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

Feeding the dog with the cheapest food and mixing inedible leftovers (burnt crusts, etc.) with the food to make it go further. Having her shaved down because you can't afford grooming bills.Waiting in line for hours so you can get her shots at a free vet clinic.

Agree with those who’ve said all-consuming. It’s echausting.

And never being able to absorb something going wrong. Someone getting sick or an appliance breaking is a catastrophe because there is zero buffer.

Very, very kind friends passing their clothes on to you when they have finished that season. They meant it with nothing but kindness but they were better fed than me and so the clothes were really big on me. I wore them because they were free but ,as a PP has already said, I just wanted to look good. I wanted to look 'put together' . Everything in my life was awful and it was obvious to anyone who saw me

This . The utter fear when one of my children said " Everyone in my class is being sick". I was a supply teacher; if I didn't work I didn't get paid. I used to pray that they wouldn't be sick until Friday afternoon. The school would keep them there because they knew I was working. They could be ill all weekend and then back on Monday.

Is feeling trapped while everyone else seems free

I wish some government ministers could read this thread. It’s made me sad and angry in equal measure.

Being poor and the worry it brings is just relentlessly exhausting.

This is the saddest thread I’ve read here. It’s heart breaking. Sorry for all of you who have written about your experiences. 💐

Bumping into my exhusband and his new girlfriend in the street. He and I were 32 ,she was 17. She had a proper hairstyle that takes product, colour and effort. She was wearing confident red lipstick. She had clothes that fitted her. He was wearing trendy but appropriate clothes. I was wearing a pair of charity shop trousers and an expensive but too big fleece my brother had handed on to me because he was bored with it. A hairdresser friend cut my hair but I couldn't afford colour or anything complicated. I look at photos of that time and I look tired and drawn.

Bring poor is to be afraid.

I grew up poor, my parents tried their best but I knew we were struggling. I was a child, I could see the inequality between us and my school friends. The shame of where and how we lived, not wanting to invite friends home to play. The joy of being invited to theirs so that I could experience their beautiful homes and toys, if only for a little while.

The kindness from a friend's mother, that I'm still grateful for to this day.

The fear and worry of whether we'll keep a roof over our heads. The impotence of being only a child and unable to earn to help my parents. The knowledge that my parents' arguments were always over money.

I've tried my best as an adult to not ever be in that position again, to be able to provide for my children. I can't let them grow up with that fear, it never leaves you.

This made me cry.

Your daughter sounds so lovely, and I hope things have improved since then for you

@BitOutOfPractice
I’m afraid anyone who is still part of this government after ten years in power simply wouldn’t care. Poverty and homelessness have skyrocketed. It’s all by design. Tory governments dismantle the existing supports of the state as much as they can get away with, while passing wealth from the masses to the richest few. They label this “trickle down”.

Dreading the electricity bill. I mean real dry-mouthed fear.
Only being able to have heat on when the Dc came home from school and wanted to play. Constantly being cold.
No buffer when something broke, or new school shoes were needed.
The pain of not being able to give the DC what everyone else had.
Scouring the small ads for decent second hand toys for Christmas, and hitch hiking to get them.
Being poor made me a less good mother, because I was constantly on edge, worried and unhappy.

“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.”
Had to re quote this, it is spot on.

@theworldhas i know. It is heartbreaking and fury inducing in equal measure. I have a real feeling of dread and anxiety about this winter. Partly for myself. Partly for the country. Dark dark times.

Definitely scared of opening the post.

I was desperately hungry at one time in my life, and lived in a Squat {168, Swaton road, E3} It was then 'Condemned' by the council, but was like a time warp inside.
There was a stack of old Mills and Boon left by a pervious occupant, and one of them featured a woman who made a chicken sandwich for a farmer.

The description of soft, warm crusty bread being pulled from the oven, buttered, and crumbly chicken breast and pickle being put together for the 'Hero' was like food porn...
We read that passage over and over.

We ate maybe every other day, a tin of beans shared, we were two teenagers, and have never known hunger like it.

The house is now on Rightmove, saved from dereliction, much renovated and I'm glad.
The 19th C wooden shutters in the downstairs front room where I lived are still there.

A woman in the street asked why I was crying, and I replied ''I'm just so hungry''..

She bought me a bag of chips, the effect they had on me was so reviving.

Years later, I read ''Down and out in Paris and London'' and the hunger described by Orwell was just as I had felt.

Feeling sick to the pit of your stomach about Christmas. Its not a sparkly, lovely wonderment. Its a giant ,stressful monster you cannot avoid. Planning and buying for it months and months in advance to spread the relatively small cost. Knowing that my children would have liked things but didn't ask because they knew it would upset me. Not wanting to pay to go to the staff meal and pay a baby sitter but knowing thst you have to. Trying to find something to wear that isn't the 3 different combinations of work clothes you wear to teach every single day.Knowing the young teachers will have fabulous things to wear and you will be quietly judged because they ,quite understandably and joyfully, don't have the first idea how awful it all is.

This is so heartbreaking,so sad .
I think we have gone back to Victorian times when the poor are seen as feckless and unworthy.
For me poverty in childhood meant always feeling ashamed, being cold in winter at night - putting old coats on the bed, never having appropriate clothing, not able to go out and socialise, no hobbies as too expensive, being afraid when Dad got drunk and yelled, always having a fear inside me like blackness and like a fist squeezing my insides, ..it took until I started antidepressants in my 40’s for the fear to go. .. bloody awful.
I am in my 50’s now and have a good job, happy marriage, clean sheets on the bed every week and clean clothes. My knickers don’t have holes and I have war clothes. We are not rich, but I feel rich and grateful.
Hugs to everyone dealing with this.. there is some good advice.💐

Experienced poverty as a child when my Mother was widowed, she became mentally unwell. I had a job from 13 to bring some money in, you could then as the 1970’s. When doing my A levels I was working Thursday and Friday night and all day Saturday in a supermarket. I had to walk both ways and it was about 2 miles away.

Going to bed in school uniform as house had no heating
My Mother getting stuff from the rubbish tip to use
Never allowed friends over
I had one birthday party in my entire childhood
Having to budget the food shop as a child as she was incapable
Feeling hungry often
Having to repair clothes
She messed up paying her poll tax as it was then and I had to plead to the court, I was only 15.

No one knew what was going on, nor were they interested, we lived in a really beautiful house, she sold everything of value. Now I’m older I realise she was suffering from untreated mania at the time. She was sort of like Blanche Dubois.

It wasn’t her fault she was unwell but it absolutely robbed me of my childhood.

I am petrified of being poor, when covid hit and there was a worry about supply chains I didn’t cope well at all as I was so frightened that DS would be hungry. It may be a long time ago and only about 5 years of my life but it affects you forever.

This has actually bought tears to my eyes.
What a lovely girl you were...

That sudden delight of finding a coin or note in a coat pocket is a lovely surprise.

As a child it was like living in a parallel world to other school friends which contained a threat invisible to them. Being poor ingrains a deep sense of shame in a child. It also can cause them to lie or be inventive to cover up the situation. For example, asking why I was still wearing a now too-short summer jacket during winter months rather than a suitable coat, and claiming I wasn’t cold and it was ‘cool’ to wear the jacket in cold weather. Rather than admit I was freezing and my parents couldn’t afford to buy me a coat.

Scraping the ice off the inside of your bedroom window, sleeping with your clothes draped over your bed, and trying to get dressed whilst you're still under the covers in bed because your room is so cold.

i don't mean to patronise or derail the thread, but there are some character building traits that come with poverty - it makes you incredibly resourceful. which is a useful life skill you can take forwards in life whether you are poor or not. And it makes you really value things, and understand the value of money.

Searching down the back of the sofas for loose change- in fact scoring the lining to get at 2 and 1ps.

Not then being able to have the money myself but give it to parents who needed it for extra food / a couple of pounds of petrol.

The embarrassment of not having the hygiene products you needed or anyone being aware of what new clothes / shoes / school equipment you should have because they were luxuries.

Damp & mould in your house that couldn't be fixed so you just lived with it.

Feigning excuses of not going to tea at friends' because you couldn't offer a return visit.

The fear of being ill because you'd be causing problems if someone needed to stay home with you.

Absolutely dire memories.

I'm worlds away from that life but the imprint it leaves is unforgettable.

Yes this.
It's not just the cold / hungry / leaky shoes bit (though as a child, often), it's also
a lack of internet / libraries / travel to free museums/concerts to keep spirits up,
so it's also the social isolation & the mindset it leaves you with ( it is hard to feel 'good enough' in a society that seems only to value acquisition of material goods).
the one word I would use to sum it all up is: 'relentless' because once you have experienced it, it is always there in the background even if you turn into Croseus

Tearing up/ binning the school trip letters from primary school onwards.

Being embarrassed to take your shoes off at friends houses, especially if it had/ has been raining. I still take spare socks in my bag.

Being embarrassed/ aware of the smell of your clothes, your body, your house.

Winters. Being cold and wet in school / work because your coat is not fit for purpose and dreading the walk home. The cold never ever stops.

As an adult? Dreading becoming ill, losing a days+ pay and needing a prescription.

Exhausted every day. It consumes your every fibre.

To those of you afraid to open the post incase there’s an unexpected bill or worse a letter from a debt agency in the envelope PLEASE. open the post, go to your local debt help agency- lots of them about. They will help, truly they will. It was the only way I got out of debt.
i remember the sick feeling of the postman putting a letter through the letterbox especially if it was a brown envelope. It never got better until I faced what was in the envelope and dealt with it.