I don’t have a penny, the next food bank appointment is 30th Sept. I don’t know how I’ll last that long. Any faster ways?
Post a mutual request on hexbear, /c/mutual_aid
Check the rules first
I’ve sent them a request to join but it hasn’t been accepted yet.
I can make a post for you
thank you.
Maybe not what most people would suggest, but for an occasional day, don’t you have any friends who you remember need a small favour (say installing some software on a computer, or painting a wall), and tell them that you’ll come over and help if they invite you over for dinner?
Also, maybe if you’re country-specific, it will be easier to give suggestions
I’m in the UK. I’ve had no friends or social life since 2010.
Sadly, a lot of people lost a good chunk of their friend groups during COVID. I consider myself a super social person but I have only a handful of people I could really ask for a favor. Someone who’s more anti-social would seriously struggle. A lot of the connections and social interactions we had on the periphery of our lives were severed entirely; never returning.
Dumpster Diving, perhaps?
Dude, wtf, show some respect for the people struggling
In a pinch this is a viable strategy, particularly at stores and restaurants. They often throw out still good food.
Idk, purely from ignorance, is it the first suggestion you’d give to someone?
In the U$, yeah it’d be in the top 3.
Yeah, seriously. We waste so much.
In that case, I apologize for my former comment
If you live in the United States, yes. We waste so, so much food. Like seriously. You could go into a dump at “garbage time” (easy to figure out by just watching store employees) and grab an entire fridge-worth of food for multiple people. A lot of food banks or churches can do exactly what OP described as above; deem you for whatever reason not able to grab shit from their expired food section. Often than not, the food bank near me gives you a variety of cans that are more “baking goods” than actual food you can eat out of the can. 8 cans of applesauce is great for keeping full but not exactly nutritious and makes you feel like Steve Jobs on a fruitarian diet.
Dumpster-diving wasn’t meant to be “insulting”. It’s seen as that because we look down at scavengers in America for whatever reason. When I was scraping by and jumping from place to place; dumpsters were literally the best place to get free food, free drinks and free beer.
Sadly, they lock them up, put security cams or dogs around the cans to prevent people from rummaging. Just gotta be smart.
Ok, I apologize then
No problem! No need too, it’s just that it’s truly bad country.
Back when I was in school, course load such that I had little time to work, I learned that dumpsters were a viable source for free food. Jamba is the diety of the dumpster, and we would praise the abundance. As an example, I had a friend who had visitors from Russia. I decided to swing by the grocer’s dumpsters, and ‘lo found all sorts of ripe fresh fruit. I took some, and left some for others to find. The Russians were amazed and delighted that there was anything free to be had in the US. Of course we are taught to look down on scavenging, foraging, gleaning. But who teaches that lesson? The owners.
I also learned the saying, “Not everything in the dumpster is for you.” Which teaches the importance of appreciation, sharing, and discernment.In the area I was in, I was pretty much the only dumpster-diver. Was nice to not have to shop for groceries all the time.
you might actually be able to get something from supermarkets; depending on where you live, they throw out quite a lot of perfectly fine food, and there may be an app or website that can help you track when and where this occurs
download free food apps like good to go, often times shops in the UK during closing time will punt all the stuff that they normally throw out at the end of the shift on here.
If you live in London you can live off of this stuff, I was eating free sushi and bakery goods a lot when I was skint.
edit:
also look up local churches, sikh ones will feed anyone who walks thru the door.
I don’t live in London, I live in Devon and I already tried the local church, they said no, and were quite rude and nasty about it. Already tried olio and goodtogo, if you don’t live in a city or large town they aren’t much good. Also no sikh temples down here.
tried a mosque maybe?
edit: also try going into mutual_aid on hexbear
Also, furthering on the “local” aspect of it, finding a food bank or a community canteen (probably not the right name, sorry, I’m not native English speaker), you can probably ask there and they’ll likely be able to give you a better answer than post people here
I have an equally important question: What’s a free way to get fast food?
theft answers both questions
Announce you’re going by a new name in this store /s
There’s also https://reddit.com/r/RandomActsOfTacoBell/ /gen
I live in NYC, I have never personally done this but I know people who have struggled, and the best thing is to maybe not dress in a suit but your nicest clothes, showered, and groomed enough so people think you’re middle class plus going through one unique moment of poverty and not someone chronically poor… and just go to a food place (not a restaurant, somewhere that sells food… deli, grocery store, maybe even a food cart) ideally in a nice neighborhood. Ask to see the manager or ideally the owner (since they have way more leeway than employees) and without giving this huge sob story, politely ask for food.
They will almost never say no, and in fact you might get lucky and be given a month’s worth of food. It sucks that we have more sympathy for a moment of difficulty for the better off than a lifetime of suffering for the poor but here we are. It reminds me of the state Senator in Wisconsin or Michigan or wherever arguing against free food in schools because kids that don’t get enough sustenance in their youth have a lifetime of reduced intelligence and even charisma and if they gave every kid food, “we’d have no mechanics or bricklayers!”.
