You know your really skint when......

[boilingpoint]

You go to tescos to get a few bits to last the week before payday but you have to put some of it back as you don't have enough money....

You have pasta every single day for dinner...

You cash in the change pot....

Am i alone?

I dreamed there was a way to open my kids' banks last night without a tin opener .

I once took DD1's tooth fairy money that she'd forgotten about and used it to buy milk and then paid it back.

In the past I sold prescription drugs to local dealers so I could put power in the meter.

I knew a lot of skint 'climbing bum' climbers who used to live at Camp 4, Yosemite, and they would eat the leftovers that came back to the kitchen from diners at the restaurant or even swoop in after the diners left before the waitress cleared the table.

And they were some of the original 'freegans'.

I knew one guy who went dumpster diving at night on his bike, loading his paniers with food that had been thrown out of supermarkets.

Definitely done the scouring the house for loose change thing (just this morning in fact!).

I once ate fried cabbage for a week when I was a student. Luckily it was right at the end of term, so I didn't have to do it any longer. I was hell to live with for a while after that though!

You've rolled back the edges of the carpet repeatedly in the hope of finding the odd coin, but now you've moved the furniture and rolled past the centre in hope ...

I've dated men for food. As a student, I spent one notoriously skint summer in Georgetown, Washington, DC.

As a result of my skintness and no car so having to walk everywhere and up many flights of stairs to my hovel, I was a tanned and lithe size 6 and only 20.

I'd head to the canteen in the morning for a cup of coffee and usually score a date for the evening. Voila! My caloric intake for the day covered!

The guy would always be impressed I wasn't one of those chicks who only nibbles a salad. I wonder how impressed their wallets were, but not to the point where I'd actually refrain from ordering a starter, main course and pud, all of which I'd polish off without leaving a scrap behind.

You turn the settee and chairs upside down and cut the base open to see if there are any coins.
You pawn/sell any jewellery you have left, no matter how small.
You sit in your coat indoors instead of putting the heating on.
You go to bed when it gets dark as you have no money for the key meter.
You beg the provident lady for another loan.

Booyhoo.. That's what I do.. that's why I have a massive pile of them.

What I want to know is, has anybody, during one of their freezer-emtying, no-name-for-it, culinary inventions, created something so delicious that they add it to their repertoire when normal cashflow has been resumed?

Had to pawn jewellery in the past to pay bills as the useless fucking ex wouldn't pay for his child. Wanker. I know what it's like to struggle as a one parent family.

See above, soup with a handful of pasta mixed in

Lyingwitch, adding cheap baked beans to virtually any pot of works 98% of the time - it pads out bolognese, stew, pasta, chilli, rice with beans and tomato puree and a dash of balsamuc is good :)

'You make 'butt rollys' out of old fag-ends in the ashtray.'

Done that, too. Once went out in a blizzard to raid my car's ashtray for fag ends.

*balsamic

Oh, yes, the accidental vegetarian is what I call those times when you live on veg because can't afford meat.

Best quid I ever spent, 'Vegetarian Grub on a Grant'.

I once dated a man for his hoover.

He was really getting on my wick and I wanted to dump him, but my flatmate persuaded me to wait two weeks, until the landlord provided a new hoover.

Which I did! Then gave bawbag his hoover back and booted him out.

You have cheezy pasta every night for tea.

Actually, I don't need to be skint to do that....

You siphon petrol out of the lawnmower supply in the garage so you can get to work.

You scorn the changemaster machine at Asda cos they keep a percentage and pay for your shopping at the self checkout in 5p's 2p's and 1p's.

You can't afford proper loo rolls so you buy value kitchen rolls and slice each one in half with the bread knife

When you know not to bother checking coats/bags/the couch for change because you did it two days earlier and there was none.

When you go into the bank to withdraw the £1.27 left of your overdraft.

When you use a teabag three times because there's only 5 left to last 3 days.

You check vending machines and phoneboxes for any change that may have been left

You fin yourself visiting your mum a lot more than usual, normally around meal times.....

I still check all the pockets etc. just in case a fiver has magically materialised.

My mum once gave us 'peas on toast' as a special treat for tea.

She also made us promise never to tell anyone we had nothing but jelly for a whole weekend. I believed her when she said that other people would be jealous.

all there is to eat in the house is fried rice. That's from my childhood.

Now, you sometimes find me going through the washing basket and checking all jeans pockets for change. I borrow money from my teenager.

My most skint meal was bread [cut into cubes] with oxo [a stockcube dissolved in boiling water]. Not bad at all. My MIL recommended mash and oxo.