As others have said, drop the debit card. I am guilty of it, too, sometimes. While it doesn't help you now, in the future pull out as much cash as you need for the week, and leave the debit card at home. Cash withdrawals come out from the bank instantly, so they are impossible to over-draft with as far as I know. Buy money orders with said cash to pay your bills (don't send checks). This is how you have to treat your finances if you do not keep a balanced check book. The online bank systems do not keep your finances up to date enough to keep you out of trouble. And sometimes a shop will run your card as a credit card, and it may not even hit your account for 3 - 7 days, by which time you may have spent the money you were banking on having, thus overdrafting you.

As far as what to do now, I know quite a bit about eating for free:

1. Panara Bread. I figured I would mention this one separately, since they are such a great source. Every night around their closing time, you can just walk in, tell them you are hungry and broke, and see if they can give you a couple of bagels or something. They won't give you any meat, but the bagels are thick and hardy, and more than enough to get you through to the next morning. They give the bulk to food banks, but they will give some out directly in the store.

2. Other food places. Just walk in and ask. It can be hard on ye' olde pride to do it, but you never know what you may get. Pizza places are particularly a hot spot, because pizzas get messed up all the time. Years ago, one of my first jobs was a pizza shop, and we used to give away messed-up pizzas all the time to a couple of local families down on their luck.

3. Grocery stores. There are many grocery stores that give away lots of samples. If you hit them during primetime (typically 4pm - 7pm local time), depending on how modern they are (the more modern, the better), you can basically eat an entire meal just by walking around. Here is Texas, H.E.B. is a big one. They will typically have 3 or 4 cooking stations where an employee is cooking food and handing out small portions to customers in hopes of making them buy a special. Just do what most people do. Eat it, smile and walk on to the next station. Go to the deli, and see if they have free cookies out. Go to the cheese section and see if they have tasting plates out. Take 3 or 4 samples from any tasting plates that don't have an employee at them.

4. Recycling. If you are lucky enough to live in a state that offers cash deposits on cans and bottles, go to a middle-to-upper-class neighborhood and offer to pick up their recycling. They will typically not be concerned enough about the few bucks they could get to take it all the way down to the recycling center. Approach it like you are offering them a free service. In reality, if you pick up about 4 or 5 street's worth of cans and bottles, you could be making almost a full-time job's worth of money.

General tips:

1. Get your check off direct deposit if it is set that way. Do it NOW. The bank will pay themselves for all your fees first, and then give you whatever it left over. Take your check to a check cashing store. Some grocery stores even do it. I think Wal-Mart typically has the lowest fees for cashing a check. This way, you get the cash in your pocket.

2. If you don't currently have a job, find a construction site, and offer to do "gopher work" for cash. It make take a few, but you will likely find one. You will be getting things for them, holding tools, etc. You can also go to grocery stores and restaurants, speak to a manager or owner, explain your situation and offer to do clean-up and other work that they can pay in food. Try to get enough on one job that you can eat there, and take some home for later. This is usually a great deal for the shop manager because they are paying you at retail-value for the product (which is what you are used to paying anyway) when they are spending much less for it, so it is cheap labor for them, and food for you.

Well if there is a Costco near you they are always giving out appetizers in there so that should get you some food in your stomach quickly. Only downside is that you need a costco card to get in or know someone. If not you can just apply for one and get in I think.
Anyways, in the future I would learn to think like a boyscout or something and always prepare for the worst case scenario which means having a least a case of ramen noodles or tuna stashed away somewhere so you always have something to eat that'll last you a good couple of weeks until you get back on your feet!
I hate them noodles and they taste like crap to me but they are dirt cheap. If you lived nearby I'd donate some of them to you LOL.
Also, you know you could still use your debit card to buy food if you really need to since if it's like my bank they won't deny it for lack of funds but I'm sure you are trying to avoid getting killed by the extra overdraft fees that will incur.

How are you using the internet? You've got a number of posts here about programming so I don't think you're using a public computer. My initial reaction would be to sell your computer to pay for food. If you don't want to sell your computer to buy food, then, frankly, you don't need food bad enough.

Is it just me or are most of CodaKiller's posts difficult to believe. Pretty much everything he's posted in the lounge lately has at least one or two things that don't quite ring true.

Anyway, people throw out food every day. I'm sure that you can find someone willing to give you leftover food.

If you can hold out until tomorrow, most churches will simply give you food if you explain your situation.

Once again, the similarity between the names "Codeka" and "Codakiller" have succeeded in baffling the shit out of me as I read this thread.

On a related note, last time I overdrew my checking account the fees were like thirty bucks. Is that $350 a typo or are you banking with the mafia?

Quote: Original post by Iron Chef Carnage
Once again, the similarity between the names "Codeka" and "Codakiller" have succeeded in baffling the shit out of me as I read this thread.

You know, I started putting a signature on my posts specifically to avoid that... I think I'll just have to refrain from replying to CodaKiller's posts in the future :(

Check the bins behind supermarkets at night. Most of them throw out perfectly good food just because its hit its sell by date, and its all sealed so no need to worry about catching anything. My housemate got £50 worth of perfectly good cheese plus a bunch of other stuff last time. I also know someone who shared a back yard with a supermarket's waste collection point, and he lived for a year solely on what he found in the bins

Why are you asking this on a gamedev board? Shouldn't you see a social worker or something, a doctor, a priest, enything. There are trained people who can help you with this situation.

because if he did that we wouldn't be able to get the lulz from someone who is apprently starving and in debt but still maintains an internet connection and has a computer [grin]