Stories of being absolutely skint!

mrkidd85

I mean, scraping the barrel skint.

Last Thursday I was expecting a cheque to clear - it hadn't. I'd also had to spend a lot of money on moving house last month. I also didn't get paid at the end of April because of moving jobs and starting after the cut off point.

I know it's just one day, but I had no train fare so I had to jump the train to work (very hard to do in London), and then work all day without eating.

When I got home I realised I was completely out of food, so I put all my 1ps and 2ps into a carrier bag and walked (about 2 miles) down to road to Asda to put them in the Coinstar machine.

After loading all the coins in, they jam in the machine and I realise the light on the machine says it's out of order!.

The walk home was one of the most depressing times of my life.

Luckily, this was 8.30pm, and I only had to wait another 3.5 hours for midnight - so I went and stuffed my face.

The experience has made me a little bit intrigued about hearing skint stories though. This was probably the worst situation I've been in in 26 years and only lasted a day - I'd love to hear from someone who was on their !!! for longer. Not in a mocking way, just so I know I'm not alone.

:T

Faith177

My mum always tells the story of when my dad was working the Yorkshire miners strikes in the 80's (he was a police officer)

He was doing it for overtime and one of the weeks he left he took my mums last £10 so she had nothing till pay day.

She has some boiled bacon in the freezer which she had to keep so he could have a decent meal.

She spoke to the milkman and he said payment was due at the end of the week. So she got him to leave bread, milk & eggs for her. My Grandparents had been down the week before and left a bag of potatoes.

She also had a job interview that week and had enough for one bus fare. So she got the bus to the interview then walked the 6 miles home.

In the end she lived off fried egg sandwiches and jacket potatoes for a week. She said she has never been so happy to see money hit her bank account

System

about 12 years ago hubby and i split up. He halved the contents of his bank account and gave me one half.

I managed to pay a months bills but i had sod all left for food. It must have been prayer that got me through the next few weeks as i'd got 5 kids to feed.

Turtle2010

We moved house last month and it's been a struggle what with unexpected bills / larger 1st mortgage payment etc). I found old gold jewellery i've had for years, nothing too fancy but stuff from exes etc, so i took it to one of those cash for gold places. I got enough to feed us and put petrol in the car for another week so it was all good.

But I do remember years ago, having absolutely no money, my car had it's petrol light on for 3 days and I didn't have bus fares, so I had to phone in sick for work (over 12 miles away). I'm ashamed of that when I think back. But hey ho!

j.e.j.

The first post makes me think that it's more important, perhaps, to have friends, family and people around you than money? It seems a shame that you couldn't have gone to a friend or relative's house to eat (if it was just one day that you were brassic) or work colleagues couldn't have given you a bit of lunch, knowing that you would do the same for them if the reverse situation happened.

Sorry, not a criticism, just thinking about how things have got to the stage where you have to try and be totally self-sufficient these days. I have been in similar situations myself, as a student. I remember one time I had to shame-facedly go into the Halifax and ask to withdraw about £2 as I had nothing, absolutely no money at all and that was about all I had in my account!

19lottie82

in scotland you can buy glass bottles of "pop" and take them back to the shop to get 30p.

i remember once, when I was a student, a couple of days before the loan payments came through, taking a few to the shop to buy bread, then cutting the mouldy bits off the cheese from the fridge, so i could have cheese on toast for my dinner!

Turtle2010

19lottie82 wrote: »

in scotland you can buy glass bottles of "pop" and take them back to the shop to get 30p.

i remember once, when I was a student, a couple of days before the loan payments came through, taking a few to the shop to buy bread, then cutting the mouldy bits off the cheese from the fridge, so i could have cheese on toast for my dinner!

Ooh i've done that!

mrkidd85

j.e.j. wrote: »

The first post makes me think that it's more important, perhaps, to have friends, family and people around you than money? It seems a shame that you couldn't have gone to a friend or relative's house to eat (if it was just one day that you were brassic) or work colleagues couldn't have given you a bit of lunch, knowing that you would do the same for them if the reverse situation happened.

Sorry, not a criticism, just thinking about how things have got to the stage where you have to try and be totally self-sufficient these days. I have been in similar situations myself, as a student. I remember one time I had to shame-facedly go into the Halifax and ask to withdraw about £2 as I had nothing, absolutely no money at all and that was about all I had in my account!

I could usually ask for help but as I only had 3.5 hours to wait, I thought of sticking it out.

When I told my family and my best mate who lives a minute's walk from me, they were all !!!!ed off I didn't come to them.

wanchai_2

Oh, I am almost in tears reading these. Never been that skint myself but my parents were in the late 80s when my dad's business failed. They kept it from us but we knew that they didn't have much money. My mum used to worry constantly about how to pay the bills. God love them.

missprice

have gone hungry for a week before now,(several times) years ago in the early 90s. had food in for the kids only so I ate for free whenever I could, including coffee morning at the local library and a meal at a mates house and I think a snack meal thing at college.
did that for four years regular as ex had left and gave me no money at all and me and the kids lived on benefits in a carp house that was all leccy and damed expensive and cold all the time.
not the best time of my life I can assure you:)

Artytarty

Slightly the other way round but still interesting I hope:When my grandfather was a little boy attending an Irish country school he used to hide his shoes in the hedge on the way to school so he wouldnt be the only boy wearing shoes.