Stories of being absolutely skint!

adelight

I've never been utterly penniless, my parents always were so they taught me never to get in that position- no luxuries at all unless you've enough to keep you going for at least three months if you lose your job. Thankfully I haven't been in any that i couldn't help ie. get the sack, oh leaves me with 4 kids and fleeces the bank account and i can't get benefit for a month or these rotten childhoods people have had.
At uni my friends/flatmates were always skint coming up to loans being paid and being the only one working I'd cook the flat dinner or loan close friends money. But as soon as loans came in people would blow £200+ in a day on clothes, tvs, fancy club nights and by second year I stopped being so sympathetic :mad:

GobbledyGook

It was a case of both I think. My parents both had issues - he was a drinker and my mother had a drug problem which cost a lot of money and also meant neither could hold down a job for long. When they were both in work for a few weeks everything would be great. They weren't particularly attentive parents, but they'd feed us and clothe us like "normal" parents. The drink and drugs came first, well before us, you never dared get attached to christmas presents and the likes (from grandparents) as you knew they'd be sold soon enough.

When things were bad though they were quite selfish. They both had horrific tempers - my father rarely went for us kids, but woe betide her if she crossed him. She was nasty to us though (which I realise now was probably withdrawl from the drugs) when things were bad so she was trying to please him to protect herself and we tried to please him to protect her which in turn partly protected us, if that makes sense.

It was bizarre. They clearly didn't really want us, but the reason they both fought hard to keep us when my grandparents took us was they didn't want people to think badly of them. They didn't seem to care that people knew we were half starved and neglected.

The phrase "if there had been only one of you" was very common when we were skint. Like it was our fault we were twins. That's one I can laugh about.

kingfisherblue

I haven't read all of the posts yet, but I remember the summer of 1977. My mum left her husband, my natural father, due to domestic violence. She had tried to make plans to leave, but one weekend, things took a turn that meant she left immediately with myself and my younger sister. I was 8 and my sister was 6.

When we left our home, we only had the clothes that we stood up in. We had nothing else.

We took lodgings in a friend's house in another town, and fortunately were not charged rent until my mum managed to get a cleaning job (she had previously been a manager of a shop, but had to leave without notice as we had to move quickly and to a town on the other side of the county - too far for public transport, and she didn't drive).

Each night, my mum wrapped us in towels borrowed from our landlord, whilst she washed our knickers in the sink with washing up liquid. She then dried them in front of the fire.

The landlord made sure that we had enough to eat, which was a change for us, as I remember us being hungry in our previous life. He gave us a bag of small carpet tiles to play with, as we had no toys, and took us to the library so that we could borrow books to read.

I have never forgotten that time, although I am happy that my sister doesn't really remember it. I always have a full freezer and food cupboard, and I have a money box with loose change in (I'm 43 :rotfl:). My children have never known hunger and they have never known what it is like to have just one set of clothing, no toys or books, or to experience DV. They do know a few details about our situation, especially when they moan about things! (Nothing about the DV though).

I think I overdo the food shopping at times, though.....

Bluemeanie_2

adelight wrote: »

At uni my friends/flatmates were always skint coming up to loans being paid and being the only one working I'd cook the flat dinner or loan close friends money. But as soon as loans came in people would blow £200+ in a day on clothes, tvs, fancy club nights and by second year I stopped being so sympathetic :mad:

Gobbeldygook - Thanks for sharing. You must tell me if you find my prying annoying.

I tried that with the people I lived with in halls. I was 20 and had lived on my own for 18 months previously in Ireland before I went to Uni. I had some experience with budgeting. The 5 girls I lived with had never received a full time wage before and when they got £1200 in their accounts they were straight in the shops as they thought it was a fortune. I tried to explain that 15 weeks, with £600 of this being uni hall fees, it wasn't a lot, factored in with buying Christmas pressies, train tickets home for the holidays etc.
They didn't listen and spent an average of £300 each. By mid Nov they were all well into their overdrafts and left uni with a hell of a lot of debt.

YORKSHIRELASS

I have never been that skint but its a sobering thought and I guess it could happen to any of us. Glad things worked out for you OP. Money is very tight here but we have enough to eat and all the basics covered and thats what matters.

A few years back my sister worked in a big high street bank. People often came in wanting to go overdrawn by small amounts to pay for food or heating. OK some might not have been genuine but it used to really get to my sister when she had to say no and people cried in front of her. I dont think many of us can really imagine what its like to be that desperate.

annie_d

I recall in days gone by that my children couldn't go to school on "Wear your own clothes day" in their own clothes cos I didn't have the 10p each they needed.
I also remember wearing my nannas old open toed sandals with my husbands old socks over plastic bags on my feet taking them to school!!!! This was in the late eighties.
I never let go of how thankful for all I have now. X

GobbledyGook

Bluemeanie - I don't find it prying or annoying at all. This is actually the one place where people are happy (for the want of a better word) to hear my stories about my childhood. Normally people just find them too unpalatable and will quickly say something about leaving the past behind and changing the subject.

Kingfisherblue - I overdo the food shopping too.

building_with_lego

antonia1 wrote: »

For anyone who is interested, there is an old thread from the debt free wannabe forum all about how people have been helped through their most skint times by random acts of kindness from strangers:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3434643

Be warned - it can make you cry!

Well, I got past the first page of those but am now sobbing away- thanks for that! Lovely thread.

Kitten_Pie

10 years ago there was a bank error and they didn't transfer £3k which I requested (this did eventually get sorted but for 2 months I had nothing)

The only shoes I had at the time were flipflops which were falling apart and the only jobs were factory jobs where for Health and Safety you needed to wear closed shoes for.

I managed to get a job with a small company who weren't hot on H&S which was good because my flipflops finally broke and I was having to work in a factory with no shoes.

My first pay packet went on cheap shoes from the local supermarket a loaf of bread, those pre-sliced processed cheese and a bottle of cordial. That was my breakfast lunch and dinner for a week. There was an apple tree outside the factory which I used to supplement my lunch.

Every week I got better financially until my money came in and by then I was managing fairly well with the occasional treat.

I also managed to move jobs to another larger factory once I had the shoes, they paid a much better wage.

Uniscots97

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!

We called those bottles 'glass cheques'! Always a few in the bins near takeaways, take those to the nearest shop and get enough for the cheapest bread (17p I think in the 90s), a couple of tins of the cheapest beans (7p) and some packs of the cheap noodles. I also remember getting sent to the ice cream van in the early 80s with an armful of these bottles to get a pint of milk and if there was enough left over a couple of penny sweets (mojo's) for me. Only when I was an adult did I find out out that this was done to help stretch the money my parents had! Hence I did the same as a poor student!