The worst/naughtiest thing you've done to survive whilst at rock bottom

HRV

Another toilet roll borrower here (when I was a student).

Also very moved by these stories- thanks for sharing

On a lighter note my OH had entrepreneurial tendancies at a young age. One day after finishing his paper round he found a bundle of old !!!!!! mags in the store cupboard- he took them and sold them to his mates at school !!!!
:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

FireWyrm

Owain_Moneysaver wrote: »

I was briefly tempted by the juicy meaty chunks in real gravy, but then worked out that actual tinned tuna was about a third of the price of catfood that was usually only about 5% real ingredient.

I should probably refine that statement. "Prime" dog food which is mostly chunks of horse (we thought) is good and cheap for an 800g can. Tuna is fine if you can stomach it for more than a day or two on the trot, but I cant quite work out how you got to that price. Animal food was about 16p a can, but tuna was always more expensive at about 50p a can (and smaller cans too). I mostly went after rabbits from the field, but just once, we ran out of options. Unpleasant, but necessary at that point in time. We'd had the mouldy potatoes the night before. :rotfl:

We can laugh about it now, but in the words of Dolly Parton : "no amount of money could pay me to go back and live through it again". Still, if push came to shove, I know I could do it again. DH on the other hand....

no_choice_now

HRV wrote: »

On a lighter note my OH had entrepreneurial tendancies at a young age. One day after finishing his paper round he found a bundle of old !!!!!! mags in the store cupboard- he took them and sold them to his mates at school !!!!:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Sounds like he was certainly in possession of some saleable assets!

kittiej

NCN have I missed your no1 worst thing you did when skint?

no_choice_now

kittiej wrote: »

NCN have I missed your no1 worst thing you did when skint?

Oh gosh, here goes. I know I'm gonna get told off for this one

Several years ago in my village I was having a fairly poor month and misery loves company. My friend came over to cheer me up and she was also a bit down because at the weekend she was supposed to go to a cat show but her cat had caught flees and it was itching, scratching and nibbling itself. That sort of restless behaviour doesn't win a cat show, and the cat was quite grumpy and couldn't be handled. Hissing, clawing and biting a judge isn't a winner! Because she'd already sent a picture of her cat in with the application form she couldn't take any of her other cats at the last minute.

As the flea treatment was taking time to work there was no way the cat would have been able to have gone, so reluctantly she had to resign to the fact she wasn't attending (cats and cat shows are her main passion in life).

Anyway we were having some drinks and we were talking about cats, and she was showing me some pics of hers on her phone. I noticed that one of them, the one she was supposed to be taking to the show, looked remarkably similar to the next door neighbours cat.

When I mentioned this to her we just kind of looked at each other without saying a word for several moments. Gingerly I asked her how much the prize money was.

£100 first, £50 second, £25 third she told me.

Although she did it for the love of showing her cats, the money was more appealing to me. I wrestled with my conscience for several moments and thought to myself there's no way I can do this, it's wrong.

When my friend said the cat would be fine and we would split the money equally, all my doubt and worry went straight out the window.

I went in to the garden to look for the neighbours cat and sure enough he came over quite quickly (I gave him scraps of food every now and again and he often came to visit me in the garden). I picked him up and brought him inside desperately hoping the neighbours didn't see me doing it.

My friend said he was beautiful and could do very well in the cat show so at this point we had the cat and had the will to go for it. My friend was going to take him home and bath, groom and prepare him for the show the next day (apparently she spends several hours doing this and she would have to work through the night to prepare him :eek::eek::eek:).

Because it would have been a bit suspicious if my neighbours saw their cat disappearing in my cat carrier in to a strangers car, we eventually decided to wrap him up in a blanket and despite his initial protests, my friend soon had him safely tucked up and made a hasty exit to the car, put him in and drove off at great haste. I later found out when she got around the corner out of sight she let him out the blanket where he jumped in to the back seat and spent the next 10 minutes hissing and growling lol

Anyway I was in a bit of shock at what I did but I knew my friend would take great care of him because she's totally cat mad. Some point later on in the evening I could hear my neighbour outside calling the cat and I thought oh god. I felt really awful, but I couldn't resist going out there to say hi to her because I wasn't sure if they'd seen me or not and I was wracked with guilt.

I was making pleasant conversation and they asked if they'd seen the cat. I said no, not since yesterday. My heart was racing and I expected her to say "but I saw you taking him in to yours earlier today". I would of died if she said that but I was very relieved when she just said "Oh I'm really worried it's not like him not to come for his dinner". Feeling so awful and overcome with guilt I offered to help her look for him, and I walked around the gardens calling for him and the whole time thinking to myself Oh my god, what on earth have I done!

Needless to say, the cat didn't turn up and I told her I would let her know the moment I saw him and she went back inside. I didn't have any credit to call my friend so just went to bed and read but it's all I could think about.

The next day dragged on and on, I was waiting for my friend to come back with the cat, and twice I'd see the neighbours outside calling him, each time with more and more concern in their voices.

I remember it being such an awful tense day filled with regret and somewhat disgust at myself. I vowed not to make such silly decisions on a few glasses of wine ever again.

Imagine my relief at about 4pm when my friends car pulled up. I jumped out the chair and opened the front door ready to usher her in without the neighbours seeing. From the boot she pulled out a large cardboard box and came inside. Inside the box was a cat carrier, and inside the cat carrier was, I might dare say, a very handsome and well groomed cat.

I was so happy to have the cat back I was getting him out the cat carrier ready to let him go back outside that I didn't even bother to ask how the competition had gone.

I totally forgot about it until my friend held out a crisp twenty and five note. "Second", she said.

I was dumbfounded. Utterly dumbfounded. I let the cat out the back door and it ran straight out and in to the neighbours garden. I hoped it was going to get all dirty first because it was clear that it had been well groomed. It sat on their patio and meowed loudly for no more than 20 seconds until I could hear my neighbours had let it in.

My friend stayed for a while to talk about the competition and we were in stitches at the whole thing. Never again, I promised. It dawned on me the bad thing I'd done. Nothing short of stealing the neighbours cat to win prize money at a competition.

It was even worse that my neighbour obviously never had any idea that her missing moggy was a hundred miles away winning prizes whilst she was worried sick for it wondering if it had been run over or something.

The guilt was awful, the whole time I thought my neighbours knew I was lying about something. I will never do anything like this again because I just don't have the nerves for it. I couldn't even sleep properly!

Anyway later on my friend left, she was all cheered up and so was I. I was looked forward to a small food shop the next day with my £25 prize money. All was good in the world until the next morning I bumped in to my neighbour and she was elated to tell me her cat hat turned up.

I casually asked if he was ok, and she said "thank god yeah, but he smelt funny and I think he's got fleas". My jaw dropped open. He's only got and caught the flees from my friends other cat whilst he was a house guest. I said at this time of year it's common and not to worry and very quickly got on my way before it became clear I was almost shaking with nerves.

You have no idea how hard I tried to avoid them for the next few weeks.

Stealing cats to win prizes. Never again!

claire16c

nochoicenow - thats so wrong but hilarious!

Triker

:T:T:T:T:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:


Brilliant, just brilliant.:D

Tebheag

Hi what a thread makes me cringe to think of my worst one !!
But here are a couple of others I was a student teenage mum living with the father of my baby and only money I got was child benefit he would only give me £20 for a weeks shopping for three of us. Never mind nappys milk etc
Took toilet roll from college
Got Doctor to put me on pill and never took breaks so would not have to buy toiletries for periods
Pop to see my son in nursery at lunch time as they would give me free lunch as would say wanted to see him and did not have time to make or buy something to eat also take hime out other days after lunch as mates would buy my wee boy things was in the day where you could go days if not weeks without seeing teenage mums so we where a novelty!

ClootiesMum

When I was three months without job seeker's and too proud to ask for help from my parents, I had very little food and one survived a week by eating nothing but a tube chocolate body paint :eek:

This thread has humbled me & also reminded me of so much (luckily DH & I worked in the hotel trade to wonderful bosses) but the quote above is brilliant

And NCN - brilliant - just brilliant

Thank you

Loobeyloop

NCN Your No 1 is hilarious, thank you so much for sharing with us, I've been feeling really down today cos of debts and this really cheered me up! And all the other stories, very humbling, I'm not quite in your situations all though I certainly will be soon, if I carry on like this! My confession is I was on a night out with a mate, who was going through a really difficult time (split with her partner, possibly losing her house etc) and it was her birthday, we'd had a few drinkys and I went on a bit of a tea-leafing spree in the pubs and pilfered her some hand soap, a lime, a toilet roll (yes I'm one of those too!) and a candle holder (well it was her birthday!) I must admit it was so funny at the time but the next day I felt really guilty and too scared to go to the pubs for sometime incase I got recognised!!