who would help me by bringing a burger or burrito by my little apartment because they knew I was poor, or even just to get a peek at what I was working on at the time. I had a rule; If you wanted to come hang out at my place, you had to bring me something to eat. True story.

Other friends from school or the beach, worked at local restaurants and took pity on me as well, and gave me half eaten meals that people had left or old rolls, cold fries, etc... When things got really bad, I'd go dumpster diving at Vons and get beat up cans, fruit that was a little too ripe or expired bread, etc... I did what I had to do to stay here and keep my dream alive.

SC

[livnxxxl]

Maybe it was the lady from the Frank's Hot Sauce Radio spot...she puts that s* on everything.

I hear that commercial on the radio a lot.

[batmanrocks]

Sadly it was not her

[Adam West]

I understand when you have to do what you have to do to survive but my friend's parents didn't need to do this out of necessity; they were just cheap.

My wife and I were both dirt poor (especially in college). My wife's parents helped her with tuition but she was on her own when it came to food. I would drive 45 minutes from my college to hers and she had these crazy recipes for people on a budget and they were good (the one that comes to mind were green beans that had mustard and a few other things added to it...we both had dinner for less than $1).