Tips on how to live in poverty #1 Knocked-Up(?) Times: Diapers & Condoms

So most of my followers probably know me personally, and you'll know that I'm a single mom of a one-year old, working two part time jobs, and going back to graduate school. Which is enough to validate anyone's struggles to dog-paddle above the federal poverty line, even without the still growing student debt currently totaling more than my taxable income in 2011.

Fortunately for me, I've got parents who are enamored of my poop-machine and let me and the entropic monster live in their house (a considerably nicer than one I'd be able to afford on my own right now) in exchange for doing the grocery shopping, cooking, and not using the television during Jeopardy or Judge Judy. 

Still, even without rent due on a monthly basis, costs of Life don't stop: insurance, diapers, caffeinated coffee, you know, the basics.


What follows will be a series of short tips on how to live cheaply. Most of my tips are awesomely shameless. And by shameless, I mean, they don't always color in the lines of what a nice white girl having grown up protestant in West Texas is generally expected to do. And by awesome, I mean, they save money in a real way.

#1 Buy pregnancy tests from The Dollar Tree. Seriously guys and gals alike: quit spending $20 on those First Response or Preggo Now? tests that you get at the drug store, grocery store, or convenience store. Dollar Tree tests accurately confirm a positive pregnancy. How much are you out? Less than the cost of a single condom! Then take that other $19 you would have spent on pretty packaging and marketing promises, and spend it on a package of diapers at Target. (Hidden tip #1) They are farrrr better than Walmart's brand, and cheaper than all the others. Unless your test turned up negative. Then you deserve five $3 drinks at your local happy hour. With a nice celebratory $2 tip for your server. (I'm assuming you spent the other two dollars on condoms. Which is what you should have done in the first place).

I don't lie.