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 😞

Eating oxo cube dissolved in water with cubes of cheap value bread
Sharing my dinner with my toddler son. Only other thing we ate was toast with horrible 'spread' instead of butter.
Putting a 4 pints of milk on the bottom of the buggy and 'forgetting' it was there.
Pawning my very cheap wedding ring to buy enough food and electric for the week. Was unable to redeem it.
Last year spent an evening in the freezing cold and dark because I had used my emergency electric up. Thankfully my adult son came through for me with a few more pounds to get us off the emergency.
Walking 10 miles a day because I had no bus fare.
Not me, but my mate. Watching the weight fall off her because she had no money, stretching out our little dinners to feed her so she didn't actually starve. Thank fuck there are food banks nowadays. There were none then, at least not in our area.

I'm fortunate that I've never been that hard up in adulthood but I remember when I was small my dad lost his job because of illness and also tried to start a business which went bust and I think there was a court case about it. We had bailiffs at the door etc. I would have been about 6 at the time.

My mum managed to get a very badly paid part-time job and they sold the house we were living in and bought a smaller one. The day we moved into the house, my dad got offered a new job, which he stayed in until he retired.

We didn't have much when I was growing up: I remember the house being cold and a sturdy cardboard box for a table because my parents couldn't afford one. I know mum used to get the gas bill paid as her birthday present. Big holes in the carpets. Mum said the fridge was sometimes empty but it was always them that went without, not me.
Mum has a homemade recipe book from then and the recipes are categorised as cheap or not cheap. Cheap means no meat, no fish little to no cheese. Primarily lentils and other dried pulses. Not the same as others here because there was never no gas or electric and I never had holes in my shoes though. We were lucky really compared to lots of people.

They're okay now, and I'm doing well as well, but I think it takes a long time and a regular income significantly over your outgoings for the paranoia of being poor to leave you. I saved more than half my income for a good while and still live on less than 2/3 of it, I save loads and put loads into my pension. Almost all my furniture is second hand, and I still buy a lot of my clothes second hand - the paranoia of not having enough money is ever present and it's something my friends notice.

Hi OP. When I started working I couldn't afford the train fares so I had to sneak on and off trains and pretend to be asleep when guard came round. I applied for every credit card I could to try and get some funds - no luck. Plain bread and butter for lunch and holes in shoes. Not able to pay the rent.

Nothing compared to stories on here but you asked for examples. Eventually I quit that job, tempted locally and found a much better job. Became financially secure.

Hang in there OP.

My parent were very poor when we were growing up. We moved 200 miles away from family for my dad's work as he found a supervisor role in his line of factory work. Mum didn't work and stayed at home to look after me and my two younger siblings. We lived in a council house that was single glazed and had no radiators, just the gas fire in the living room. It used to get so cold in winter there would be ice inside the house. There was damp on the walls which gave my brother asthma attacks and I remember him being taken to hospital more than a few times. I was the eldest, maybe 7 or 8, and Mum used to send me next door with a note to ask the neighbour if she could borrow £5 for food. A mum of a friend at school gave me some shoes that were "...accidently too small" for her DD, but I knew it was because she had seen my shoes with holes in the soles the week before.

We were skint, but as children we were so happy. My Dad would get his sleeping bags down from the loft when it got really cold and we would sleep in the bed in the sleeping bag and with a duvet on top, it was so exciting! We would walk 5miles to the supermarket and back with my Mum (pushing a pram and with me and my younger brother) and we would sing and tell stories all the way there and back. We would spend hours at home sat around 1 bar of the gas fire to keep warm while watching a film under a blanket. We used to have to share bathwater and I remember being the eldest so I was last which meant I could make potions and creams to my hearts content because nobody would get in after me.

We had no money but me and my siblings all grew up with a good education, went on to do degrees and look back on these times with great fondness. It was only a few weeks ago my dad was telling me how ashamed he was that we grew up with no heating and how he would cry because he had to put his children to sleep in rooms that were so cold you could see your breath. When I told him we all looked back at those times with great excitement amend happiness he cried again.

I'm skinter than I've ever been now and feel like DH and I are in a hole we can never get out of. Hopefully our children will never ever feel any of the effects and will just see what I saw as a child which was a happy family.

Shortly before I fell pregnant with my first son, my OH and I, after all bills had been paid used to have only £200 between us for travel and food for the month. An amount that we were able to split and utilise to ensure we were ok. Except one month my OH didn't get any shifts for two weeks straight (zero hour contract) . We had £50 to last us two weeks. And our travel which was non negotiable, accounted for £42. We bought 8 tins of tomatoes. 4 bags of cheap pasta and two bags of porridge and literally had watery porridge, and tomato pasta every single day. We actually foreged for wild garlic and blackberrys too.

When we were 23 and first got together I discovered dh was in 40k worth of debt. Perhaps crazily I stuck with him (he was aware how badly he had fucked up!) and we started to pay it off. The amount owed went up and down over the years as dh started a business which failed and we owed more money, then we had dd and I had to stop work as childcare was more than we could afford. We ended up having to live in a shitty one bed basement flat with 2 young children in my parents hotel so we could work to pay off debt and not pay rent. It was horribly stressful and lonely (moved away from all our friends). Finally when we were 35 we had paid off all the debt and had enough for a house deposit. By then dh had got into a new career and was swiftly progressing up the ranks. Now he earns 6 figures, we own a lovely house which we have extended twice and renovated and we have a very comfortable life.

I remember putting baby oil into mascara to make it last longer and having really long hair as couldn’t afford to have it cut (and I have very thick hair so couldn’t cut it myself). We used to get free milk for the children too at that time. It took at least 10 years to do up our family home but boy did we appreciate each improvement! Now we are well off but I will never take it for granted.

Also borrowing £100 from my parents in about 1977 and paying it back £10 per month. I found the letters saying thanks and enclosing my monthly cheques when I cleared their house after my DF had died and my DM had gone into a home. They never had much but didn’t want much either.

Grew up super poor too. Damp in bedrooms, repairs needed that could never be done, no money for anything. It was bleak, cold and miserable. Despite this, we kept a neat and clean home (cleaning was a distraction, it still is) and cherished what little we had. We played cards instead of watching tv (electricity) and we walked absolutely everywhere.
Fast forward to today and I have climbed out of that hole; education & work helped me get to a point my parents could only dream of. My children will never know what’s it’s like to be damp, cold, and without the basics.
This too shall pass- you will move on to better days.

I've been homeless twice, once when the DC's were tiny. Trying to get back on your feet after that is a slog and its really expensive to have to replace everything, even with help from charities and second hand stuff.
One year I lost my job, was rushed to hospital soon after and my benefits were stopped because I missed an appointment. I couldn't sort it out as I was in ICU. After I got out, we had £3 for Xmas.