...or does skint mean different things to different people?

[PinkyandtheBrainyOne]

Sometimes I'll be asked out for drinks with work friends and reply that I can't because I'm skint. They'll then suggest I come for "just a couple". Now personally, when I say skint, I mean I have no money - or no extra money - to go out with.

But it does seem like some people mean skint in the sense that they don't want to dip into what money they do have. I hope I'm making sense. Basically, I'm wondering what side of the fence the majority of people side on?

Thanks.

There's a poster on the JC webchat who thinks she's skint on 80K. Some people really do need a reality check.

How can you compare earning £80 000 in London with earning £80 000 in ´the rest of the country? You live in Islington, surely you know that the cost of living is more than double in London. Renting is well above £1000 per month for a very small flat and does not include bills. Commuting to work is more than £2000 a year for many Londoners. One coffee and a sandwich is £10.00. How can you say that anybody earning £80.000 per year in London is rich??? Is it a tax on Londoners?

BowlingHedgehog, I used to busk for my bus fare too, many years ago A few verses of a Simon and Garfunkel song would usually do the trick.

It seems like a happy memory now, but it was grim at the time, sitting on my suitcase full of textbooks, and hoping the good people of Birmingham were feeling in a musical mood.

Even then, I could have swallowed my pride and gone home to my parents. It's not what being skint means to me now, knowing people who can't pay for their kids' next meal. But I will never forget it, all the same.

BowlingHedgehog and RelentlesslyPositive do you have recent singing voices?! Pretty sure i'd go hungry if I attempted to busk for money.

I know what you mean OP. To me skint means skint. No money without adding to an overdraft but people do take a very different view. Years ago a friend was talking about how her newly divorced friend (no children) was on her uppers, brassic, cleaned out and she only has 10 grand in savings. We had to disagree about what having no money meant.

I'm with you Blackheartsgirl - skint means literally no money!

Yoshimi, I can sing, but didn't have the confidence to sing in a crowd on my own in those days. I used to unpack my flute from the suitcase I was sitting on, and busk using that.

Aw, sounds sweet - but I can see how it would not have been fun at the time.

I've never been skint in the true sense of the word. But for me and my friends, "drinks" on Friday night means 2 hours of casual pub drinking, supper with a bottle of wine each, a taxi into town and then a 6 hour bender ending in shots in Lola Los. "Skint" to me means not wanting to piss £200 up the wall on a steady Friday.

DH and his sister's were hungry as children. An egg stretched round four by serving French toast. The calendar four stretched for five. Never enough for seconds. Never enough for a bus fare or clothes not from the mill. There was a holiday to Bridlington where they shared a 99 because of the cost. It was miserable but more than miserable it was mean. Mean being the thief of joy.

When FIL died there was £1,000,000 plus in the bank. Skint of spirit. Dreadful.

Cake not calendar

Skint to me means I have no spare money to spend on non neccersery things..
To the rest of my family skint means having no money at all. Little or no food and energy on the meters

Im always being accused about lieing about being skint

OhtheRoses that's awful.

Definitely different things. Years ago aunt was crying on grandmother's shoulder cos they, aunt & uncle, were down to their last £1,000. Grandmother had never had £1,000 all at one time.

OhtheRoses that's so sad. Poor little kids.

Skint to me is scrabbling down the side of the sofas for extra pennies for a pint of milk that u have to try and make last for 2 or 3 days. Or having 46p left on the emergency leccy and you all need baths or showers before u can too up.

This. Also been there too many times too. Still at least that university education didnt go to waste eh?

OhTheRoses

FunnyFarmer ignore them. It's usually said by someone who doesn't have a clue about what it's like to live that end of the line, even if only for a little while.

To me skint means having little or no money available. So you can be rich, but skint if you have many assets but no cash you can actually lay your hands on.

If you never have much money, I'd say poor is a better word than skint.

If you never have any money, and in particular if you are more often than not in debt, then I'd say broke describes you better than skint does.

Reading the thread, clearly skint does mean different things to different people, so I suppose YANBU.

For me skint means I have money for bus fare for DD to get to and from school and that is it.

None of my friends have children, they all see skint as not enough to spend £40/£50 on a night out

To me (our family) it means we don't want to spend our savings. We earn more than the average annual salary per month but are strict with what's for spending and what's for saving. If we've spent our 'going out money' then we'd maybe say we're skint. That's despite actually having the money though.