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?

You tell DS 2 that it is much more fun to go with just mummy for a picnic while DS1 is at a party.....because you can't afford to go for coffee and a muffin with the other mums.

I do not recommend egg noodles and gravy

Going blackberrying because we needed the food and not just for the fun of it

When you have to eat fish fingers and pickle for tea.

Ahh what memories....

That said - I am skint now and am living off my credit card. Oops.

I am actually getting nostalgic

When you get excited about finding a penny in the street. Or when you reuse teabags - I do!

When you scour the 'change' bit of vending machines and parking ticket machines, and the 'payout' bit of fruit machines... just on the offchance

When you have to miss out the apostrophe from you're in thread titles because your economizing?

we're currently on an odd combinations/back of the cupboards month week and it's a bit shit.

Haha that it autocorrected to "your"

Bastard iPhone.

I remember during my period of absolute skintdom ( aka abject poverty) the gut wrenching feeling of envy of the woman in front of me paying for her shopping with a £20 note. A £20 note!! I hadn't even held one of those in my hands for over a year.

Aside from that, the usual end of the month scrabbling for change. I find the nooks of my car to be a valuable resource.

going through every handbag I have ever used in order to find a spare tampax and then using my friends bathroom and borrowing a couple. Student days.

Usually the end of the month now is marked by more walking and carefully supervising the milk rations at breakfast. If we are desperate then I have to look in my secret place to find the pin for my credit card.

oh rosie. i used to be a bank cashier and during my really skint phases i used to find it so hard handling all that money day in day out and none of it was for me. i remember how i used to roll my eyes at the really rich customers who would come in and as they were leaving hold my pen up and say "the price of pens nowadays" then chuckle at themselves and put my pen in their pockets. it probably wouldn't have bothered me so much except they were usually my pens that i brought in myself.

See, this is where the big society could/does function in a small way.

I have a friend with 2 children who runs out of money from time to time (due to serial shagger husband now spending his disposable on another woman and the OW's 4 children instead of paying my friend anything at all in maintenance), I pick up vibes from her tone of voice, pop out for provisions, drop in for a coffee bringing 2 pints of milk + multipack of crisp/biscuits/fruit as a treat to have with our coffee but leave them at her house. Sometimes I do the "my kids asked me to buy xyz food but have now gone off it and dh and I don't like it" and raid my cupboards before visting her. I have family contacts to get certain food staples very very cheaply but I once fibbed and told her I get it for nothing and top her up with these when I can.

I buy clothes + sweets/chocolate/fun bubble bath for her kids birthdays and Christmas instead of toys.

I suppose what I'm saying is I try to find ways to sub her that are not obvious so that on the surface we remain simply friends.

I do resort to sending money/vouchers from time to time too but she budgets to within an inch of her life and is only sometimes caught out by a car repair bill or something unexpected. She knows I can afford to write it off it but still pays me back but we don't keep a running tally as quite frankly I'm just too forgetful. I know she would do the same for me if the tables were turned and she is a great listener if I do have problems I need to talk about.

The thing is I resent Cameron's mob telling me to give at the cashpoint or round up at the till to hand the money over to officials to decide how to spend it.

Charity begins at home and I'm helping out those I know but my dh rather sneers at this and calls it unnecessary and accuses me of distinguishing between the "deserving poor" and the rest of those also in need. (In his opinion her not so d-h should be paying up but he is as slippery as an eel, I've tried to assist with CSA etc but he hides his self-employed income so well).

Throwing it open to a thread full of those who have been/are really skint, am I an interfering cow "playing lady bountiful" ? Is it not a "big society" charitable act if you are friends/acquaintances with the people you try and help financially ?

Washing my hair with washing-up liquid as a teenager when my mum had run out of shampoo and conditioner. The rest of the family managed but I have long curly hair which needs half a bottle of conditioner just to look ok. I walked around looking like a member of the Jacksons and could not get a brush or comb throuh it at all. Lovely teacher said to me, in front of whole class, 'I not sure what I think of your experimental hair style' Cow!!

When you weigh out to the gram the recommended serving size of foods and then halve it

totally agree rotten timing. i have a neighbour who is in a very similar boat to your friend and when i was on my arse, she was the one bringing me in milk and dog food etc. i am so grateful for a friend like that and i am glad to be able to return the favour when she needs it.

paying £2.50 with tesco voucher..(the only sent £2.50 bastards)
exchanging my 1,2,5p coins in the supermarket
eating pasta every day,

Booyhoo - I an very thankful to say I am past that stage now and most month's don't have to resort to even change scrabbling. However - it certainly was burnt onto my brain and is something I will never forget. I have flashbacks to those periods sometimes when I happen to pay for a particularly big shop with cash. It always feels a bit... wrong. I can't imagine how I would have coped with having to handle money all day.

rottenTiming I agree, I have helped out friends and also received help.Sometimes we were all in the same boat though.

I have 2 very close friends that I loan/give money too if they need it. I'd rather they were able to eat than watch the non-interest in my savings account. They have no family support and can't get credit and sometimes shit happens that needs paying now.

You have baked potatoes every night for a month - as a child my Dad worked on the farm for a pittance, but they gave him a massive sack of potatoes for free. We used to alternate between plain butter and cheese. The nights we had cheese we felt like royalty.

You start putting things on eBay just to pay for the petrol to get to work.

You count down the days to pay day.

You start buying pasta in bulk from the supermarket.

Your tins cupboard and freezer is empty.

ahh fabric conditioner!! those were the days...when i lived with my mum