I hated shopping when MO too.

Then, as I needed to replace more andmore of my clothes, I started to liek it more and more.

Try shopping at goodwill, consignment stores and salvation army. 

I loved shopping there because there were styles of clothes there that I would never buy or try on for myself...but now they are there, no one is around, and they are CHEAP . I also liekd it because I felt like a small child playing in her mothers closet ...

Anybody who expects things of someone before 9:30 is seriously delusional!

Shopping blows. Can you order stuff online and mail back what doesn't fit? At least that would take the horror of the dressing room out of the picture.

You need this coffee mug! ( Stole this from a friend of mine. )

YES!!!

I definitely need that mug!

Yeah everyone eats MY food too.... its like.. you normally choose all this fatty sugary processed stuff... now my Siggi's nonfat probiotic yogurt drink is in MY apartment fridge .. and guess what 95% is gone ... as well as all the fat free fig newtons in the package but three GRRRR

I wish I could stealth-steal the landlord's  food .. then again I don't want to look like him ( hes having triplets  any minute now)

I'm poor. I was hoping to teach summerschool to make some extra money, but I applied late so I didn't get it 

I will just have to have a relaxing lazy summer with me kids and not have money to really do anything fun. Boo.

I grew up poor so here is thoughts and ideas of a poor kid grown up.

You can still live richly. Can you pack a picnic somewhere? Go birding, go hiking. I almost became a naturalist type biologist based upon picnics in the woods in the evening listening to whip-or-will calls and counting deer.  I would run and look for moose tracks in the gravel pit.  Those evenings were an adventure.

WE also fed hummingbirds.

We took up berry picking (june berries in june, blue-berries in July and august (along wiht freezing and canning them...aw blueberry jam). 

We had a garden..hoeing it sucked, picking and canning the stuff was fun though and a real reward. We would go to the library and would pickout interesting juice recipes for the crabapples and etc.

We took up fishing on days we didnt have to hoe.

We went to the county museuem..for anything free that was offered.

Mowed the lawn.

We would swim a the lake...a county beach. Not an ocean but it was fun.  We would throw socks loaded with sand and race and try to retrieve them.

I took up sewing on a sweing machine..learned how to make simple curtains for grandma.

Got a book on woodworking from the library to supplement what I learned in shop class and refinished furniture during the summer. It is all min my condo now.

Would go antiquing...but rarely buy something (unless it was a really messed up piece of sturdy furniture that needed some tlc)>

Read lots of good books from teh library.

Learned how to embroider and cross stitch. did paint by numbers too!

This is where I had time to learn how to cook and really got good at it...

So..lots they can do!

My niece's family is young and money is tight and yet I don't think the kids know they don't have money!  They do something almost every day from Skinny's list!  I always tell her that while the things they are doing cost nothing, she's creating a ton of fun memories :)

my neighbour - a friend - watches my cats when I am out of town... I still pay her - not enough for what is she doing - but same what I would pay for a stranger to come to my place. She loves my critters and I trust her..

Maybe you can do something like that? post flyers around where you live? you never know - even $100-$200 over the weekends or vacations time?