How to DIY energy drinks for cheap
First, required reading: link to article
Energy drinks have a few vital components:
>sweetener
>flavor
>water
>caffeine
>bubbles (i never do that and don't know how)
Here are some of my favorite things to use:
>granulated sugar (sweetener)
>stevia leaf or granulated artificial sweetener (sweetener)
>kool aid (flavor, sweetener)
>loose-leaf herbs (flavor) (try hibiscus petal, chicory, even lemongrass and mint can be nice)
>lemon juice (flavor, preservative)
>kool aid (easiest flavor/sweetener combo)
Supplies you might need:
>kettle or pot for heating water
>tea strainer ball to keep your leaves out of the final product
>a nice ragu jar or old Gatorade bottle for pre-made stuff
>funnel for pourin
>ladle for scooping liquid into the funnel
Kaffn-8 or any other such liquid caffeine product will do you for caffeine. That brand is super easy and convenient. Kaffn-8 is my favorite for the quality and ease in dosing, as well as the value (15 bucks has lasted me 2 months of daily use).
I like to make a sugar-flavor concentrate, then assemble each glass as I need it. Sugar tastes better when melted with heat than when dissolved without heat, even once chilled. This also allows me to tweak caffeine content. Here is how to make it:
Fill tea ball with herbs (use about a handful or 1/2 cup for every quart of water, you're making it strong)
Heat water and pop the tea ball in
Simmer or keep hot for 10 min
Remove tea ball and turn off heat
While hot, add as much sugar as you had herbs, and mix until melted.
Mix in as much lemon juice (or other assorted acid or preservative) as you can stand. The more preservative, the longer it'll keep
Allow to cool enough to handle
Jar it up, put it in the fridge for later use. You can and should re-use all manner of bottle, just be wary of melting anything plastic or burning your hands w hot water.
A note: the smaller your batches, the less you waste. But high concentrations of acid and sugar keep it good for up to a month in the fridge.
To use: mix water in a cup with your syrup, tweaking concentrations until it tastes good. Add caffeine, measuring your dose carefully.
Then, do bubble magic to add carbonation if you can do that. Maybe you found a soda stream somewhere. If you don't have bubbles, you'll just have to enjoy your energy drinks flat.
And, you're all done!
Now, where to get everything:
(Grow your own herbs if you are mega brave. Mints are nearly indestructible little plants.)
Lemon juice, dollar store. Quality is the same, you've just got to shake it up.
if its a foreign grocer, they likely have herbs cheap. If its a Mexican grocery, they 100% have the best herbs. (Aguasfrescas drink mixes are cheap and THE BOMB, and hibiscus flower always comes in mega bulk) .
Herbalist and spiritual shops have herbs too, and are likely to have tea balls. Branch out! Catnip has been my favorite oddball herb.
Farmers markets also have some (like three if you're lucky) herbs, and you may have to dry them yourself. Since it's punk to reach out to your community, ask around at the farmers market to see if you can get any herb or dried flavorant that's on your mind- small businesses love consumer feedback! You just might have to wait for the plant to grow, heh, but if you're friendly then you'll make friends. Some examples: ask the jam bottler for dried fruit peels, the farmer for mugwort
I get my artificial sweeteners on closeout, my stevia from herbal shops, and my sugar at Walmart (bite me, its cheap and I'm poor).
Kaffn-8 can only be found online, as far as I'm aware. I promise I'm not sponsored, just a grateful caffeine addict.
Do Google your herbs for drug interactions if you take meds. Healthline has good info on herbs. Dried grapefruit rind can mess with my psych meds, for example.
Again, be careful about caffeine. Always dose your caffeine. Having high levels of caffeine on tap is a bit of a big responsibility: I know I nearly bit the dirt from the all-you-can-eat espresso bar at my college. Immaturity could kill you, caffeine is a drug. Count doses, never go above 500 a day, try not to go more than 200 in the same hour.
Now take that money you've saved and give it to a charity to blow a very mean raspberry at nestle. Or, yknow, feed yourself. Its a tough world.
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I don’t think people really understand how being poor affects you as a person. Like, I don’t like showering in other peoples homes because I’m adding to their water bill. I don’t like eating other peoples food without being explicitly told I’m allowed to eat it in case it was meant to be a treat or something they can rarely buy. I don’t like accepting gifts from other people unless it’s handmade or stolen because I don’t want to cost them any extra money. I will probably pay you back more than what you spent on me because I feel that guilty having you spend your money on me.
It’s the inherent “I don’t want to be a burden because money is a finite resource” mentality that seems to come with being poorer than other people. I was surprised when my friends could afford to take us all out to lunch for their birthday, and tried to order something cheaper. Even then, I would insistently offer to pay for myself but they wouldn’t let me. Having less money makes you view very simple gestures such as giving you food, paying for a gift, letting you use their shower and electricity, seem so much bigger than they probably actually are.
I don’t know how to explain what it does to your thought processes. Being poor and having very little makes using other people things or taking things from other people feel ruder than they actually are. It feels rude to accept a gift and not be able to offer anything in return even though it was impromptu. It feels rude to use someone else’s shower and soap and not be able to offer any compensation. It feels rude to eat a normal sized portion of the food someone made for you because you don’t have anything to give them in return.
Being poor or having less money than everyone else around you does make you feel like a bit of a burden to them. Like, aside from not being able to have all of the coolest things, being poor makes you feel less worthy of simple things because you don’t have anything to give in return.
And this is something that I notice people don’t think about. They’ll bully someone for smelling weird instead of considering that maybe they don’t want to use the shower and cost extra money. They’ll feel hurt when they spent a lot of money on a gift and their friend spent only a small amount instead of considering how much money that friend was able to spend. They’ll wonder why a person never throws anything away when maybe they feel like it’s just a waste of money to do such a thing. They’ll call someone a pick me for wearing sneakers to a fancy event without considering that maybe those are the only shoes a person has. They’ll wonder why a person doesn’t have a drivers license when maybe they don’t have the means to get one.
People don’t seem to understand that poor people exist and will act different to you because they’re poor. Poor people aren’t obvious until you talk to them. They might look well groomed with nice clothes but that doesn’t mean they aren’t poor. A poor person isn’t going to look unkempt and ugly. A poor person looks like everyone else. They just don’t have as much money. People in friends with forget I’m poor until they bring something up and I have to go “um, where am I getting the money for that from?”.
Be nicer to poor people. We’re going through a lot and we already feel like a burden within society.
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*peeks out from an alleyway*
Psst. Hey. Hey kid!
*opens trenchcoat*
Wanna buy a commission?
Prices:
Full body: $20 +$10 for each additional character
Waist up/headshot: $10
Add colored lineart for $2
NSFW +$50
I will not do complex backgrounds or extremely detailed characters. I WILL do humans, furries, animals, fanart, etc.
All commissions will come with flat color and basic blended/cell shading (your choice)
I reserve the right to say no to any NSFW stuff that makes me uncomfortable
If you have any questions, feel free to dm me!
I'm really pushing commissions because I'll be moving out to college soon 😅
Reblogs are appreciated!!
Thank you so much!! 💜💜💜
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I’ll be honest I loved genshin impact, I only stopped playing it because of the fights and the story. Unfortunately I stopped because the leveling up cube was near impossible and battling the bosses was hard without paying for legend items. At least it was for me.
That's part of why I never played it at all tbh. I can't stand pay to win games that pretend they aren't pay to win. It seemed like the kind of game that starts you off and gets you engrossed and then dangles everything on a string behind a paywall. Any characters you need or anything else, you better whip out the wallet. That was my biggest gripe by far.
My boyfriend and sister love it, but they also pay for shit like FOOLS.
I have a general rule where if I pay for a game, I am not paying anymore for anything. Last I checked, Genshin is free to download, but costs infinitely to progress, and that is a no from me.
Love yourself. Play games that are worth it. Play Windows 2000 Minesweeper and nothing else.
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