What does feeling skint mean to you?

[ssd]

Honestly?
Just asking after recent conversation with someone close who feels skint (3 days ago) and today told me they've just spent £500 on furniture.

It makes me realise my skint and their skint is world's apart.

So what does feeling skint mean to you?

Skipping meals for a few days a week to make food last. Searching for loose change to buy milk/ bread.
It may be that “we” still buy furniture though, but that’s because DH does the buying of that and earns a lot more. He also contributes to food shopping, but it’s intermittent and mostly phrased as him giving me money for myself. I could ask for more but it’d lead to questions about where my part time wage had gone, why don’t I get a better paid job (answer- because he’s not happy being on his own with the dc more than once a week!) I guess “skint” is the easier choice for me, so maybe I’m not actually skint!

That £500 may have been credit, don't always assume that purchases are made with cash (well unless they told you).

For me, being skint is having nothing in the bank. Nothing at all. We've been there, and were there for years. Debt is crippling and I understand why people drowning in debt sometimes kill themselves.

Living in London and scraped together pennies to get on the bus to work, day before payday, the bus driver refused to take it and a kind passenger gave me money for the fare, this was over 20 years ago but still remember

Skint is having to go to your parent is you want food for your child. And asking every utility company for some extension or other arrangement.
or
Skint is having 250 pounds/month on food for 3 and issues if your child needs a new pair of 15 pound shoes.
above these, I wouldn't say skint.

Getting in large bills and having that sick feeling about paying them.

Getting in large bills and having that sick feeling about paying them.

Skint to me is similar to your friend, I would feel skint as have to watch spending after a big purchase like furniture poss til payday or following payday.

The skint people describe here is being in real poverty, I will stop using the word so flippantly.

Food bank vouchers, defaulting on DD and rent payments, paying council tax late, having TV/wifi disconnected. Gas and electric running out of even emergency credit. Having cold showers. Not opening the freezer so it doesn't thaw out before can find some money to switch it back on. Pay day loans, pawn shops, second hand everything. Red letters.

To me "skint" means you just about have the essentials, but not anything nice. But it's a level above "poverty".
I felt skint as a student when I had a week of jacket potatoes with butter for dinner, as I couldn't afford cheese! But I wasn't starving and still had a roof over my head and clothes etc.

My first thought was having a Saturday job as a young teen so I could eat. I got paid £2 an hour to wash pots and sweep up, and every night after school I would go to the supermarket to buy something for my dinner. I had to go every day because if I bought anything in advance and stored it in the kitchen, it wouldn’t be there when I went to eat it. Sometimes I kept food hidden in my bedroom even though it really should have been refrigerated, but I knew it wasn’t a good idea.

Going straight to bed after work. It seemed like the best idea, when I didn’t have any money for socialising, heating, booze, fags or food, if i was asleep I couldn’t sit there craving substances or company, not able to stop thinking about being hungry, and it was at least warm when I was in bed.

I lived without hot water or heating with dc1 as a baby. Between 3 months old and 14 months old, because I couldn’t afford to fix/replace the boiler in my house. I used a plastic baby bath in front of a plug-in bar heater to wash the baby in the living room. I’d put a couple of kettles of boiling water in and top it up with cold. I’d wash in it after the baby was clean.

The thing is, at the time when these things were happening it felt like they were pretty normal and I just got on with it. I’d be horrified now, or if my DC had to do these things.

Pushing the buggy to a local greengrocer and asking if they had any old greens for my guinea pigs. Ooh yes they said, giving me a bag of withered veg. I went home and picked through the veg to cut out any good bits so my dc could have some vegetables.
Going into my bank and withdrawing my last 70 pence for bread.
Walking across town to post a letter through a door as I couldn't afford the stamp.
Dreading post.

My dinner was whatever the dc left on their plates.
Thankfully those days are a bit past now. I take nothing for granted though.

@Howmanysleepsnow that sounds pretty awful. I might have totally misread the post but it sounds like you go without food whilst your partner is wealthy enough to make big ticket purchases?

For me there's Skint and Broke.

Skint would be me 18 months ago when after 5 weeks on basic sick pay and then a following 2 months where I was on a phased return at part time hours and still too unwell to manage overtime to make up the shortfall. I couldn't afford to pay for my registration fee with the NMC to keep working. Basic bills and rent I could cover but an extra £120 I could not.

Broke is where my family were when I was a teenager, where we lived off credit cards and in the overdraft because there was no alternative because there was minimal income. And the DT dept at school had to glue my shoes back together in the lunch times because we couldn't afford new ones.

Then as a PP said - there's fucked. (Which I have mercifully avoided so far) Which is when the bailiff comes knocking.

I am currently googling how to do an IVA. We both lost our jobs due to coronavirus and universal credit doesn't cover all our outgoings.Cant think of any other way. Feeling very skint

Revisiting the ash tray; buying broken biscuits; weekly shop for £12; filling up on bread. It feels like a lifetime ago, thank goodness.

I once had to find all the coins I could to buy some cheap rolls to stop me going hungry, I think that was a real skint point. I have seen 2 close relatives really go skint and have nothing. People says money doesn't buy happiness but when you are truly skint and in poverty, believe me money really does help!

Not having spare money for extra things/luxuries is being skint to me.
If I couldn't afford to buy essentials like food etc that’s poverty imo.

I'd agree with the definitions of skint, brassic and fucked. Skint to me also implies short term, sometimes because you've overspent elsewhere either through choice or necessity, but you'll be alright next month. It's not that horrible grinding never get out of it no let up state that poverty is.

@ShopTattsyrup

For me there's Skint and Broke.

Skint would be me 18 months ago when after 5 weeks on basic sick pay and then a following 2 months where I was on a phased return at part time hours and still too unwell to manage overtime to make up the shortfall. I couldn't afford to pay for my registration fee with the NMC to keep working. Basic bills and rent I could cover but an extra £120 I could not.

Broke is where my family were when I was a teenager, where we lived off credit cards and in the overdraft because there was no alternative because there was minimal income. And the DT dept at school had to glue my shoes back together in the lunch times because we couldn't afford new ones.

Then as a PP said - there's fucked. (Which I have mercifully avoided so far) Which is when the bailiff comes knocking.

I agree. I see skint as either more of a short-term, cash-flow thing. i.e. you'll probably be ok when money next comes in, or you can manage but with very little left over. Then there's poor/broke.

I've used the term to mean to mean various different things over the course of my life.
Everything from "can't come out drinking with you tonight" to "can't buy washing powder"

Skint to me is for me to be in tears as I ask my parents to help me feed my kids coz my UC never arrived and I was fighting to keep a roof over our heads and the utilities paid... it's horrific

It depends. I've been skint as in asking a friend to transfer me less than a quid so a direct debit would not bounce as I was at my max overdraft.

I've also been skint where I've spent all I could spend that month on extras so I'd turn down a meal out as it would cut into bill money.

Agree that there's also fucked, li

You say 'feeling' rather than 'being' skint.

I could feel skint and still spend £500, if say, I usually had £6k in the bank but I only had £1.5k

I would actually be skint if I have zero.

But feeling and being are not the same really.

Phoning in sick because I couldn't afford petrol in my car but didn't get paid for being off sick. Such a vicious cycle 😔. Boiling kettles for some sort of bath/wash as the gas meter couldnt be topped up. Paying with contact less in the shop knowing it wouldn't come out my bank immediately (a few years ago) but then putting myself overdrawn doing that and getting ridiculous fees. Hiding from the council tax bailiffs. Sweeping carpets because the hoover broke and I couldn't get a new one. Driving my car with no insurance because I just couldnt afford it, don't know how I wasn't ever caught (I know its a terrible thing to do but you can't even imagine how desperate I was). Finding £1 in a coat pocket and being over the moon. I can't tell you how grateful I am now I'm not in that situation anymore. Redundancy could be just around the corner though so I am very anxious i could be back there again 😔

For me it has meant skipping meals. Walking about in welly boots because I couldn't afford shoes. Living in the bed over winter because I couldn't heat the house. Being trapped in situations and just having to put up with it, whatever it was. I'm lucky; it's never meant homelessness!

Now it means I've spent all the money I have for spending and only have my bills money left. A MUCH more agreeable version of skint.