Share your stories of desparation!

cathybird

Annie_Fanny wrote:

I had to sleep on a plank - I think there would've been more room in a coffin. The walls were paper thin and I could hear my dad's ear drum blistering snores and the dogs in the kennels howling all night. It was painfully cold in winter. I lived there for 11 months surrounded by dog turds, working 12 shifts desperately trying to pay off my debts.

Annie Fanny, this is brilliant, I can't think of anything that would even vaguely outdo this :rotfl: :T

Katinkka

I used to live in a caravan on the coast of scotland. I had no heating mostof the time as my gas would run out and I wouldnt have any money. I was so poor I would regularly have a bowl of carrots or sprouts on their own as a meal. I used to sleep with 2 pairs of tights, jeans and two pairs of socks on as well as several layers on top. Brrrrr. I think when people think theyre poor, theyre not really. I WAS poor lol.

Broken_hearted

Ok I will own up to burning one of my neighbours fences on the fire. It fell down in high winds a few years ago. They decided to wait till the winter was over to put it back up and strangly enough the posts disappeared. Don't feel guilty as they both work the fiddle.
We have also lived on potatoe soup and had to use a cloth instead of toilet paper.

freebird65

Some years ago whilst living abroad, I went through a period just before returning to the UK where I was so broke that I had almost no money for food for a few weeks. Unable to get a job due to lack of work permit, I got inventive. I used to go to shopping centres where they had lots of little taster stalls to entice people into buying the product. I just went from one to the other and got as many tasters as I could before they told me to bu**er off! MacDonalds was also a good one - I used to go there and order one of their "bottomless" coffees which meant you got as many refills as you wanted.....so I had mine and would then go get a fresh one, march up to anyone who looked vaguely "sympathetic" and offered to swap them a coffee for a burger, or chips or something. Many people found this hilarious and obliged.....although one person was outraged and had me chucked out!

It made me much less judgemental of other people - I try not assume anything about people and never dismiss anyone these days - you just never know what their story is.

Prudent

The week after moving into my current house (it was also the Christmas week) I completely ran out of money and not having a credit card I had no way of making a purchase. I thought I would be fine as fridge stocked etc. However my daughter got flu and needed medicine, which I could not buy. I had put a stack of news papers I had found in the house in the bin. I got them out of the bin, cut out the coupons, went to tesco and bought paracetamol and cough mixture. Fortunately, my pay was in the bank the next day.

Stormybay

These stories here are great. It just shows how we all have some sort of survival instinct. I can remember when I was a single parent to 3 children, at the time ages 4, 5 and 6 and I had to sell my bed, my dining room table and my portable TV (I only had a portable at the time) to buy 3 pairs of new school shoes. They were so happy with the new shoes as they'd spent all of the summer in the garden in bare feet so that I could buy the shoes on the last day of the holidays to get maximum wear out of them. I spent almost a year sleeping on the 2 seater couch in the front room until someone kindly donated me a bed.
By the way, 15 years later, I'm still sleeping in that same bed........although not alone anymore .....yey!!!!!!!!!!!

Stormy

LittleL_4

In my late teens a crowd of us went on a cheeky weekend to Butlins in Skegness! I know how tacky.. Anyway we all ran out of money, had hunger pains and the only thing in the cupboard was sugar. So for 2 days we lived off crap homemade tablet. On our way home (we had lost about a stone each by this stage) we stopped at Southwaite Service Station and we stole :eek: crisps and chocolate. We were desperate and emaciated.

Don't think I've crammed so many crisps in my gob in the one go.... :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Little L
x

Mrs_Sparkle

Some great stories here! It makes me feel guilty as however broke I've been I've always managed to justify putting a trolley-load of shopping or a new outfit or meal out on the credit card *blushes furiously*

And that's why I'm in the mess I'm in now! Maybe I should have been a bit more frugal and I'd have been better off

LookingAhead

Wow, this is a great thread. Not because I am getting many laughs out of it but because it is all real human stuff....seeing what people will do to feed themselves in the UK in this day & age.

I am thoroughly ashamed to say I do not have any desparation stories simply because I was always stupid enough to take the easy consolidation option or put food on a (no reward high interest) credit card and was refusing to look further than the next weekend. Idiot.

However when I was very young in a single parent family with 2 siblings, I remember Mum making a big pan of porridge which would sit there for about three days being warmed up each day until it was all gone. Or if you were lucky enough to have cornflakes but didn't finish them she would put them in the fridge and you would have to have them the next day.

My brother (who is three years older than me) remembers a Christmas Day with my Mum crying as she couldn't eat a Christmas Dinner as there wouldn't be enough for us kids if she'd had some. That still breaks my heart now whenever I think about it.

I also remember never having new clothes till I was 16 and left school and got a job to buy some myself. I always had my sisters hand me downs (there is 9 years between us.......you can imagine how NOT trendy I was - lol!!) or clothes from jumble sales.

Mrs_Sparkle

Looking Ahead I know exactly what you mean. Perhaps it was because we didn't have much as kids? I remember being thrilled to bits with black bin liners stuffed full of cast-offs from my mum's friends. Trouble is their daughters were always a few years older than me so I was always about 5 years behind in fashion. And anyone my age (35) will remember just how hilarious flared trousers were in playgrounds in the early 1980s :-(

We also had our cornflakes put in the fridge and a pan of porridge which lasted half the week- yuck! I remember stealing sugar (which was banned) out of the cupboard to try to make it palatable. Since leaving home at 18 I have never been able to resist nice food and clothes, although will happily be the stingiest of misers when it comes to buying TVs, stereos, CDs, electrical items etc.