Resources for the (upcoming/already here) Recession — Poorcraft
As prices increase across a ton of areas (gas, food, rent), more and more people are struggling (myself included) to figure out how to live frugally without sacrificing fun and meaningful living. Enter one of my favorite series ever — Poorcraft. Poorcraft is “the fine art of living well on less”, focusing on doing more with what you have, using things differently and until they are used up instead of replacing them immediately, and spending less overall (Poorcraft, page 6).
The Poorcraft book series contains three books (Poorcraft, Poorcraft: Wish You Were Here, and The Poorcraft Cookbook). Each book contains different tips and fundamentals for frugal living, traveling and cooking.You can get all the books at Iron Circus or another retailer (they are free on Amazon Comixology Unlimited right now). Read below for some of my favorite parts of each book!
Poorcraft: The Funnybook Fundamentals of Living Well on Less
The first book in the series Poorcraft, contains a ton of tips on living within a budget, cooking, and general life advice for cutting down costs and expenses. This book fundamentally changed the way I looked at how I was buying and what my budget should be. This book covers a bunch of different areas, like Housing, Fashion, Health, Transportation, and Emergencies. Some of the things I learned in this book include:
- Budgeting (Chapter 1 — First Things First)
- Moving and Housekeeping (Chapter 2 — Housing)
- How to Season a Cast Iron Pan (Chapter 3 — Food)
- How to Cook (Food 101-Learning to Cook)
Honestly, there is so much in this book alone that I learned, it was presented in such an interesting way and gave me so much to think about and consider for myself and how/where I am spending money right now. A lot of the things this book talks about are not complicated, and fairly easy to implement. The section on debt specifically (pages 15–16) were informative and let me start considering my own options for my debt payments.
Poorcraft: Wish You Were Here
The second book in this series — Poorcraft:Wish You Were Here is all about Traveling well on a budget. The very first section of the book talks about Packing. This section was the most impactful to me learning. I am a CHRONIC overpacker, and it has definitely come to bite me more than once when travelling. The very first section of the Poorcraft travel book talked about ways to avoid that and how best to pack light. Other key sections I found particularly helpful included Currency Exchange (Chapter 3 — Arrival) and Staying Safe (Chapter 9).
I haven’t had to use the tips outlined in this book yet (COVID-19), but I do have a couple plans later on this year (hopefully)that I am aiming to use these tips for.
The Poorcraft Cookbook
This book by far was the most impactful to me when reading it. From the very beginning, this book gave fantastic advice on grocery shopping, picking ingredients to use, meal planning, taking care of your kitchenware, and food safety, before spending the rest of the book just providing really good recipes to use. Some of my favorite recipes (so far), have been:
- Sourdough Starter/Bread (pgs 88/89)
- Bowls (pg 118)
- Miso Soup (pg 139)
- Five Vegetable Soup (pg 141)
- Impossible Pie (pg 180)
There are so so so many more recipes though than just the ones above. Some of the others include Kimchi, Bechamel, and Onigiri! I’ve used this book so much for planning meals/grocery shopping lately, and it has really helped me get a control on how much food spending I have been doing.
Summary
The Poorcraft books are fantastic resource, especially as prices continually rise and wages don’t actually increase. I highly recommend starting with the first book in the series and grabbing the others when you can. These books are interesting, fun to read, and provide practical advice without shame or stigma for people (like me!) trying to get their finances under control!
