Stories of being absolutely skint!

sweetilemon

Geebee do you have a card you can use? I've fortunately never been in poverty although have been 'skint', especially as a student before 18 ( no overdraft ) getting to work with money for only one out the 3 modes of transport needed to get to work! Now I'd use a cc until payday. I've always worked whenever I am offered work as many jobs have been zero hr contracts so don't know when id be left with little work. I feel for people who have suffered true poverty but admire those who stay strong, keep fighting and help themselves as well as accept help offered.

Peanuckle

When I was married to my first husband he took 90% of our meagre income to feed himself and buy drink with, I have vivid memories of borrowing a tin of beans from my neighbour on a Tuesday to give the children something for tea, on Wednesday I'd get paid and give her two tins to save her coming down to borrow one on Thursday which she then gave back on Friday lol
We spent the best part of a year playing musical beans until Aldi opened in our town and started selling them at 8p a can :-)

GeeBee38

sweetilemon wrote: »

Geebee do you have a card you can use? I've fortunately never been in poverty although have been 'skint', especially as a student before 18 ( no overdraft ) getting to work with money for only one out the 3 modes of transport needed to get to work! Now I'd use a cc until payday. I've always worked whenever I am offered work as many jobs have been zero hr contracts so don't know when id be left with little work. I feel for people who have suffered true poverty but admire those who stay strong, keep fighting and help themselves as well as accept help offered.

Hi thank you sweetilemon, no, don't have a cc, glad in a way, hey thanks but don't worry, i'll struggle through, i have been through worse, just very fed up when i posted..shouldn't have really, but never mind

Thanks for the advice and help :-)

Sequeena

One year me and OH were struggling quite badly. We only had money to cover bills then barely anything left over. We only had pets at the time so often went without food so we could feed them. Well my mum asked me what I wanted for Christmas and I asked for a food hamper so we would have something nice to eat over Christmas. Makes me so sad when I think about it. We're doing a lot better now but I can't imagine my son having to live like that

Lexxi

My mum was telling me how some days her and my aunties and unce would get a loaf of bread and jams or spreads or other bits and get to make their own tea, sometimes they sat outside to make them. She said she used to love those picnic type teas and has only recently found out that it was because it was all my gran had in and she used to feel awful feeding them that way!

I was fortunate, we used to have enough bread to go feed the ducks at the weekends!

zaksmum

My auntie lived through some really tough times in the 30s and 40s. She lived close to a Saturday market and visited me once a week. She'd badger the stallholders at close of market for any unsellable food they might be chucking out, then triumphantly bring it to me to feed my kids with.

Trouble was, I was in the happy position of being perfectly able to feed the kids without help, but couldn't possibly hurt her feelings by saying so. Her mission to scrounge food for us became her reason for living - she'd never married and had no kids of her own.

She'd bring me family size steak pies with green mould on the top, cakes so hard even the ducks in the park wouldn't eat them, breast of lamb with most of the poor thing's wool still attached and a stinking-to-high-heaven packet of wet slimy bacon, to name but a few!

I'd have to rhapsodise over each on when she presented it, then again when she'd ring me the following day "What was the pie like?"

I'd assure her it was the best pie I'd ever tasted while my kids would stick their fingers down their throats making retching noises which she couldn't hear! It all ended up in the bin of course!

SnowyOwl_2

GeeBee, I have been in similar situation myself. Agency work is too stop start to be feasible, unless you can get long contracts. I would strongly recommend that you sign onto the dole during your down times. When one temp assignment ends phone the dole office on the first working day after your last day at work. It is a lot of faff having to fill in forms every time, but you pay tax and NI when you do work so you are as entitled as anyone else. Being on the dole should also entitle you to help with expenses incurred travelling for job interviews (though I believe these are only for permanent jobs rather than temporary or fixed term, but it's better than nothing).

I would also suggest that you have a look at the amount of income tax you have paid. It's possible that you have had tax deducted at "emergency rate" - I am not an expert but there is some info somewhere on this site to help you work it out. Or you could ask in the board about income tax and benefits etc. If you have paid tax at emergency rate and also had periods of no income then it's very possible that you have had too much deducted, and therefore will be entitled to a refund. I know that doesnt help you much today, but I would definitely encourage you to look into it as you could get a decent windfall from it.

GeeBee38 wrote: »

I am working for an agency, i get work one week then nothing the next, at the moment i have 25p in my purse until payday next friday, i have an interview on wednesday but will be unable to attend as i havent got the train fair to go, catch22, so sick of it, don't know how much longer i can live like this, well, it's no life really

Ellie_the_cat

Wow this is bringing back memories!
When my Mum and Dad split up my Mum hit the bottle hard and drank/smoked most of her benefits money away.
I remember hiding from debt collectors, not answering the telephone and feeling sick to my stomach when the post arrived with more bills.

Did the old 'glass bottles to the local shop' loads of times too! Living off of instant noodles and tearing bits of of the mouldy bread and cheese to have something in my stomach. Thankfully I had an amazing Granny who never saw me go without (I didn't always tell her as I felt a bit of a burden but I know she would go ape if I DIDN'T tell her!) but it has made me a bit of a hoarder. I refuse to let my house go hungry (no kiddies yet but I have a boyfriend and a mental cat) and always make sure that we have enough in.

Was a !!!!!! at the time but I think it paid off eventually!

jason1231972

I think a lot more people have had 'Coinstar episodes' than would care to admit!

There has been many a time when I've had £0 in my pocket and no way of increasing this amount, but I can't think of a time when I've actually gone hungry (in the proper sense) because of it.

I know that my parents - and later just my mum - did when my sister and I we were little, though. Some things (like lack of food) were hidden from us as kids, so we didn't know, but other things we just figured out for ourselves, hence why we didn't/wouldn't ask to go on school trips, etc.

Part of my parents' poverty arisen from the fact that they bought our family home from the council at the 'wrong' time. They took on a mortgage when times were good and dad was working. A matter of months later, dad dropped dead quite suddenly, and my mum (unable to work through ill health) was left with two kids, a mortgage, and state benefits to survive on. We had no other family to speak of. Looking back, I now know there were days when mum didn't eat.

Somehow, someway, mum paid that mortgage, by hook or by the crook, and died recently as a reasonably comfortable middle-aged woman, her poorer days long behind her. It's amazing the sacrifices parents will make for their kids.

CrazyRed

When I was going through my nervous breakdown, I was living alone and got chucked out of the business I was helping to run, so had nothing.

For a couple of months I survived on shunting balances round credit cards but then things got, understandably, tight.

Next door to me was a Chinese Takeaway, and they had a problem with mice in their back yard. It just so happened that I had 4 young cats as well, and they were quite peckish.

A deal was struck, and my cats kept his yard clear, with "us" getting a meal a night from the takeaway as a 'thankyou' from the owner!