Dollar stores carry fancy glassware you can use to dress up your table. Live alone? Fuck it. Buy a cute red tumbler or a long-stemmed wine glass. Drink shitty things out of inappropriately posh vessels.
Hide two rolls of toilet paper. This is your emergency stash. Hide one in the bathroom. Hide the other somewhere else. With your bedclothes and linens storage is good, if you have it, but anywhere will do. Do not touch it unless it is an emergency. If money is so tight you can’t do this right away you can work up to it starting with the tail end of a roll – enough for one trip to the bathroom – and replace it with rolls with slightly more paper as time goes by. This will save your literal ass.
Washcloths. You can get bundles of shitty washcloths for cheap at many discount stores. Keep some in the bathroom. In addition to serving their function in the shower or bath, a nice warm damp washcloth is an alternative to toilet paper if you run out. If you are too disgusted by the results to wash it out, you can bag it and throw it away. This is not ideal, but neither is being stuck with diarrhea or a nasty period and no toilet paper!
Keep a bug-out bag packed at all times. It can be a backpack, gym bag, or even just a plastic bag with other plastic bags to corral contents inside it. Here is what is in mine: a towel, spare set of clothes, 4 trash bags folded up, 1 roll of toilet paper, Bandaids/plasters and antibiotic cream, baby wipes. Tampons and pads even if you do not menstruate! Toothbrush and travel toothpaste. 2-day supply of meds. Several packets of instant oatmeal. Ibuprofen, antacids, Benadryl, allergy meds, earplugs. Phone charger. Some cash – small denominations are better so you don’t have to break it to use it in snack machines or whatever. Quarters for toll roads. There’s a lot of other good stuff you could put in there. Hand sanitizer, soap, travel shampoo. Tailor to your needs. This bag goes with me on any trip where I will be further than 10 minutes from a toilet. It contains everything I need for an emergency sleepover. Peace of mind!
Consider keeping a small book with important information in it. Phone numbers written down in case you lose your phone or it dies. Include the number for your credit cards’ help lines so you can cancel them in case of theft. Your prescriptions, doses, contact info for where you fill them and your prescribing doctor. Your health insurance carrier, ID number, and contact number for their help desk. You can include other private information like credit card and bank account numbers if you devise a way to encode it. (Something as simple as subtracting or adding your birthday from it works. Thieves aren’t going to be interested in code-breaking.) This book or a copy of it can go in your bug-out bag.
Keep a list of your meds on your phone somewhere, so you can refer to it. Update it regularly. Add the names and numbers of your pharmacies to it as well. You can show it to nurses/doctors for them to copy from if you need to.
Every time you get a scrip filled, take 2 or 3 pills and squirrel them away in one of the old scrip bottles. Label the backups as such. You are allowed, with most prescriptions, to fill things a little before the 30/90/whatever-day mark, to account for business holidays/weekends/etc. Learn what your insurance’s rules for this are and do it as early as you can as often as you possibly can, saving back the extras. A week of extra is good. A month is better. You need to be able to outlast the immediate effects of a sudden change of doctor/insurance. If you’re dealing with a more tightly-controlled substance, I’m sorry, I have no tips for dealing with that bullshit, but you have my sympathy. Do not do this with antibiotics. Finish your course completely, always, every time, unless told not to by a doctor.
Did your meds dose change? Don’t throw away the old meds! Label and keep them! In a pinch, they are better than NO meds!
Keep an extra box/bag of cat litter in the closet or garage for an emergency situation. Same with pet food – have a fallback for those times when you meant to go to the store and get sidelined for a few days with something else.
Keep. Cash. I know we are all poor and miserable, I know this will not always be possible. Believe me, I know. I keep a small cash stash, and sometimes I have to spend it and take months to build it back up to even its previous puny level. It’s worth it. Even a dollar at a time. It really helps to have it there for those moments when you can’t get to the bank and don’t have your card or have nothing IN the bank.
Photocopy your car insurance papers so you have SOMETHING to use until you can get replacements if you lose yours. It’s better than nothing at all. Most car insurance papers are sent in pairs, anyway. One goes in the car, one goes in a safe place at home. Front and back.
Photocopy your health insurance card, if you have one. Front and back.
If you can, leave a couple day’s worth of meds at a trusted friend’s house.
Know which hospital your insurance has best coverage with in the event of an emergency so you can tell ambulance staff where to take you. Your out of pocket/deductible rate may be better at one than another.
Be polite to phone bank workers, even when they are being a pain in your ass. It’s a truly truly shitty job, they’re shackled to it just like you are shackled to yours. They’re human. Don’t yell at them. Be firm, but don’t verbally abuse them. Be kind whenever possible.
That said, never buy anything anyone tries to sell you over the phone.
If you did not initiate the contact, do not give ANY personal information to anyone claiming to represent your bank or credit cards.
You can make payment arrangements for a lot of things. We just paid off a $120 lab bill in $20 installments, and doing so allowed us to pay off multiple other smaller bills alongside it. NEVER be afraid to ask or negotiate. Be clear about what you can and cannot afford, and see what kind of deal they can offer you.
Unless you plan to pay immediately, do not verbally acknowledge your responsibility for a debt from a collection company when they call you, even if you know it is legit and do intend to pay it eventually. At most, you should say you have no memory of the thing and ask them to send you a paper statement so that you can go over it and see if it IS a legitimate charge. Make them communicate with you on paper. That is much safer for you. If you need to, you can say you want to dispute it. This doesn’t harm you, it just means they need to provide you with proof of why they think it’s a valid debt. This will probably include documentation from the original holder of the debt. They will have to mail it to you. You don’t have to follow through with the dispute. This may buy you extra time, though.
“I’m sorry, I’m confused. May I ask who’s calling?” If they don’t answer that, or say they can’t, they are either medical personnel trying to be discreet (really not likely, you mostly only see this from sensitive services like family planning, and you can always call back any clinic you are expecting to hear from), or they are debt collectors (very very likely), or they are scammers. Do not confirm your identity because if they know they have the right number, they will keep calling. You are allowed to end the call. Do so with a statement that they are not to call you back. You are allowed not to be harassed about your debt. You know it’s there. Let them chase their tails.
In general, look into your rights as someone with debt and find out what collection agencies are and are not allowed to do. Many companies push the rules, and you also have rights you are probably not aware of. My ex worked in collections. I’ve forgotten most of what he taught me, but debt collectors are bound by more rules than you think!
Get confirmation numbers for all phone payments and write them and the date you paid on the bill, then file the bill someplace safe. Trust me.
Big box discount stores like Costco have pharmacies and good prices, and you don’t necessarily have to be a member to utilize them. Check into it. They can save you a lot.
Know your friends’/family’s medical conditions and what to do if one of them flares up (panic attack, seizure, etc.). “I know you have [x]. I’d like to be able to help you in the event of a crisis. Can we talk about what to do?” Then carefully listen/read any links/etc. Email works well for this. Revisit the information from time to time.
Know the same for anyone’s PETS that you are pet-sitting. Contact numbers for owners, vets, and pharmacies, medication, name and number and location of an emergency vet and an emergency housecall vet if there is one in your area. Poison control number.
If you are very close to someone with a medical condition that requires special treatment, know that doctor’s name at the very least so that in an emergency and if there’s nobody else around who knows them like a partner or family member, you can facilitate communication between hospital staff and that specialist.
Tip your pizza (or other food) delivery driver. Corporate are assholes and don’t give them that delivery fee.
I’m aware that preparedness is a thing that to some extent needs to be afforded. You need to be able to spare a couple bucks for extra toilet paper or cat litter. Just do the best you can. This isn’t an all or nothing thing. This is you interacting in a deliberate way with the world around you, ready to react quickly and, ideally, to act instead of react.
