To ask of times when you were really broke

[Dollardime]

We've had a really hard time financially the past 3 months. Bill after bill after bill.

My car has just failed it's MOT and needs £230 worth of work done it which we physically haven't got.

I feel really down and depressed today - please give me times of when you were broke and how it got better on the end to give me some hope 😞

I went through a very bad patch in my 20s. I was living in London and working in a skilled but very low paid sector and just couldn't make ends meet. I took a second job, so I was working from 8 to 4 in one job and then crossing London and working 5 to 11 in another. On the way from one job to the other, I'd stop off at McDonald's because they were doing a Trivial Pursuit scratchcard promotion - if you scratched off the right answer to the question you got free food, and when you claimed your free food you got given another scratchcard. I ate free McDonald's for an entire summer and never really managed to eat burgers again (I'm vegetarian now, lol).

Anyway, one week, I was laid off from my evening job (everyone was because the project was ending unexpectedly), and then the following week, I was laid off from the day job (last in, first out). On my last day at the day job, one of the clients, who flew in from Europe to check on his project every couple of weeks, happened to be there. He said he'd see me next time, and I said, well, no, you won't actually, and told him I'd been laid off. He asked me if I had anything to go to and when I told him I didn't and also that I'd lost my other job too, he asked me for a contact number and said he'd make some calls for me after he got back home. I thought yeah yeah and didn't expect to hear from him, but he was as good as his word. He set a job up for me with an associate in a European city and two weeks later I left London on a one-way plane ticket, with a bag of clothes and £40 to my name. Very trusting of me, and if this happened to a child of mine now I'd probably have kittens, but it was a totally genuine offer and changed my life as things turned out. Sometimes the kindness of strangers or near-strangers can save your bacon.

for you, OP, and everyone actually.

In my mid twenties I was really hard up. I remember sitting in my flat with no electric. The meter had run out and I had run out of money. It was a horrible horrible time. I wet bankrupt that same year - couldn't afford the fee to go bankrupt :( Had to ask my mum for money for the first time in my life. I borrowed about £400 from her to pay the bankruptcy fee, and paid it back by standing order each month thereafter. It was horrendous. But....I live to tell the tale. It gets better. I built my credit back up, have a mortgage now, a car, and its no longer mentioned, raised or an issue. I'm proud I got through that time. You will get through this tricky time too.

18, decided to live in London on a whim, stayed with friends for a month, got job within a week but had no money until first paycheck. Was living on, literally, a toffee a day and then cups of tea at work. On way home I saw a hotdog stand and nearly fainted from hunger. Went to buy one with £1 in my purse and they were £2. On verge of tears. A Big Issue seller saw it all and gave me the other pound. Never forgotten it.

My story isn’t anywhere near as bad as these and it sound made up but with god as my witness it’s the truth. My ds was upset recently and I asked what would cheer him up. He said he wanted it to be like a specific time a few years ago.
We were living in a tiny flat, he had grown out of his toddler bed but we couldn’t afford another bed so we all slept on one mattress on the floor, in the living room because the bedroom had damp. We couldn’t afford sky or virgin and there was no outside aerial so we watched the same 4 dvds constantly. My cousin new we were skint so sent over the bag of toys that ds played with at her house. I made biscuits like a daemon because flour and butter were cheap.
I was so proud to get us into a 3 bed with a garden and pets and a dining room to have meals. Ds doesn’t remember what he didn’t have. Needless to say I started crying, brilliant parenting.
I’m not saying it’s easy and kids don’t notice but they remember the love.

Very, very humbling.

I've never been poor or hungry in my life. So sorry for everyone that's been through the mill and back.

I'll be giving to the food banks generously this Christmas.

its nice to hear that people are 'humbled' by other people's hunger and poverty anyway, lovely.
Today i have eaten an egg sandwich and two butter sandwiches and there is nothing for tomorrow and i cant afford to put the heating on. Before anyone starts, i am using the neighbours wifi'
But hey at least people are 'humbled'.

Dull - is there any friends you can ask? Seriously, I know it's pride etc etc but if someone turned up at my door I would cook for them and help in any way I could, even if they weren't a close friend. Would be mortified if a friend was in that situation and felt they couldn't ask me
Have you any food in at all?

I dont live near any friends Olli anymore Olli and i already owe my dad 50 quid., I cant ask him for any more his wife hates it and i feel like a failure anyway.
Yes i have pasta and rice.

Sent you a PM

I was about 20 and at uni and working part time in a kitchen, I ate some leftover food off a customers plate I was so hungry. A terrible time for me.

Also v cheap risotto type thing here which might work for using rice up. You can get tiny bits of cheese from the deli counter

•	Half an onion, chopped

•	1 stock cube

•	75g raw weight rice

•	120g frozen peas

•	5g Red Leicester cheese, finely grated


Heat 400ml water and a crumbled stock cube in one saucepan, while softening the chopped onion in a second non-stick pan. Rinse the rice in a sieve under the tap, then chuck in the pan with the onion.
Transfer the stock a ladleful at a time to the rice, then stir and wait until the liquid is absorbed before adding more stock.
After about 10 minutes, add the frozen peas, then carry on adding stock and stirring for another 3 minutes or so, until all the stock is absorbed and the rice looks a bit creamy, without drying out. Finish by stirring in the grated cheese.

5g of cheese lol, I am going to try that recipe...thank you.

I use the Facebook group "feed yourself for £1 a day" quite a lot. Always people in there that come up with meals I would never have thought of! Obviously reduced supermarket stuff too, I had a goats cheese and beetroot salad the other day for 9p

I bought a pack of sausages for 98p tonight. I had potatoes so sausage mash and onion gravy. Mmmm!

When we were first married we had to move baby was due in four weeks so DH had to leave his job three weeks before it finished and drive 300 miles so we could stay with my parents. We found somewhere to rent which had been impossible where we were living before however DH was unemployed and because he left the job before being made redundant we weren't entitled to any money. I had been in an apprentice type job and no maternity pay. We used all our savings for the next few weeks and a difficult delivery meant I was in hospital nearly a month(in a week before high blood pressure) so when I came out we were living off £38 a week after 6 weeksThe rent was £15 for a chalet style house, no central heating just two radiators.
The HV told me to eat some steak every week. I just nodded as we couldn't afford sausages most weeks. I learnt to cook some simple meals. My dad gave us left overs from the hotel when he had them and I was too proud to tell him we had no food sometimes. We lived by the sea so DH picked mussels and cockles for free. I made fish pie from a recipe in my only cook book. One can of Campbell's mushroom condensed soup, one can of tuna and some potatoes. Drain tuna add to soup ( don't add any liquid) mix heat through put mash on top brown top in oven ( if you can afford to turn it on)and it had to last two days. I still make it about once a year for nostalgia. My kids loved it later on.
Now we can afford the steak but I am still a careful shopper and love a bargain.
I hope things improve for you soon. It did for us but then we moved back down here for family reasons and we're broke again after buying this house. We had three kids by then. The house was declared unfit and we gutted the whole house. We budgetted £500 for the plumbing but discovered the piping into the house were lead and the soil pipe etc were broken and the sewage had been running into the bottom of the garden( underground, no wonder the fruit bushes were so abundant) and into the field. The plumbing bill came to £3,500! I've never regretted buying it and we still live in it, in a lovely village. We ate a lot of free food...windfall apples from neighbours, blackberries, mushrooms. There were no food banks then.
It will get better. I am sorry to hear your news.
It makes me cross when supermarkets throw out food when they could give it away. My daughter's friend spent three years at Uni living off skip ratched food. He got caught a couple of times. He was in Brighton and couldn't afford to stay at Uni( rent) and eat. I also think student rent should be capped.
If you have no food go to the food banks, churches provide meals sometimes. Sally Army do here because my friend helps cook meals once a week. Three churches her put on meals once a week because I know someone who takes her kids round every one. What annoys me is she has a mobile phone which she is often on. Priorities! Years ago you used the house phone maybe once a week or you didn't even have one.

I remember getting the most god awful blisters on my feet from a 90 minute walk to a job interview as I simply didnt have the bus fare. Having to take my socks and shoes off in the Jobcentre a few days later to prove to the advisor that yes I did indeed go to the interview before I was sanctioned. I was just a little late to the interview because I'd had to drop the DCs off at nursery first and then set off. I think I was five minutes late, tops.

Sitting by candlelight playing scrabble with DH (now ex) because the electric had gone, and we didnt get our first wages until the next day.

We moved in together, got married and I started uni within 18 months. We utterly underestimated moving costs, so moved in pretty skint, had a very cheap but lively wedding, then I started uni.

Just before the wedding my regular work stopped as I was a regular carer and the person I cared for 5 days a week died. Fortunately our wedding was paid for at that point.

Then for the 3 years of uni we lived on vegetables and noodles which at the time were 10p per pack. We ended up being given a hamper of meat for Christmas when DHs family realised how little we were surviving on.

I finished uni and I was waiting to start a new job; there were months of delays because of sickness in the occupational health dept. While waiting for a start date, the boiler broke down and we didn’t have a penny to get it fixed. It was the first snowy Christmas that we’d had in years and we spent the whole of December and January with no heating or hot water. We were too ashamed and proud to ask family for money to get it fixed.

We had defaults on the mortgage, and were having daily phone calls from HSBC telling us to pay back our overdraft.
We were stupid and buried our heads in the sand because dealing with it was so overwhelming. We were young, stupid and didn’t have a clue how to help ourselves, where to start.

Fortunately we got ourselves together, used the money advice service and did a budget, lived more carefully and my new salary helped hugely. It’s taken us almost 10 years to get out of the shit, but we’re more comfortable now, unfortunately not yet at the point where we’ve got huge amounts spare or able to move house yet, but in time we will

Have just remembered - it was my birthday recently. My parents got me a nice item from M&S, which I had to pretend not to need so I could exchange it & use the credit note on food. My grandparents got me a gift card for another shop, which I shall use to make sure the DC get Christmas presents. Feels deceptive doing that, but needs must.

confused i often used to tell my parents i didn't want anything specific for birthdays/christmas because then i used to get money instead. It always went on something more important like urgent bills or DD

mustbemad I would do that but my parents don't listen! My siblings & I all have birthdays within a few weeks of each other & they buy us the same thing, whether we want/need it or not. My grandparents used to give money but then realised it was going on bills & said they wanted to know I could treat myself. A lovely thought but not one I can afford.

I'm lucky that my parents understand. They know 9/10 times it goes elsewhere, but they accept it now

Regarding the meal, I was more surprised really because generally they were quite aware that I didn’t have much and usually quite supportive, I didn’t think they’d order so much, I thought they’d be mindful that I was paying. I did pay the bill and managed to survive that month but I guess I was more saddened.

I don’t think the vulnerability ever leaves you, I think JK Rowling said that feeling weathy has no bearing on your bank balance and I totally get that from the point of view of the fear of returning to that kind of life and the habits that you develop as you survive. I also use Christmas and birthday money for bills and any vouchers towards presents for others in future. I still am torn between giving things I don’t need to charity to help others and selling them at a car boot and using that money to buy shopping that week.

I think it becomes a mindset. I still scour the yellow ticket section at supermarkets, even though now we can afford to buy at full price, for example. It definitely isn't a bad mindset to have tho

I have just sold £10 worth of things (unused toys & clothes)! Feels amazing as my purse has been empty for a week All of a sudden it means that I know we'll have enough food this week & I may even contemplate toddler group rather than making an excuse not to go (although £2 is just a bit steep this week, I feel). Also means I can afford the Children in Need donations on Friday rather than avoiding the teachers

I really do think that being so low teaches you to appreciate tiny highs, I know £10 is pocket money to some people but it feels like fortunes to me right now.

Even though I have been dirt poor in my life (posted a few pages back) I still cried when I read this thread.
I don't think there is any need to make people feel bad for being 'humbled' by it. I would rather read that than that people didn't comment because they didn't have direct experience of being so poor.

I remember when I was heavily pregnant with ds our bed broke and we couldn't afford a new one. Ended up sleeping on a blow up mattress that my parents lent us, which eventually got holes in it and deflated during the night so most mornings I woke up lying on the floor. When ds was born he was so big we couldn't fit him in the Moses basket we had so he slept in a travel cot someone gave us.

Eventually we moved to another flat but it had no insulation in the walls and single glazing. It was so damp that the dc's mattresses ended up covered in mould and I had to wrap them in 4 layers of sheets and blankets to keep them away from it until I could afford new ones. This was despite very regularly scrubbing the walls and windows with bleach and using a combo of damp traps and strips. Nothing worked and we couldn't afford to have the heating on 24/7 like EH suggested Difficult times.

I also particularly remember the time when I was using the self service tills at Tesco to buy formula, nappies and a few other basics. I was 10p short. I had not even a single penny in my bank account and had used up all my money in my purse. I was desperately searching the floor for pennies someone might have dropped and looking in my pockets for spare change but I couldn't find any. In the end I had to call a staff member to take something off the order because by this point there was quite a queue of people angrily staring at me. So humiliating.

It is comforting to read these stories though and know I'm not the only one!