Remember how much a price is supposed to be and politely point out when it rings up wrong.

Story time: My mom sent me to the store to buy dish soap. I get to the cashier and it rang up different from the shelf price. Manager checked sure enough it rang up wrong and i got it free. I took the money my mom gave me and rented a movie my family wanted to see.

Gave my mom the movie first and while she was freaking out handed her the soap and explained what happened.

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Kraneia The Dancing Dryad

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Certainly. Most customer jobs are "aim to please". But remember the person serving you is also a human being just trying to do their job. You'll both get more satisfaction out of the transition if you don't be an A-hole. 🙂

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Not sure if it’s a real hack but I do know how “vaccum” the floor to perfection with nothing but a broom head and a damp paper towel.

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bottomless.abyss.of.bordem

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Sure is

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Don't waste yard space grow beans, corn and squash together. Walmart tote bins make good planter boxes if the soil ain't right. Drill a couple holes in them and plant your stuff.

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BJ Hage

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The Three Sisters

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Dumpster diving. We really couldn't afford name brand clothing until I was in my mid teens, but I used to get some pretty great stuff from a halfway house dumpster a couple miles from the house. My mom managed a buffet for a while and while it wasn't technically dumpster diving, she'd always take food home that was going to be thrown away at closing. So we'd have nice steak and seafood dinners a lot.

Both of them have always been master trash pickers too, especially my dad because he can usually bring anything broken back to life. He's retired from HVAC work now but he still makes tons of money by picking up appliances, lawn mowers, vintage record players/radios, TVs, game consoles etc and repairing them to resell.

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Dan Cary

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What's your Dad's number? He sounds like a good guy to know!!

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Buy the main piece of clothing in black. It will go with any other color.

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Libby Tailor

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So are grey and white

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Been there. Look up gurudwaras (Sikh temples) or Hare Krishna or other Hindu temples in your city. They almost always give away free food all through the year and it's pretty damn good and nutritious, vegetarian food.

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David A Paterson

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Christian churches sometimes do, too. Ours has free cooked lunches once a week for whoever wants it, you don't have to be a Christian. Come to think of it, Christian churches also have free counselling and psychologist services for the poor and needy, and again you don't have to be Christian.

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Selling blood plasma can cover groceries.

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MaryHadaLittleLamb

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I have done this many times.

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A bit of college advice/poor hack. When I was in college, there were days where I just didn't have food because I was stuck the whole day for classes and ofc buying food was sometimes out of the question when I was working part time and trying to pay off college. Anyway, I joined several clubs to boost my future prospects, to kill time between classes, and to learn/network. I became an officer in two clubs and I joined competitions/events too that other clubs hosted. There was almost always free food, whether it was normal meetings, events, or officer meetings. One time for an event, one of the clubs over ordered something like 50 burrito combos (burrito, chips, and cookies). No one wanted them, so I volunteered to take them all. Got pretty sick of burritos for a while and I shared them among my family. But I didn't have to buy groceries for like 2-3 weeks. Just FYI, clubs usually have a membership fee, but it's often pretty low and you can offset it if your club is heavily engaged and has a good treasurer.

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BJ Hage

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Many colleges charge a student activity fee so you have already paid for the free food. May as well enjoy it!!

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I bring to you - "the broke man's bounce"

A cheap food hack for students and Min wage peeps alike.

Get yourself a cheap can of braised steak and onions or any other meat and vegetable soup.

Get some 2 minute noodles - any flavour of your liking.

Mix together in a pot or microwave dish. Don't forget to add the flavour pack.

Heat until the noodles are at your preferred firmness.

Add salt and/or butter to taste. (Trust me, you want to add butter!)

Enjoy your broke mans bounce.

I practically live of this. It is delicious.

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Timbob

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What the hell is braised steak in a can ???

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A cheap pasta & tomato sauce trick-

You’ll need-
Your preferred pasta (I go with penne)
Tomato paste
1-2 cloves garlic
Salt & pepper
Dry and/or fresh herbs (optional)

KEY- add more water than usual to boil pasta in. Salt the water, do not add oil- it does nothing to help cook pasta. As long as you occasionally stir the pasta & have enough room in the pot, the pasta won’t stick together

A few minutes after adding pasta to boiling water, in a separate pot or pan, add a little olive oil and/or butter, and fry diced garlic over Med-high heat for just a minute or two (garlic burns quickly so be ready!!) Then add tomato paste (a small 6 oz. can per 1 lb pasta should do). Then add maybe 2-2.5 cups (a few ladles full) of the pasta water to the garlic & paste. Stir til paste is incorporated. Add a little salt & pepper (and garlic powder, thyme, oregano, basil if you have them)

If sauce is too liquidy after adding water, blast heat to reduce. If you grow your own basil, some fresh basil at the end will make that rusty fork feel like a silver spoon.

I usually then drain the pasta (2-3 minutes before recommended cook time) then add the pasta to the sauce and let it cook together for a minute or so

Works out to be less than $3 total to feed 3-4 adults 😚👌🏼

EDIT: this is still my favorite sauce recipe, even though I am now gainfully employed and living relatively comfortably.

EDIT EDIT: if your garlic has those sprouts coming out the top, slice garlic clove in half and take the sprouts out- its got a bitter flavor

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Kraneia The Dancing Dryad

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If your garlic is sprouting, plant it! 😉

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Share what you have with the right people and they'll share what they have with you.

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Max Fox

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Potluck meals with a group of equally broke friends. You buy one or two things cheaply and in bulk, and get a tasty and varied meal.

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Work for people who sell the resources you need. I worked for a farmer and got a gallon of milk every day as part of my compensation. We'd buy half cows/pigs from them at a discount. Always remember, resources are sold for much less at the source than they are in the supermarket.

When I was a fisherman in Alaska, we got paid a penny a pink. Canned, that fish was worth $4. Buy from the source when you can.

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Kat

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Where am I keeping half a cow or pig in my studio apartment? This isn’t something most ppl can do. If you have the money for a big house and a deep freeze you aren’t poor.

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Butter cinnamon and sugar on toast is the best dessert.

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John L

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I still eat this...only I use english muffins.

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Tell grandma I was hungry. She'd make the best meal from little bits of food. I wish I had been more aware of how talented that is.

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Elchinero

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My grandmother is dead so that's out for me ....

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Pet stores sell penicillin and other useful drugs made for fish, but they work if you are in desperate need. They are made to dissolve in contact with water though, so they taste AWFUL.

Source: grew up homeless, got real sick sometimes

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Ace

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Jeez, this is a) very sad, b) very bad and c) not true for most of the world, where animal medications are controlled just like their human equivalents, so no OTC antibiotics. And self-medication with antibiotics is really not a good idea - can lead to chronic recurrence of illness and resistance of the bacteria if not properly dosed and controlled.

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Pick up some cheap thrift store sweaters, coats, hats and gloves. They don’t need to look great; wear them inside to save on heating bills. If you’re really cold, just keep layering on more clothes. Summer clothes, winter clothes, all of it.

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Fishing license. I had almost nothing as a kid, but I remember long and great days spent fishing for the cost of a fishing license (I'd save over the winter). I used to dig worms up under leaf piles, had a super basic pole and leftover line people would throw out. Just a nice way to spend a day outside

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Ace

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Only if you were catching enough and eating it would this really count as a hack, otherwise it's just a slightly cheaper, but still not free, way to kill some time.

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buy the dark bread, idk about other places, but here it’s cheaper and it’s way better when if you have a long day ahead, cause it gives you longer lasting energy.

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minnamariaalto

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U mean ryebread? That is only good bread, I don't like white wheat bread.

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If you're hungry and need some company or shelter. Join a church organization near you.

I may not be a devoted christian but damn I am forever grateful for these people who helped me when I was unemployed for months.

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Carlos Bergade

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The lord shall provide!!

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Hotdogs don't need buns, there's white bread, put some in a can of beans, cut one up and dip into mustard/ketchup. It's easy to turn something simple into a meal. The biggest hack of all, is be grateful for the people in your life, the things that money can't buy. Material possessions don't mean a thing.

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Mike Fitzpatrick

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Hot dogs in mac and cheese, food of the gods.

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Have at least one friend who is upper middle class that wears the same size clothes as you do. Hand-me-downs from him, really made me feel stylish.

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Elchinero

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Easy for YOU ...

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If you're in an area with a few fast food places in close proximity - look for discarded receipts for the survey on the back. Sadly a lot of places caught on and require you to buy a drink or something but used to be able to get a big Mac for pennies.

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Elchinero

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Dumpster diving for receipts ...

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I used to hang out at my friends all the time. Play with their video games and toys. Eat their food and drinks. Possibly stay for dinner. Possibly stay the night. Then go home!

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Carlos Bergade

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That's sad.

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Man a lot of these """"hacks"""" are basically just one step away from "stop buying coffee and avocado toast".

MY hack is for hot weather, if you don't have a/c - first of all, a swamp cooler (or "personal air conditioner") is about $40 on amazon and it's AMAZING. It only cools off a small radius but it's super useful.

For something less expensive, get a dish pan or even just use your bathtub, fill it so there's about 1 inch of water. When you get hot, put your feet in there. Immediately cools you off in a way that shouldn't put your body into shock, and you can reuse the water since it's just your feet (but part of why I recommend using a dishpan or a bowl or something is so it uses less water).

Also if you need a new phone, QVC/HSN usually have phones with tracfone service and they have the option to pay in installments. So like, $150 for the phone AND a year's worth of service (including minutes, texts, and data), and you can split the payment across 3 or 4 months. So not great if you're dirt poor but useful if you can't afford a new iphone but your flip phone is no longer cutting it.

Although if you desperately need a new phone, Tracfone does actually have flip phones, for $10! (and then you have to pay for service).

Another "poor" hack is to look for surveys and sample sites and stuff. Most of them suck these days, unfortunately. But I got a whole bottle of dish soap once, for free!

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Cara Vinson

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Get tube socks and dry beans (pinto are cheapest). Beans in socks, tie a knot and throw in the freezer. Place on neck, arms, groin area. It will cool you off enough to get to sleep, and I've been using the same socks for over 5 years now.

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Your toilet does not need that much water to flush. So what I did was fill up a water bottle and put it in my toilet tank. Saved a bit of water each flush.

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This depends on your plumbing. Where I live we have this really old "open drain" situation that relies entirely on water pressure to wash waste down. So if we limit how much water gets used with every flush, it eventually leads to horrifically clogged pipes and the need to either pay for a plumber or stand waist deep in literal s**t trying to unclog it yourself. For the love of all things holy and just, check before you try this hack. You have been warned.

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As kids, we would collect scrap metal every chance we could. Steel, aluminum cans, copper and brass (that was rare, we'd get bits and pieces). It added up.

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Another one that, at least in my area, can't be done. It's gotten to the point where so-called "scrap collectors" will straight up steal things because there's nothing left to collect.

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Sugar on a frying pan - good candies.

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Andy Cran

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and caramel

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* Be generous to others, and don't act poor around them. I don't skimp on treating friends & family with nice birthday gifts or occasional coffee/lunch, and that paid off because the connection helped me getting out of poverty. * Buy high quality clothes and learn basic tailoring. I rarely buy new clothes, but the ones I bought years ago are still worn to this day, and fitted to my current measurements.

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Kat

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Stock up on napkins, sauces, utensils, whatever you can while grabbing something off the value menu at whatever fast food you choose. Most employees don't gaf. I've never paid for red pepper flakes in my life thanks to cheap pizza. Most of the freebies you can use with cheaper regular dinners like ramen or potatoes. Only eating dinner saves too. And that sums up my 20's.

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I don't know if it's considered a "hack" but I really learned that many of life's greatest joys are not found in money (e.g. I have an awesome family relationship, great friends that do not care about my financial status, I go running for free to stay fit, and I've been obsessed with video games that are decades old at this point that still have competitive communities, etc.).

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Jon Talbot

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I would add try to have fun. Jump in the air and click your heels, pretend to be a zombie, play charades, build a snowman anything. Nurture your inner child and feel superior to people who have more but know nothing about how to live

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**Medical care :** A passport is about $200 when the pictures, postage, fees, etc. are all factored in. It might be more if you need a long form birth certificate from the state vital records office (your hospital issue one should be considered a keepsake. If it's not state issue, it's not a solid legal document). This passport is your ticket to Mexico, where medical, including dental, is about 10-30% of US costs. I knew a guy who got his entire mouth rebuilt across the border, just south of Arizona, for like $600.

The "Farmacia" system is that of a pharmacy with an on-site doctor who can write an Rx on the spot for a small fee (ca. $20). Due to Mexico's drug scheduling system, some medicines are OTC, like fluoxetine/prozac.

A lot of your dental damage can be solved by remineralizing your teeth. Your saliva remineralizes the enamel coating with time. So if your have chronic dry mouth, you probably have tooth decay. So apply flouride rich toothpaste on your teeth throughout the day (I do it 1-2x's). I've had alot of sensitivity and chalky spots fix up in 2 to 3 weeks time. You'll often hear people say "go to a dental school", but don't count on it. Those are few between, and the slots are few between, and even then there's pre-screening for problems. Prevention and remineralization are the go-to methods.

A further pro-tip about dental pain: if you get headache that start in the morals in the back of your mouth, and radiate outwards to the eyes, you probably don't have a tooth issue. You have a sinus issue. Sinuses are voids in your head that need cleaning (yes, it's kind of horrifying), but the nedi-pot method with warm tap water can fix it in like 5 minutes.

Eyeglasses are cheaper online. Zenni and a multitude of other places let you type in your Rx, and you can get high quality glasses for like $20.



**Food :** meat (specifically animal fat like bacon grease) is a flavoring agent, not a stand alone bulk item. 4 strips of minced and browned bacon, with the grease, added to a pound of washed dry beans if essentially heaven . Beans are an under appreciate, cheap, non-expiring thing.

Brew your own wine. A jug, sugar, bread yeast, virtually any fruit juice is all it takes. I brew in a gallon sized Carlo Rossi jug and re-use bottles.

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Ace

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Depends on your country, of course, but in many places cheap wine is actually cheaper than fruit juice. It's quite a lot of work to make anything vaguely palatable in the way you describe, which is pretty much t definition of 'hooch' as made in prisons across the world.

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As a kid when we didn’t have milk my dad would mix hot water and hot cocoa mix and it was a pretty solid substitute for milk

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Ace

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As a drink? Well sure, cocoa mix contains dried milk so you don't need to add any. But not for any other use of milk, except possibly making a chocolate cake or dessert.

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Look for the money/calorie ratio to avoid overspending.

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Jrog

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Omg, that is stupid and dangerous. Calories are not everything. Most of the calories come from fats, carbs and sugar. Your body to function will also need vitamins, minerals, fibers lot of stuff that you find in veggies, legumes, meat etc. Just watching the calories/$$ count would lead to extremely unhealthy meals, and you cannot survive on fast food fries and soda.

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Take stacks of napkins each time you eat out... never have to buy paper towels for the house...

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Daria

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You can afford eating out but not paper towels?

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My mom would go to the makeup store and just sit there with the mirror getting all dolled up using all the samples.

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Introverted Hedgehog

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I've seen people doing this. I'm sorry, but thats gross.

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How has no one mentioned writing a sob story to a top college so you’d get in and get their generous financial aid and graduate with almost no loans? Every other kid is writing about their science lab while I’m writing about living in a drug house.

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Barbara Kelly

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Have you considered that your sob story wold be checked out for truth? Or, are you just making up and posting S**T for fun?

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If you have a coax cable lying around from some type of electronic you can connect one side to the back of your TV and cut the other and expose the wires on the inside. Bend them so it's shaped Iike a "Y" and wrap the point of the "Y" with a flat piece of tin foil a couple times and it will work as an antenna so you can watch judge judy.

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