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Topics might include (but are not limited to): Dealing with creditors; Ingenious scams; Job advice; Food on a budget; Dealing with roommates; Surviving the College years; or any area in which you have particular Broke & Brilliant expertise.

The only way we are going to survive the tyrrany of the wealthy elite is to freely share our hard-earned knowledge base. So go ahead, contribute your helpful hints on any topic.

Below are just a few of the many Broke & Brilliant Helpful Hints that have been discovered over the years. Use them with extreme caution:

Updating your Resumé

Nobody every checks what you write on your resumé. Even if they did check, you wouldn't get the job anyway.

And, besides, who would want to work for someone who didn't even trust them in the first place?

Play the Check-Float.

Find a grocery store that uses a differnt bank then you, and take note of how long it takes for checks to be processed (by looking at canceled checks from your statement). If it takes "on average" three days for the check to clear your bank (as an example) then just use the store as a short term loan center.

Go to the store, cash a check for say $50 in cash and then use the money to survive the week. If Payday is too far away, then after two days, go back to the store and cash another check for $50, then go to the bank and make a $50 deposit to cover the first check...etc, etc.

Although you actually borrowed the original $50 from yourself (next payday). The grocery store was gracious enough to loan you the cash till you got paid again.

If properly managed, it is possible to borrow money for two weeks or more in advance to "Get By" till next payday.
Mike Skinner
Brooksville, Florida

Potatoes on Parade

• Baked potatoes with BBQ sauce
• Boiled potatoes, mayo & pickle juice (tastes like Mom's potato salad)
• Nuked potatoes in soy sauce
• Fried Mustard Taters
• Picante Papas (ole'!)
• Salad Dressing and Spud Surprise
• Great Granadine and Potato Mixture (a new texture in desserts!)
• Potato a la Robitussin (a great substitution for a six pack!)

To Beg or Not To Beg

Society says you should refuse and go on about your business. BUT...if they should offer (since staring at their food and drooling has finally gotten their attention), there is no know rule (and I know about this one) that says you can't change your mind. For instance... "Hey Bob...ya want half of my sandwhich?" "No..that's ok...well...ok." That's when you procede to rip the meatball and headcheese on whole rye from is greedy little hands, thus feeding your face (for free) and requiring your friend to go make his own damn food.

The Golden Rule of Credit

You must be very carful not to ignore secured creditors. If you do, you will get to know all about the nasty realities of foreclosures and repossessions. However, you will be rewarded with the following discounts for delayed payment of unsecured debts.

Time since last payment vs. reasonable discounts

• Up to 6 months: No discounts offered. You should still be able to rescue your credit rating upon "catching up" with delinquent payments.

• 6 months to 1 year: Minimal (if any) discounts. You should be able to negotiate relief of interest charges and collection fees that accumulated during your time of delinquency. You may still be able to salvage a respectable credit rating. Creditors will routinely offer payment plans to "restructure" your debt.

• 1 year to 2 years: 20% to 25% discount.
• 2 years to 3 years: 25% to 35% discount.
• 3 years to 4 years: 35% to 50% discount.
• 4 years to 5 years: 50% to 65% discount.
• 5+ years: 65% to 75+% discount.

Grocery Shopping

The reasons for these two basic rules are simple: The primal urge upon entering a grocery store is to buy anything that can be comfortably transported from the store shelf to the cash register. Hence, the ban on shopping carts and hand baskets. Once saddled with twenty pounds of spuds, the distressing thought of muscles forming upon one’s skeletal structure ensures a quick shopping excursion. Purchases at the mega-super-colossal grocery store are best limited to the most essential, cost-effective and easily-reached foodstuffs.

Once inside the mega-super-colossal-gargantuan grocery store, proceed from the lavishly appointed potato patch directly to the Ramen Noodle / macaroni-and-cheese shrine. Take as many of those low cost, nutritionally-void, starch-laden items as you can carry. Ask a passerby to assist in loading you up if you must. Proceed directly to the check-out line. (At times like this, you must often be philosophical: Items that fall to the ground as you scurry to the cash register were just never meant to be cooked, masticated, swallowed, digested and absorbed into your pale, doughy corpus-amorphus.)

Now, take out that five-dollar bill that you would have blown on just one meal at the hamburger joint and give it to the cashier. Hold back that smile, but hold out your hand... you are in for some change! Lots and lots of shiny, wondrous, glorious change! You have done well. Go home and feast for yet another month.

Ramen Noodles and macaroni and cheese will now be a part of every meal that you will ever eat, until such time as your genius is “discovered” and you are served ridiculously-expensive and needlessly-healthy catered meals in the privacy of your very own cross-country tour bus.
-- Noonan

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