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

I think you never lose the paranoia and looking over your shoulder all the time.
Poverty is so damaging even if you escape it.

I remember getting a snotty note home from the school to tell me - 2 or 3 weeks before the end of summer term - that DC were wearing non regulation shoes and had to have a new pair. They were in black trainers.

This thread has me an emotional wreck....a visceral feeling that having lived with abject poverty...you never forget.
My childhood was unutterably bleak. Poverty and an aggressively alcoholic father which would make Angela's Ashes look like a tea party . I remember there was a "fashion" for those types of books, almost poverty porn. I wanted to go into book shops and swipe every fucking book of the shelves.
Out of every awful childhood memory ( I have an almost photographic memory and I hate it sometimes) there is one that really sticks out.
I was brought up in a very rural part of NI. No electricity, no bathroom, no running water. My own children can't even conceive what my life was like back then. It was 1963...the year of the "big snow", like everyone we were snowed in. My father had gone awol..as usual..and my mum couldn't get to work and we had absolutely no food in the house. My poor mum , even typing this I'm in bits...set out to try and get to work or at least try and get to a neighbours and ask for help. She was about to turn back as it was too difficult but then she noticed something hanging from a hedge . It was a bag with milk , bread and eggs in it . It later turned out that a milkman who couldn't get any further had left it in the hope that someone who needed it would find it. At that time my mother thought it was a sign from God! Maybe it was. She came home and made me and my brother what she called "egg in the window" ...fried bread with the middle cut out and an egg fried in the hole. That was almost 60 years ago and I swear I have never to this day tasted anything that good again. RIP to my beautiful wee mum. x

I still have anxiety over the post even though I’m in a much better position now than I’ve ever been.

upending the sofa after putting a knife to the fabric to find all the loose change for food, found 5 pounds once.

I’ve more, but on my break

One meal a day, no heating, and being afraid to open bills. Hot meals are a treat.

Sorry for all you going through it.
I remember the winter I had nothing to wear but my dads old jacket and my brothers old jeans. They’re both 6 feet and I’m five feet one. One low point was walking three miles to save a £1 on nappies only to come over feeling funny and almost faint with hunger and spending half the £1 I’d saved on a chocolate bar so I could walk home safely with my baby.
For me it was exhausting, that’s the word of use.

Very true, ''Pollyanna'' attitude I think it's called?
When one sees people in Pakistan flooded out with Malaria and dengue fever {and doubtless soon, Cholera} it makes one hugely grateful to have a home, however humble.

JeanMarie This made me tear up. What a relief it must have been for your mother to find that food.

@lickenchugget

Yes about people "popping in".

Had my DSIL invite herself round in Saturday night and ask for a sandwich to be made which husband did as he fancied one too and he thinks the fridge magically fills itself.

I was inwardly crying thinking you are both eating the packup that I have bought in for the week for three kids.

I had one coat all the way through school. One school style uniform coat (1980s). It was enormous in first year and tiny by the end. But it was all I had. I remember meeting a friend on Easter Monday to go to the park and she was dressed nicely with a nice coat. I had my school gabardine.

Funny what sticks in your mind.

he thinks the fridge magically fills itself.

How is he that clueless about your situation? Makes me relieved that at least I live alone.

I hate that! I haven’t experienced being very poor but for various reasons would be very soon if I wasn’t moving in with my mum. I know I’d be suicidal.

Money equals freedom, choice, comfort, health, fun, security. I have a fridge magnet with. Jane Austen quote that says “A large income is the best recipe for happiness I’ve ever heard of”. Funny that when I googled it there was a discussion forum saying that Jane couldn’t possibly have meant that! Even though it’s the basis of all her books!

@JeanMarie
I'm crying again, reading this.
Your lovely Mum must have been overjoyed , as must you have been.
Food, when one is truly hungry, is euphoric.

People who have lived through really hard times know what cold and hunger is like.
That was a phenomenal Winter, family remember it, snowdrifts so deep roads were impassable.
Snow that began on Christmas Eve, 1962 and didn't thaw til what, April 1963?

I do remember when ''Poverty/Suffering' books were hugely popular.

''A child called it'' began the genre, I think?

Many others suffered, their voices unheard and unwritten.

Well said.
Poverty is shite.

Being wealthy at least means you aren't starving and cold, and can do the ''Poor little rich girl/boy'' act in comfort in £100k clothes.

Very wealthy people of course can be hugely dysfunctional, but the baseline wealth {Often inherited} means one isn't lacking the basics.

This thread is so depressing. We have been very poor and still are quite poor though are better off and I can relate to a lot of experiences. I am still better off than a lot of people and feel grateful that I can on the whole provide for my DC.

However the biggest thing that I struggle with still is just simply the lack of spare money. I got huge portions of the month without have any cash at all in my pocket. Yes I'm lucky that these days most of the time that is after all the bills, energy and food shop has been brought, but it can still be an illuminating divide between others.

As PPs have said, not having a couple of quid for a last minute school event, not having travel money for unexpected journeys (I don't drive), not having money if I run out of milk or bread earlier than expected, often having to say no to the DC if they hear the ice cream van etc.

I have been promoted and increased my hours and am starting to manage much better.

Being poor can also lead to poor money management. Being used to having no money means when you get some, you want to spend it. Then it's easy to get stuck in a cycle of overspending around pay day and having no spare money and struggling through the rest of the month. Then after 3 weeks of drudgery when pay day rolls around the cycle continues.

The flip side is I absolutely count my blessings. I have a relatively secure home as I'm in a HA house rather than a private rental, I live in a quiet area with lots of nature and free places for the kids around, I can afford Christmas as long as I spread out the cost, and I am happy and healthy. I wish money was not such a shit show though, I would give anything to be financially comfortable. Not rich by any means, but just simply not worrying.

I hate that you have to put in the disclaimer ie it’s their money. Hate that you have to do that because some of the vile people on here.

I disagree. Parents, whatever their age, and in most circumstances, have a duty to help their children if they have money to spare. They should want to do that because that is what parents do! Your parents were not entitled to spend 5k on a holiday while you were living in poverty.

I agree. I would never let my kids be that poor and spend £5k on a holiday. MN is weird tho about families helping each other out. Apparently it’s not the done thing.

Being scared of the post
Not opening the door
Relying on credit for clothing
Never bulk buying even though its cheaper in the long run
Buying cheap shoes that break after a month
Sharing the one gross bar of soap for the whole family
Mum writing the bills out on the back of an old envelope
Pawn shops when things are really tight
Feast and famine causing lifelong issues with food

I also feel jealous and incredibly annoyed about people on here when they complain about their foreign holidays.

“we wanted the deluxe suite but we only got a standard suite. We paid £15k for this holiday. Aibu to assume I should get what I want?”

Well yeah! Ok you paid for it but you’re on a fucking holiday!! Enjoy it whilst you can.

Oh and the worst as a teenager - no money for sanitary towels so using tissue, and when tissue ran out - old newspaper to wipe your bum.

Money doesn't equal happiness BUT it sure as hell gives you choices and options in life (whether you use them or not)

You can have extra curricular activities, travel, learn to drive, get a car, go into FE or HE...

This thread has had me in tears.

I grew up poor. In the 1970s/80s. No indoor toilet, no CH, no holidays or days out.

It's hard to adequately express or verbalise the constant low level worry and anxiety that pervades your everyday life as a poor person.

For those of you reading this who may be struggling please look at Trussell Trust, CAP.org and Acts 435.

For those who can afford it, please donate to the above ^. Thank you x

@oakleaffy "food when one is truly hungry is euphoric" Oh how true that is. I think my legacy from those years is to always make sure that people have enough to eat. My sons tease me that every single meal we share I ask... "Is your food warm enough ....do you have enough " I think that it was actually the reason that I chose to become a chef ...I have this love of preparing food for people.

Yes, A Child called It was the forerunner , as I recall, to the slew of misery fest books. As you say....so many voices unheard and the fact it's still happening today breaks my heart.

In the 90's I worked full time in a factory, I had a flat and lived on my own;after rent & bills I had £5 a week for food. I remember finding a box of frozen pasties for £1 in Iceland, and telling my parents about my bargain. My married sisters were there, and my dad made fun of my bargain and sneered at me; a pattern that he's repeated throughout my life. The fear of poverty is contagious, and my dad has continued his treatment of me as the poor relation, frightened that he'll catch it. I'm in a much better position now, with a lovely DH and my own business, but I'll never forget my parents treatment of me when I needed their support. My dad thinks I'm going to provide free care for him when the time comes. He's got a shock coming.

This thread really has touched a nerve and honestly every time I feel broody for child number 2 I want to pin this thread and come back and read it, because it is SO easy to end up in the shit. I grew up fucking poor and it stays with you. I never want to live like that again and I do not want my child to suffer.

What really hurts is they had the money (and I see it as it WAS their money to spend as they saw fit-they earned it)

but I have 3 brothers-they all had driving lessons,driving tests,cars and car tax/petrol/repairs for those cars paid for my my parents

my parents would go round with shopping bags full of food,they’d pay for them to go away,they’d pay rent/clothes/bills for them

all they have to do (and still do) is demand money,for say,tools for their jobs-money was there

two of my brothers have got married-my parents had the money there waiting-it was made very clear to me that I’d be paying for my own wedding

one brother had a baby-they fell over themselves to buy him everything-I got nothing

i was desperate to go to college at 16-no money,I had to get a job (fair enough)

she even took me to the college,charged me for petrol and her time-the tutor made it clear that there was a pot of money for students but not to pay every single thing for me-my mother swept out and shouted at me that she couldn’t afford for me to go

my brothers left (one two and a half years later-the other two six years after me) and didn’t want to go

my parents paid for them to go-and nothing was said then all 3 dropped out,bummed about for a few years,rent free,and went back for round two-money was there for them

i went back years later-nothing

i couldn’t do that to my lot-I don’t earn loads now but if I pay for one,I pay for them all-it may be a few quid less at the time but we agree that over the course of a year,it all evens out and they get that one sibling may need something at that point but they don’t right that second-but as soon as they do,I move mountains to make sure they get it

im now nc and they are amazed as they don’t see they did anything wrong-thank you to everyone who doesn’t think I’m being greedy for telling my story-I do try not to be