True story: Company went broke.
Lost my job and had no prospects.
Wife filed for a divorce which turned nasty.
Bank assets, automobiles (for me) were frozen and wife got temporary ownership of the house .. I got the street.
Had enough money to purchase a tent which I pitched in the woods next to the RR tracks.
With no job prospects, I would walk several miles, every morning at 5am to a ‘labor pool’ to work for around $19.00 a day after taxes!
I was trying to save enough cash to buy this old pinto wagon for transportation AND it would also allow me to carry others to their job sites from the labor pool and earn even more money.
I had told this second hand auto dealer my situation and he agreed that if I were to give him half of the 850.00 price of the pinto, he would allow me to pay the rest off in daily payments from the labor pool work.
(The dealer was next door to the hall)
$19.00 a day didn’t go far and I REALLY needed that car so-o-o .. I survived by ‘dumpster diving’!
Publix, Albertsons, Winn Dixie use to throw out TONS of food, including canned hams and pretty decent vegetables.
(Can’t forget the shrimp platters 8)
Little Cesare’s(sp?) and Pizza Hut were life savers too!
After Six Months of #ELL .. I got the pinto, got a Real job and .. The rest, as they say .. is history!
BTW: The county that I was living and grew up in .. shortly afterward passed a law called “Disturbing the contents of a dumpster” which got you a ride to jail!
(nice huh?)
The stores also started dumping kerosene on the food in the dumpsters!
(nice huh?)
A tip even for the ‘un-broke’ .. The week after christmas, hit the dumpsters behind your local drugstores that sell stuff like walkman tv sets, am/fm radios etc. etc. .. Folks who don’t know the correct way to install batteries in these things, return them and the stores mark em off as ‘write-offs’ and pitch them!
(I wound up giving away a ton of mini tv’s and am/fm radios since I only needed one! 8)
You CAN sleep .. ten feet from RR tracks! 8)
God Bless You. You are a SURVIVOR and I admire that in a Freeper. :)
I’m glad to hear of your resourcefullness, I’m always happier to hear of people who find a way rather than wait for government handouts :)
There’s a park nearby that has all kinds of fruits and nuts growing wild, and it always amazes me to see someone a block away from that park with a sign saying “Hungry - please help”. I can understand being desperate, but when free food is right there for the taking, why beg?