To ask what you learned from experiencing poverty?

[tucsontutu]

I am regular poster but nc for this. Reading several threads on mn, I realize how shockingly common it is to experience financial hardships at some point in life. That got me thinking, as I was lucky enough (so far) to never have experienced that. I am not and never was a millionaire, but I definitely never had to worry about essentials like food or heating. I realize how fortunate that is. I wonder if I would be different if I had experienced poverty/ financial hardship at some point in life.

So I am wondering what stays with people after they went through poverty. If you went through financial hardship and then recovered, do you think you would be different if you never experienced that time of difficulty?

Do you find that the people you know that have always been financially comfortable think differently from those who had to fight for their material comfort? Do they have a different approach to money?

Thank you for your comments!

That people who haven't experienced it really can't understand it.

I live a rather nice life now thanks to being quite bright at school and having a professional qualification. My DH grew up in a middle class family and whilst not 'wealthy' had annual holidays and there were no issues affording school uniform, food etc.

My mum used to send me to the corner shop to ask for credit. I suspect she was hideously embarrassed but my being 14/15 and having to do that was really hard. When I was telling him about it I could see real shock. I think he thought that was TV type stuff.

Also, the desperate spending on any extra money I got otherwise I wouldn't enjoy it. Birthday or Christmas money ended up going to mum for food shopping if I didn't spend it very fast. I'm still very bad with my own money and I think this is probably the root of my problem.

I mainly find that people look at who I am now and feel it is appropriate to tell me that I have what I have, am who I am because I was lucky!

Not because, having been brought up piss poor, penniless, cold, hungry sometimes, uncertain always, I have, since thrown out of home just prior to my 17th birthday (not being a chid any more), made sure that however little money I have had, or not had, I have rarely spent a penny more.

I have gone without all sorts of things not to get into debt. I have taken all sorts of opportunities, some offered, some made, to ensure that I do not get into a position of not having a penny more than I absolutely need.

But still people feel it is appropriate to tell me that I have what I have because I was lucky to be given(???) any opportunity, to have had the work ethic, intelligence, time, permission(???) to take them.

I suppose you could say that having spent a lot of my life without a lot of things I appreciate the things I have, don't miss 'stuff' and ignore anyone who wants to think I have been lucky. I have worked hard, not wasted much and am now happily living with the rewards of my hard work and somewhat parsimonious lifestyle.

It causes you to lose your dignity. The most basic thing becomes to feed yourself. I was bought a meal when at one of my lowest points. I was so grateful. I gratefully took leftovers. It’s a horrible position in which to find yourself and I’m incredibly fortunate to now be earning enough to treat myself and have plenty to eat.

I didn’t live in abject poverty growing up my dad earned a very good wage. During first marriage my exh didn’t work so I was the breadwinner. All money went on kids, house and him I struggled to buy clothes or anything for me, anything spare even a fiver was taken by him for his cannabis habit. Nowadays I hoard clothes and makeup etc for fear of never having anymore.

I've been poor, when I left the childrens home. Eating out of bins and shoplifting food poor.

I'm good now, nice house, DH, & DC, not rich but don't have to worry about money. I tend to stock tins and dry goods in a cupboard, just in case.

That people are very quick to judge hiw others spend their money and really have little idea what it means to be in poverty.

As a child the shame of knowing we didn't have enough money for food, clothes, bus fares etc, that things like hair cuts were an every other year occurrence not an occasional treat, that if something got lost or damaged it wouldn't be replaced no matter how essential it was - the shame of not having what others take for granted is incredible.

It taught me to never be financially reliant on anyone, to budget and plan finances - it also taught me to disregard my own needs, which isn't a good thing.

Oh yes, the loss of dignity. I think that is what has made me an intensely private person. DH, brought up in an equally poor household, is much the same.

I occasionally feel that posts such as these are massively oversharing, that I have told too much... and yet none of you will ever know who I am

What the need to name change? It smacks of journalist tbh. But I grew up in poverty and experienced it when I was a young single parent too. To an extent, I was used to it and it didn't seem as hard as it probably was. I look back and marcel at how I could stretch so little money so far. The thing I've taken away is unfortunately anxiety issues. I still have a fear of the post coming which is ridiculous, as I'm now quite comfortable. I still fear a bill I cannot pay, I STILL hate phone calls from unknown numbers. We're very fortunate that we manage to not have debts and have just given our dc a very nice Christmas but really they never missed out. I can budget well and never ever leave pressies to the last minute, we tend to buy throughout the year. I have a friend who has just become a single parent and has never had to budget or deal with financial issues as her do was very controlling and dealt with all that. She has no clue how to budget, has no idea that council tax has to be paid as priority, things I learned by myself 20 years ago. In a way I'm very grateful of my ongoing caution, as I hope it'll mean I never end up in dire straits again.

Journalist?

Tippexy Absolutely not, in fact I should have probably posted this with my usual nickname, which is Namila, to dispell any suspicions.

I will keep posting with this username for the sake of this thread clarity but you can look at my msn history and you will see that I often post about money/ savings as it is a topic I reflect a lot about.

The thing that stays with me is a friend who every Friday after work would meet me and would buy me a drink. That diet coke and chat meant the world to me when I was unemployed, very hard up and miserable. I've since moved away but will never ever forget her kindness. I'm now in a position to do the same for someone else if the need ever arises so I would definitely pass it on.

Here I am, I changed back to my usual nickname so that it is clear this is NOT a journo fishing for inspirations

I don't need lots of 'stuff'. I can get by quite easily with a few essentials.
I'm quite resourceful, good at budgeting, making cheap meals and things like mending clothes and cutting hair. It's a challenge and living on very little money does require effort but it is possible.

We have struggled financially, where we had to decide whether to pay bills or have heating and food (on prepay meters) and at our most desperate would visit my grandmother to raid her fridge and be given £20 towards electricity. I'll never forget the shame of going shopping with my mum and my card not only being declined but confiscated and chopped up. I was on maternity leave and DH had lost his job and was temping, but didn't get regular shifts and minimum wage was only £4 or something then. We had DSS2 and DS as children living at home and DSS1 who also lived with us but was an adult who didn't have a job (one of the reasons we asked him to move out, as he refused to look for a job and robbed us blind).

We have had bailiffs at the door over unpaid council tax and have gone without food so the kids could eat. But we have never been homeless, or had to deal with anything near that, so I'm not sure that I would class it as poverty per se.

We are comfortable now and in many ways I'm thankful we have been there because I know that if we end up there again we will be able to cope and it won't be a huge culture shock. With DH maybe needing to give up work soon due to poor health, and not being entitled to any benefits at all, I have concentrated on getting promoted and keeping up my second job that doesn't bring in a huge amount but will keep the wolf from the door. I have had this second job my entire working life and it was being broke that made me hang on to it despite not really enjoying it any more.

This is a truly interesting question. Defining hardship and poverty. I have experienced bouts of hardship as my parents did before me.

Do we truly have poverty in the UK? After my outgoings are paid, I have £48 left each week. My outgoings are everything I spend on home/food/bills/car - the essentials I need to be able to undertake my daily living.

With my disposable cash, I save £5 per week. I then use the rest for a treat for myself, nails once a fortnight. I might buy a bottle of wine. Or I might take my DGD out for a treat

I do not see I am in abject poverty. I live in a housing association home, with an affordable rent which is long-term.

My mother, she was useless with money. She could not sustain a tenancy, took out endless doorstep loans, never paid bills and as a child, I remember her launching from crisis to crisis. She was not in poverty, she just could not manage money.

I see lots of calls for support of people in poverty, Homelessness is prevalent but there are many services out there to support people. I was homeless for a short period of time but that was because I could not get a deposit together.

I will go as far to say, that poverty is far more visible in more affluent cities such as London where there is a true rich-v-poor divide. Where I live, it is easier to live with little money as most people do.

Very interesting thread, OP.

I now always have cupboard basics in. It's the first thing i check when i do a shopping list.

I went through a stage of being homeless whilst pregnant, but because i had just moved back to the area for work (which i lost through pregnancy) i had no ties so nobody had any responsibility for me. I can remember a lovely homeless bloke using some of his money for his night shelter to buy me a hot meal. I cried a lot that day. I was lucky enough to fall in with a great group of homeless guys who took me to soup kitchens & made sure i knew where the warm places to sleep are.

I never scrimp on heating now; if we are cold, it goes on. I will go without other things to ensure we are never low on gas.

I’m a workaholic because of it.

I left Home at 17 with nothing and my only way to survive was to work 3-4 jobs at a time. Grabbing a couple of hours sleep in between.
I went to uni in my 20 s but found that my loans didn’t cover enough to keep up with the others that had parental support. So unbeknownst to my lecturers I took a full time job on the side.
I fell into an averagely paid job that had unlimited overtime and ran with it. I was working upwards of 80 hour weeks because I could, I didn’t particularly need the money but was so used to filling every hour with a way to earn. To me working = survival.
I am slightly better at balancing homelife and work now but will always be the last one out of the door.

I had a tough childhood, my DH didn't. We have a massively different approach to money. Just a few examples:
One time we dropped a £1 down a bridge over the beach. I insisted we ran down to the beach to hunt for it. I spent a good half an hour before DH could drag me away. His attitude was 'it's only £1'. But I watch every penny even though my financial situation has improved a lot since my childhood days.
I also hate wasting food, will eat food that's gone out of date. I remember my mum scrapping mould off the top of yogurts to eat the rest.
I remember freezing homes in the winter. You could see your own breath in the mornings. I now always feel like I have to ask for permission to turn the heating on at home.

It erodes your confidence, self-esteem and sence of self. It's stressful and exhausting. It's an existence rather than a life. Its also taught me that I can manage on very little. Money doesn't buy happiness but it certainly helps with feeling secure and comfortable.

My mother was a heroin addict, she use to use all of our benefit money for her fix and then sell herself and any of our possessions to get the rest. I was constantly hungry and vividly remember always having holes in my shoes and having painfully cold feet. We leaved in utter poverty because of this.

I didn't learn too much from being poor because of the wider circumstances of emotional and physical abuse suffered was far more implicating. However, as an adult with a comfortable life now I shop at Lidl & poundland, buy stuff in the sale and could never justify wasting money on branded clothing etc.

I experienced extreme poverty as a child until early teens and as an adult who is now successful and living in a household with £100k joint annual income it's taught me to be extremely generous and donate copious amounts to charity. Growing up places like oxfam and other charity shops were a lifeline fit my family for clothes books toys etc

My dad went through several spells of unemployment when I was growing up, when money was very tight. For some reason, it was never an option to take my brothers out of their private school to save the fees, and I sometimes wonder how poor we would have been without that burden. My sister and I went through the state system and I don't regret that at all, seeing how screwed up my brothers were by being with kids whose families were much better off than theirs every day.

I had no pocket money for 2 years and had to wear clothes from jumble sales. This didn't bother me at all until a girl came up to me and said 'Hilary says that cardi used to be hers and you got it from the jumble'. All I could say was that it was true, but it made me feel ashamed and embarrassed. My mum also darned one of my dresses together so the front of it was just one big darn at the waist, and that really did embarrass me.

I wasn't the poorest of the children in my class at all, it was mainly not having smart clothes that embarrassed me. As a result, I always made sure my kids had the right things to wear, even when we didn't have spare cash.

I learned to be very scared of something called an 'overdraft' because I heard my mum and dad talking about it. I've therefore found the idea of loans and credit quite scary all of my adult life. I don't think this has been a bad thing for me.

Do we truly have poverty in the UK? Yes. We always have had and currently it is growing.

I think this may be a good outline... open the findings for the definitions and stats www.jrf.org.uk/report/destitution-uk

Also there is a schism in government. The main party refuses to believe/act on the evidence, so much so that all members of the Social Mobility Commission resigned at the beginning of December

www.ft.com/content/e4426dce-d808-11e7-a039-c64b1c09b482

Living through poverty has had a big affect on me. Like Sloane I still get anxious about post etc when money is not an issue at all. I also have a terrible fear of losing my job which I think in a strange way has given me an edge at work. I pay a lot of money for the car and holidays but have balked at a big mortgage because I would worry about us being homeless if I was out of work. Likewise I will splash out big on meals out etc without a thought but I am programmed to be really careful re what I will pay for supermarket food, often buying reduced. We have a very good income but my dream is a million lottery win so we would have security for the rest of our life if job was lost . My partner grew up wanting for nothing and I notice she doesn't care how much money people think she has whilst I would be devastated if I got to the till and I had forgotten my cards and didn't have enough cash. I think on balance I would much rather not have gone short!

Newspaper as loo roll. Including the inner tube. Regular loo unblocking.
Damp smelling clothes.
Buckets to catch the rainfall inside your bedroom.
No lights upstairs when the electrics fail owing to rain inside the house.
Sitting in front of the washing machine holding the glass door on until finished.
Bungee clip holding the oven door in place.
Washing liquid as shampoo. Soap to wash dishes.
Holey tights? Paint the holey areas on your leg whilst wearing with black marker.
Tricky to remove.
Hunger.
Ugly shoes 2 sizes too big, stuffed with tissue nicked from school.
Its made me very very appreciative of basic things which most take for granted.
Life is comfortable now but you never forget.