Being poor is...

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Money being the last thing you think of at night and first thing when you wake up.
Dreading party invites in school bags.
Wrapping the baby in blankets because it's cold but too early to justify the heating.
Feel free to add your own

Is living without hope.

It’s a cruel way to exist.

Time-consuming. You are always having to scour the internet looking for the absolute best deals on everything, even when you have no time and you’re knackered. You can never just get something that you need without endless research into saving a few
pennies here or there. Always getting things secondhand, even when you don’t really want to, which means taking time to hunt things out. Making things last long beyond their useable life, which means spending time mending things (I mean things like boots with holes as opposed to sewing a button back on). You never get to go ‘sod it’ and hit buy it now, without having to consider every option.

It leaves an indelible mark. Even though I am comfortable now, I save what I can. Not even just money, but food and anything that might be useful. It is always in my head that I might need it and not be able to afford it, despite that being highly unlikely. I don't think it will ever leave me

This.

Exhausting and anxiety inducing.

The food I buy each week is jumping up in price 5p to 50p at a time from one week to the next so its a real struggle when you've budgeted to the penny and suddenly you can't afford what you needed as the price has risen since last week. Beans pushed me over the edge this week and I cried in the car park.

This thread is so sad. It’s also enraging. Nobody should have to live like this in this day and age.

It leaves an indelible mark. Even though I am comfortable now, I save what I can. Not even just money, but food and anything that might be useful. It is always in my head that I might need it and not be able to afford it, despite that being highly unlikely. I don't think it will ever leave me.

This is so true. I grew up in a single parent family during thatchers 1980s. It shaped me as a person probably more than anything else.

To anyone afraid to open the post, ignoring the letters is so easy but the wrong thing to do. The problem won’t go away, it just gets bigger.
Most creditors will accept an offer of payment so long as they are getting something. One of mine accepted £1.00 a week. CAB helped me, it was a long time ago now but those days are etched on my brain.

I was around 10/11 when I could tell my parents were very much struggling. They tried to hide it of course but failed.

I used to leave my pocket money in my mums coat pocket so she would find it and think she had left money there.

So I just didn't eat at school. Would maybe take crisps and biscuits from the house. Never qualified for free meals.

knowing I couldn’t give my daughter 50p at a cake sale, and then her squeezing my hand and saying “don’t worry mummy, I am not going to ask for a cake”. There is no heartbreak like knowing you can’t get your children what everyone else is so happily enjoying. That incident scars me still.

quite bizarrely after my tears started to trickle I found a hole in my coat pocket and £1 had slipped into the lining of my coat. I cried again when I realised we had been “saved” , and that is why I am religious .

Dreading winter and the high fuel bills
Making a list of things I need to buy and working out which can be delayed a few weeks (one of these is a jar of coffee).
Taught myself through online tutorials how to cut my own hair.
The washing machine broke 18 months ago and I can't afford to replace it, a launderette visit likewise unaffordable and I no longer have a car to get there, so now I wash everything by hand in the bath. Wringing out the bedding by hand takes ages, hurts my arms and hands.
The shame of watching other people's eyes dart round the room, the unspoken criticism of my frugality.
I am lucky, I can sew so I mend everything and make my own clothes and soft furnishings, and buy second hand what I can't make, like shoes. But it is bloody hard at times.

Taking enough money for a glass of wine on a rare night out with colleagues. Someone buying a round, so you explain that you can't afford to reciprocate and are reassured that it's OK, they don't mind so you accept. Everyone else in the group also including you, but then at the end of the night, someone points you out as being the only person not to have bought a round and putting you on the spot making you explain yet again that you are skint.

Going to bed hungry so the dc can eat.
Having young adults who think you don't like fruit because when they were dc you bought it for them but only ate the fruit you grew at home.

Always being cold in the winter.

I'm 63. My parents were poor. We lived in a 2-up, 2-down terraced house. I had to sleep in my parents' room until I was 11 when we moved (the estate was being demolished) as my 3 brothers had the other room. No heating, only 1 coal fire. No double glazing, carpets (lino), bathroom, indoor toilet, it was outside, no running hot water, no 'fridge or freezer! No garden, 'phone, car. Computers and mobile 'phones hadn't been invented. I remember bailiffs coming to the door (we had nothing for them to take!)

Terrible times for my parents.

I was at my poorest when I was a student in the 90’s.
Being poor to me was -

Having no money for tampons/pads so using toilet paper instead.

Having no money for bus fare to get to work so walking for 3 miles through a red light district at 5.30am in the dark in winter.

Borrowing £1 from a friend to buy something to eat as I literally had nothing in the cupboards.

Knowing the exact time the local supermarket puts the yellow labels on, the and staff knowing you because you are first in line. Walking to the supermarket daily with a double buggy because you can't afford driving lessons (h had an old car, that sat outside the house because he cycled 40 mins, couldn't afford petrol).

Family members keeping secrets and spinning webs of lies getting us all deeper and deeper into the shit

I agree. The government could change this, but it seems that they prefer to keep a shitload of people poor af. I never forget that it is the government's choice for this to be this way.
I lived in abject poverty for a very long time. Better now but I sympathise with anyone struggling for money/with debt.

Being poor when I was a kid meant knickers full of holes and being scared to move at school in a skirt in fear of flashing actual bits.
Also pretending I hated all bands/fads because otherwise my friends would realise how poor I am when I couldn't come to shows or have the cd's or even the stickers or posters.

Feeling cold. Feeling of guilt (even though you haven't broken any law or moral code), failure and embarrassment. Boredom and feeling your missing out

I can totally relate to this.

Me too

Panicking because the big food shop for a month that used to cost £60-£70 is now £100 so that £40 has to come from somewhere else.

My mom bagging up the leftover salad/sides from lunches at the pub (one of three jobs she had) she worked at to bring home and put on our plates.

Me, working long hours in a fairly professional role that was long hours (yet low paid as I was junior), yet booking a week's leave because I couldn't even afford to travel to work.

One small meal a day which is made up of a spoon of his and hers so the family think you had a late lunc again. Avoiding meeting friends and feeling ashamed of the way you look when you do eventually meet their nails and hair etc etc are always immaculate. You are at least clean enough as clothes passed the sniff test and you wish people were still not hugging, just in case. On the outside you look like you couldn’t be scrapping around for change and you qualify for nothing.

Being poor is:

Expensive, not having access to the best rates for credit as you might default but then the repayments are so high you can't afford them! Key meters, paying extra for the convenience of paying in advance.

Life limiting. Your life expectancy is 7 years less than the average.

Depressing. Suicide rates are 3 times higher in deprived areas.

My children needed new school shoes and new wellies. I bought the school shoes but the wellies had to wait until next month. We took some things to the big charity bins that you get in the supermarket carpark. I pulled the big tray open to put stuff in. On the tray was a pair of new ,green wellies in my oldest sons exact size. I cried . It was like a gift from heaven. This thread has reminded me of how hard it all was. My life is completely different now but it never leaves you.