I go to the grocery stores and buy the markdown food, the meat, fruit and veggies. When the college was changing out the toilet paper dispensers, I grabbed all the toilet paper they were throwing out, not the softest but it did the job. Kept me and my kids in toilet paper for a year. I take any hand me down clothes for my son, find churches that will let him play organized sports for free, and only splurge on one book when the teacher sends home the scholastic book order. They have books for a dollar in every flyer. We go to the parks, find free events that churches put on during the year, go to every thing the public library has to offer from watching a play to seeing snakes and an owl. There are a lot of ways to do fun things and your child will never know how poor you are. The school has free lunches and breakfast so he eats two meals a day at the school. We walk to the school during the summer for the free lunch, sit at the park and read library books during the summer, volunteer at a 4-H camp so he can go to the camp for free. We live in an apartment complex that has a pool so he swims every day during the summer, and since it is mostly college kids, many times during the week, the pool is completely empty so it feels like our own pool. We don't go on the weekend because the college kids have their drunk parties. I volunteered at a Catholic school and they gave us the left over food at the end of the lunches that they would have thrown out. When the college kids move out of the apartments they throw out more furniture then you can believe so furnished my entire apartment except the beds with that stuff. He got an almost brand new bike from a mother at my older daughter's school because the family said their son did not like the color of the bike so they bought their child a new one. I used to be proud and think I could do every thing on my own but now I think, screw it, if people want to give me a bike their kid doesn't want, I am taking it. He has never been to an amusement park, never on a vacation, never had a birthday party but I think he is happy and loved and that's what matters. Plus kids know with out being told that they can't buy things at the store so he never asks. He doesn't have a wish list at Christmas, never expects any thing for his birthday, kids just know.