The Gaming Den

Is this now sharing general money-management tips? Cool.

Here's mine:

1) If it a coin on the ground, pick it up. Even pennies (or the smallest coin in your country's currency)

2) Sometimes it's worth checking the change slots of vending machines as you pass by them. You get lucky sometimes.

3) Acquire a plate or bowl and put it on your dresser or someplace you must pass when coming in the door. When you come home, empty all the change from your pockets into it. Once the money has been deposited, leave it alone for at least two months, then count it all out and roll it.

Kobajagrande wrote:And of ultimate importance: do not feel sorry for spending money on good booze. Couple of monetary units make a big difference toward having no hangover the next day.

Weaker booze costs more? Or you pay more money for alcohol that has less in the way of horribly toxic chemical byproducts in it?

You pay more for alcohol that has less non-digestible alcohols and ethers in it, yes.

Toss low-end vodka through a tap-water carbon filter and be amazed.

-Crissa

Crissa wrote: Toss low-end vodka through a tap-water carbon filter and be amazed.

Toss it through a filter known as a liver and be even MORE amazed.

Do one before the other, and your liver will thank you.

-Crissa

cheap shitty booze = horrible headache the next morning.

good alcohol = little to no headache next morning.

Waking up still drunk = priceless.

CatharzGodfoot wrote:Seconded, although the recipe on the bottle isn't always the way to go.

Its worth finding a good brand for this reason. Valcom is awesome, Asia at Home not so much. Valcom is much stronger so you need less.

I'm more of a wine and tequila drinker than a beer or liquor guy.

Yes, I'm one of those buttholes. In my defense, I do have to say that I crave the sour aftertaste of wine and the 'tastes like I'm swilling pureed tree bark' slickness of tequila. But god DAMN is tequila expensive. And I'm broke right now. Afford a 40 dollar bottle of Chinaco Anejo? No fukken way dude.

Then buy something in the 10-20$ range, instead of going for the 5$ "Real Tequilla. Promise" thing.

I mean, I like whiskeys. I like brandies. I like wine. So I did not went out and bought a bottle of 2 euro red wine that says "Legit, we promise". I went out and bought a bottle of port wine.

And when it comes down to liquors, things are even better. Because price does not always equal quallity. Like, whiskeys. I didn't go out and bought a bottle of Laphroaig every week. But I didn't buy rubbish like Jhonny Walker either. Fameous Grouse, Glenfiddich, etc. are all money well spent over some shit like White Horse.

Scotch and water is always a good way for a headache free next day; it's the combination of sugar filled mixes that can be a sure way to kill you. I'm not sure why but vitamin B before bed also helps.

I haven't had a headache in a long time, years even. Three martinis and my stomach is killing me the next day. (I think they were real strong ones, it's not always a good thing when the bartender likes you.)

Gin and tonic is the way to go. Just make sure the gin is Bombay Blue Sapphire, and you'll be all good.

Resurrecting this thread because I can.

Dried beans are awesome. They will keep you going, and are dirt cheap.

Invest in a slow-cooker. I got mine for $10. Dried beans become soft in two days, the toughest, cheapest cuts of meat become tender in 3. I have made back the $10 I spent on the slow cooker tenfold.

Big bags of rice are also cheap, I got a 10 lb bag for $8 and it's lasted me months.

I always pressure cook my beans and peas--none of this days crap, I want beans that you're ready to eat within the span of a decent video game session.

I've been eating less and less non-fish/chicken meat as time goes on and I don't miss it as much as I thought I would. My consumption of rice, potatoes, beans, onions, and pasta has gone way the hell up, though. I would also like to mention that olive oil is an essential ingredient towards making anything taste better.

Also a quick and cheap way to turn any soup into a luxury dish is just to stir a can of tuna fish into it. It's really that simple.

Spaghetti alla Dole.

Dole is slang for unemployment benefits. Thankfully I've never had to survive on this, but this is how it goes:

• When you get your unemployment benefits buy a huge amount of spaghetti and some tuna and cheese.
• Cook the spaghetti. Add some tuna and cheese to the cooked spaghetti and eat.
• When you start to run out of money stop buying tuna. Have spaghetti and cheese.
• When you have almost nothing stop buying cheese. Have spaghetti.
• Hopefully by now a month has passed. Repeat.

With the increase in price of tuna and the frankly ridiculous price of cheese it may not be feasible still, but I know my uncle at one point had to rely on this.

Homemade popcorn is a cheap snack. I'm not talking about the microwave stuff, just get a sauce pan and coat the bottom with oil. Heat the pan on medium and drop in three kernels to test the heat, when all three kernels have popped drop in 1/3 of a cup of kernels, shake the pan every minute or so. Needless to say, you need to cover the pan while doing this but the popcorn comes out better if the cover has holes for the steam to escape.

Scouring for Pork Shoulder Butt on sale (assuming you own a freezer, and an oven) is also a good deal.

Most shoulders are 10lbs, and cost about 1.99 when on sale. You slow cook it over night, you shred it, and you freeze it in little baggies. It's hard to beat meat for 1.99 a lb. But it does have some pre-requisites that if you're really poor you might not have.

Bechamel Sauce (one of the mother sauces)

1 part flour
1 part fat (butter is good)
-for a smallish batch, figure 1 oz(2 Tbs) for each part
Milk

Heat oil in pan, add flour, combine with spatula until a thick paste develops and there is no dry flour. This is known as a roux, and is awesome for thickening pretty much anything (though better for somethings than others). Add milk, whipping, until you get the desired thickness. For a reasonably thick bechamel with the above amounts, a cup, maybe cup and a half, of milk, should do fine. Finish with pepper. If you're french, or serving this for someone who is, use white pepper, assuming you have it. If you're like me, and don't give a shit, use whatever you prefer or is at hand, or just ignore the pepper.

If you continued cooking that roux (which would be a blond roux in the above recipe), you'll get darker, more concentrated rouxs which will be more appropriate for other cooking styles. You can cook the damn thing till it's black (I suggest much, much higher amounts) you get the perfect roux for cajun cooking.

Now you have one of the mother sauces, so called because it is one of six sauces which are the bases for almost every other classic sauce.

The reason I'm posting this is because a bechamel is the basis of the homemade version of one of the most traditional broke college student's recipes, mac and cheese. You take your bechamel, add a bunch of shredded cheese of your choice, I'd suggest chedder, with maybe a very small amount of velveeta, and there you have a cheese sauce. Understand that cheese will thicken the sauce, so you should start with a thinner than normal bechamel. Then, boil some pasta, strain, add sauce, and eat up.

You can even make up a giant batch and store the rest in your freezer (should be fine, though might need to be rethickened after thawing). I would suggest storage in tupperware, rather than a ziploc bag, because, well, you've essentially made a gourmet velveeta here, and scooping some cold out of a ziploc bag is a bit of a pain.

BTW, Velveeta is not cheese, and you can just melt it with no worries.

Bechamel is great for making cheese sauce out of cheeses that tend to seperate and become oily (like Cheddar). it's also a great way to use up WAY LESS cheese than you really need.

A simpler mac and cheese is 2 tablespoons of milk + 6-10 slices of american cheese. American cheese is also not really cheese, and melts uniformly. It's actually kind of scary as a chef to see how unbreakable American Cheese is.

Juton wrote:Homemade popcorn is a cheap snack. I'm not talking about the microwave stuff, just get a sauce pan and coat the bottom with oil.

If you can get your hands on real conconut oil (that still tastes like coconut), this isn't just good, it's heavenly.

sabs wrote:American cheese is also not really cheese, and melts uniformly. It's actually kind of scary as a chef to see how unbreakable American Cheese is.

For those not really into American cheese, you can use high-moisture cojack or somesuch instead.

Is Hi Moisture cojack as crazy foolproof as American Cheese?
I admit to never having used it.

So far I've found it to be. I probably haven't abused it like some other people have here, though.

sabs wrote:BTW, Velveeta is not cheese, and you can just melt it with no worries.

Bechamel is great for making cheese sauce out of cheeses that tend to seperate and become oily (like Cheddar). it's also a great way to use up WAY LESS cheese than you really need.

A simpler mac and cheese is 2 tablespoons of milk + 6-10 slices of american cheese. American cheese is also not really cheese, and melts uniformly. It's actually kind of scary as a chef to see how unbreakable American Cheese is.

That's because american cheese is essentially a really cheap cooled form of a bechamel cheese sauce. It's chedder+oil. All that's missing is the flour, and extra milk.

Yes, you can just melt velveeta, but that's kind of disgusting, to me anyway. Using an actual cheese sauce is plenty cheap, and tastes better. The little bit of velveeta I suggest is just for a bit of that texture, I've made it without just fine.

Prak wrote:That's because american cheese is essentially a really cheap cooled form of a bechamel cheese sauce. It's chedder+oil.

Not really.

Processed cheese has a heads up in the melting department because it's full of added emulsifiers, and it's high-moisture (quite frequently, the whey is added back into the "cheese").

Ok, I should have said "It's basically chedder+oil." Sure, there are emulsifiers and shit, but adding whey back in actually makes it closer to a solidified bechamel cheese sauce, as it's akin to the milk in bechamel.

Wal-Mart sells 10-packs of burritos for $3.50ish.

By themselves, they're pretty lame, but add a slice of cheese on top, and they're good. Toss in a stolen Taco Bell hot sauce and the're even better.

Or just top with salsa.