Discuss how to save money.
Businesses have caught up and fixed the exploits.
For me, it's dried beans. Beans are an excellent source of protein and fiber, and it doesn't get much cheaper per serving than bulk dried beans.
But rinsing, soaking over night, and then boiling, only to end up with way more beans than we will consume, and canned beans are almost as good and almost as cheap.
We use a pressure cooker for our dried beans. 20-40 minutes depending on the bean. You don't have to soak them overnight when using a pressure cooker. I ensure that each batch we make is consumed within five days.
Canned beans are considerably more expensive based on the amount we eat.
If you only eat a can here and there, it's probably not worth making them from dry.
I've found pressure cookers are the only way I can get beans tender. (I'm not a great cook.)
Do you have hard water? That can make beans not get soft if you’re boiling them.
Cloth nappies/diapers. Cleaning them is a black hole for personal time.
Not sure if this counts, per se, but Solar Panels. Specifically, via a loan.
My electric bill is insane, thanks to the powers of capitalism and monopoly. So I figured installing solar panels would be a good investment. Sure it takes ten years to break even, but I’d rather be paying my way through that than paying my electric utility.
Well, the problem I ran into was that the interest on a loan would effectively negate any headway I was hoping to make per month.
I still plan on doing solar, but not before either interest rates at least quarter themselves or I save up enough to practically pay for it up front.
Growing your own food. The only way to make that shit pay is to groom a cult to do it for you, large-scale.
The only thing I've successfully grown is tomatoes. And they tasted weird.
Growing your own greens and herbs is super easy with a hydroponic setup, but obviously you have to invest the time into getting it set up. There are a lot of pre-made options available these days, though, so it's not as much work as it used to be even just a few years back. Saves me a lot of trips to the grocery store.