grocery stores with free samples, bakeries + stores with day-old bread
different fast food outlets have cheaper food and will generally let you hang out for a while.
some dollar stores carry food like cans of beans or fruit
SHELTER
Sleeping at beaches during the day is a good way to avoid suspicion and harassment
sleep with your bag strapped to you, so someone can’t steal it
Some churches offer short term residence
Find your nearest homeless shelter
Look for places that are open to the public
A large dumpster near a wall can often be moved so that flipping up the lids creates an angled shelter to stay dry
HYGIENE
A membership to the YMCA is usually only 10$, which has a shower, and sometimes laundry machines and lockers.
Public libraries have bathrooms you can use
Dollar stores carry low-end soaps and deodorant etc.
Wet wipes are all purpose and a life saver
Local beaches, go for a quick swim
Some truck stops have showers you can pay for
Staying clean is the best way to prevent disease, and potentially get a job to get back on your feet
Pack 7 pairs of socks/undies, 2 outfits, and one hooded rain jacket
OTHER
first aid kit
sunscreen
a travel alarm clock or watch
mylar emergency blanket
a backpack is a must
downgrade your cellphone to a pay as you go with top-up cards
sleeping bag
travel kit of toothbrush, hair brush/comb, mirror
swiss army knife
can opener
Reblog to literally save a life
if there is a Dollar Tree near you, they have entire food aisles
Planet Fitness also has $10 memberships. you can shower and they have free food days! pizza night 1st monday every month, bagel tuesday the 2nd tuesday every month.
Save a life reblog
i am so glad that i renblogged this however so long ago. i saw this post and shared it with others in mind, but now i am the one who really needs this. id like to think of this as good karma i guess
also a good list if anyone ever needs to run away from home for whatever reason.
1) Observe: the seasons, the weather, your local climate. What other people are growing nearby, when they grow it. Go to farmer’s markets and see what they are offering. If you live in the US, you can check your state extension service for locally-relevant and scientifically-backed information - most of it free (taxpayer funded).
2) Gather / Scrounge / Dumpster dive / swap / barter: containers, seeds, potting soil, access to water, sunlight. Rent tools or buy yourself a few basic things.
3) Grow. Observe how things grow. Take pictures and notes. Learn. Kill some plants and figure out how and why. Do it again and again and again. This is a learning process. It takes time.
4) Be social - Talk to people online and in person about what you are growing. Learn and teach and what you have learned.
Medium / hobby farm / homesteading level:
5) Gather education / money. Figure out a way to support yourself.
6) rent or buy land to grow more stuff. Expand what you are growing.
7) grow enough that you can feed your family. preserve, can, ferment, freeze what cannot be used immediately.
8) own tools and equipment. Learn how to repair them and/or maintain them
9) Be social - get to know neighbors and local community better. barter and swap, so you get your neighbor’s badass fire jelly and they get your badass fermented hot sauce. It’s okay to have specialties.
Advanced capitalist farming:
10) thanks to your education / good job you can pull a bank loan and also talk with your government for farming grants. You have a business plan, a 5 year plan, and a 10 year plan.
11) you buy land, almost as much as you can afford. You know how to grow things well. Your land is located near enough to your market or buyer that you can make the logistics of shipping work.
12) you buy good equipment, that you also learn how to repair and maintain or you know someone you can call if you need to
13) you know what your local market wants and you grow them that. you have a unique brand and a marketing strategy. You know that the hardest part isn’t actually growing or raising or producing, but actually selling those things. You know how to sell.
14) Be social - You have also networked and made friends with other farmers, who are now your local community. You know your county extension agents or government workers who can help you if there’s an emergency. You know local chefs and restaurants and health food stores to sell stuff too. You know the subscribers to your CSA. You shake a lot of hands and hope that this year you make enough money to invest more in the farm itself, it could use a refrigerated truck. You go to meetings about the best land management practices and keep up with how the latest Farm Bill is going through Congress.
15). What you cannot sell and cannot eat you give to your workers, and if they do not want it, you donate to your community food bank or maybe your compost. You try to pay and house and feed and teach your workers as best you can. You probably don’t have health insurance and vacations only exist in winter. You sleep well at night because you earn an honest living and also because you are fucking exhausted, except when it doesn’t rain / it floods / the harvest fails and then you have insomnia. You realize that farming is just a very expensive way to gamble, because many of the reasons for success or failure are beyond your control. No wonder people sell and get out. Your back or knees probably hurt.
16) You know the real dirty secrets. The large farms are family farms, but they are inherited. The relationships with the banks for the generous bank loans are too. You REALLY hope that people come support your little farm stand / local farmers market / buy CSA shares / visit your pumpkin patch, because you don’t have access to those things. Your family is (eventually) proud of you, and also deeply confused by your life choices.
17) You run a successful business thanks to your own sweat, blood, and tears - years of sacrifice and back-breaking labor. Education and planning. The nightmare that is doing your own accounting. You have a slot at the best farmer’s market around and people in your local community know and respect you. Online, people who have never stepped foot on a farm tell you everything that you are doing “wrong”.
In a 2-1 ruling, the panel of appellate judges found that “the use of those funds violates the constitutional requirement that the Executive Branch not spend money absent an appropriation from Congress.”
The order applies to some of the military funds tapped by President Trump for a wall along the southern border.
In the ruling, Judge Richard Clifton, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush, and Judge Michelle Friedland, an Obama appointee, wrote that they believed the administration was not likely to succeed in appealing the lower court order.
The administration had issued an emergency request to the 9th Circuit asking the judges to lift the lower court injunctions.
But the judges on Wednesday denied that request. They ruled that officials had wrongly reallocated funds under Section 8005 of the Department of Defense Appropriations Act of 2019, which allows for the reappropriation of funds for “unforeseen” military requirements.
“Because section 8005 did not authorize DoD to reprogram the funds-and Defendants do not and cannot argue that any other statutory or constitutional provision authorized the reprogramming-the use of those funds violates the constitutional requirement that the Executive Branch not spend money absent an appropriation from Congress,” the opinion reads.
The judges also stated that there is a “strong likelihood” that groups that are challenging the use of military funds for a border wall, such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Sierra Club, will succeed in their efforts.
“As for the public interest, we conclude that it is best served by respecting the Constitution’s assignment of the power of the purse to Congress, and by deferring to Congress’s understanding of the public interest as reflected in its repeated denial of more funding for border barrier construction,” the judges wrote.
In a statement, the ACLU said it was time for Trump to “move on,” following the judges’ decision.
“Congress and now two courts have said no to border wall funds. For the sake of our democracy and border communities, it’s time the president come to terms with the fact that America rejected his xenophobic wall - and move on,” said Dror Ladin, staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project, who argued the case before the appeals court.
