You know you're truly skint when...

[ratflavouredjelly]

I've decided to humour myself and start this thread laughs hysterically. Anyone care to join me with their stories. Maybe we can out skint each other...

So, you know you're truly skint when:
Shopping in charity shops are no longer ironic.
The middle of the month arrives and you panic about feeding the family.
You can not afford the petrol to work.
You're growing your own veg but cannot stretch to compost to enrich the soil.
DS and DD's shoes are too tight (something you never thought you would allow to happen)
Your bra is too tight, buying a new one is out of the question, so you just 'get used' to the pain.
Yadda harumph harumph

Ruby is right. Someone must do the "menial" jobs. If everyone woke up tomorrow as a CEO or a brain surgeon, the country would fall apart in no time.

I have an uncle who's always going on about poor people and how they should get lovely jobs like he has, always traveling to different countries and paid loads, etc. Funnily enough, he doesn't like it when I ask him if he's willing to change his own sheets, cook his own food, and clean his own hotel room on those business trips, the wanker .

I posted it on the other thread, but haven't heard anything: I have a boy's coat (size 4/5 years) in good shape. The liner zips out so you've got a light coat as well as a waterproof shell that can be used seperately. It's Columbia brand, which I've always found to be well made and quite warm. If anyone's DS is in need of it I'd be happy to send it to you. Please PM me.

Oh, and in answer to the OP's question (this is probably a uniquely American dilemma) : Not always finishing my full course of antibiotics, because I know when I am inevitably walloped by strep yet again, it may be at a time that the hundreds of dollars I will have to pay to be examined (as I have no health insurance) will be most inconvient. So I will need that saved-up penicillin.

M&S are selling boys school trousers from £3.20 in black or grey here

20% comes off at checkout. Thought this may help somebody :)

Hope that this can help someone on here. If you or your partner have ever worked for the civil service (casual jobs/holiday jobs count) then you are eligible to apply to the Civil Service Benevolent Fund www.csbf.org.uk/ who can provide financial help.

They are utterly, utterly brilliant. They helped me when my family were in intensive care after a car accident and I was going back and forward to the hospital but being at uni I had no money. They had a donations drive at work a few years ago and I was chatting to one of their volunteers. She left her abusive husband with 2 kids and the clothes she stood up in. The fund paid her deposit on a flat, 1st months rent and for it to be furnished as well as other support. But they don't just deal with life changing events- if you are in financial difficulties give them a ring and they can talk you through what help they can provide.

You don't need to have contributed to the fund to get help, just be a current or former civil servant. The website reckons 4 million people would be eligible for help from the fund. They are lovely and can help quickly.

I thought it was a very good thread and helps lots of people realise the difficulties many have in the recession. There is so much out there about people spending that I think people think everyone has lots of money and buys new things whereas even many of us relatively well off don't even have things like hair cuts and meals out.

No I am not a journalist although that's another way I have sometimes made money when we've needed it by being paid to write. I am not insensitive to people's problems and I spend my life solving problems for people. In some ways it is my raison d'etre. So I don't think it's inappropriate for people particularly to sit down and think how they got to where they are and how they can protect against it in future and advise their daughters that some careers are better paid than others. If you encourage your daughter to be a surgeon not a care home worker she will probably be protected against some of these problems in future (not all, we all have the hard things whatever we earn). Perhaps one way to ensure daughters in 20 years are not likely to be on a thread like this is steer them to better paid work (and to say some people have to do the dross low paid stuff as a reason that we shoudl not encourage our own daughters to be the best we can be is very very defeatiest).

But Xenia I am concerned for everyone, not just my own child.

It is a fact that someone must do the lower-paid jobs. They should be able to have a decent life, don't you think?

Not being able to replace the glass in the back door that shattered months ago.
Buying clothes in charity shops.
Begging the bank to let you go on an interest only mortgage;
retraining because your current job has been hit by the recession;
not being able to let your kids go on cub camp;
only being able to go on holiday if you are staying in a tent;
having a dilemma over whether you should buy new socks for the kids this month or next;
it goes on......

Ahha! I know what I'm going to do for my friend: We went to my DC1's school fundraiser on Saturday, and I'm going to pretend I won a gift certificate to a hair salon (she's not been to have a hair cut in the five years I've known her) and then she can get a really nice cut and colour (she colours her hair herself at home).

Either that or a trip on my helicopter to Zenia's Island

Oh that's a great idea Choc ! Well done you, I bet she'll love it. :)

Agree, fridgepants . For what it's worth, I'm quite clever. Or at least, of the sort that translates well when taking tests, etc. I could have done "something better" but what I do do, which is assist children with behavioral and other difficulties, is extremely challenging and I am very well-suited to it. It pays sweet F.A. and I have no insurance, but I do love it. I'm thinking of going into hospice care next, and I can guarantee I will not be stuffing the bank with what I make there.

Grrrr - I'm very old, there were grants back then and I worked about four jobs as well to keep it all going!

Being offered job interviews - when you haven't enough money to get there or enough money to buy anything suitable to wear.

I've a job interview tomorrow afternoon and I don't think I have anything suitable to wear for it I have some grey pinstripe trousers that are a bit big, but wide legged anyway so they should pass, but the only tops I can think of that would be anywhere near interview-ish are jersey v neck close fitting tops - would that be ok do you think? I don't have a suit jacket but seeing as it's in a small local shop I don't think it'll be noticed.

"I spend my life solving problems for people. In some ways it is my raison d'etre."

Xenia you're like the Samantha Brick of economics. Patronising, clueless and really really irritating!

Foof - that sounds fine. Good luck!!

Gosh, Xenia, some jobs are paid better than others? Really?

It's not really the lack of money that is the real problem. It's the lack of education about how to cope with less money than society believes is a "living wage". If you know how to budget, where to go for bargains, how to scrimp and save, where to go for mutual support, and have basic life skills it's all slightly more bareable.

If children were given these skills (as they used to be) rather than some of the less-than-useful-things in the NC, then maybe when they found themselves in these (hopefully temporary) situations they'd be better able to cope. And also be less presurised by society to feel shame about being at the bottom of the heap.

Because, without those at the bottom of the heap, you at the lofty peak would soon find yourself up to your neck in shit.

I certainly agree that it is useful if our children gain skills of how to cope as just said. Also that they do not think materialism matters. Do not feel they have to have expensive weddings etc and understand what gives satisfaction in life. I do not however see why it is wrong for women to look at the causes of their poverty on an individual basis. It may well have been a wonderful ife as care home worker but if it means you end up on a mums net thread talking about how you can hardly afford to eat the lesson there fore women is try to ensure you pick high paid work and however much you enjoy the low paid stuff you might find life easier if you and your daughters had or will consider lucrative careers. For example why did the child of the architect above not because an archiect - her father seems to have been some kind of sexist pig who encouraged her to be a secretary. In other words feminism and women's education and getting into well paid positions rather than pursuing low paid or lofty but badly paid "women's work" is in a sense the key to the whole thread.

It's only reading this thread that has made me realise we were quite poor growing up. My Mum always used a calculator round the supermarket (I thought that was normal!) and our battered old car that you had to lift the bonnet and bang one particular part with a stick to get it going, caused me some embarrassment in my teenage years!

I never felt poor though so I reckon they did a great job actually. I was the first person in my family to go to University and now thankfully am in a much better position than I guess they were at my age.

I'd like to give away a brown linen type trouser suit. It's a large 12, but short (30") leg. It's gone a little 'baggy' on the knees but still has plenty of wear left. I could throw in a white broderie anglais type short sleeved blouse size 12 as well. Might be good for an interview?

I also have a box of size 5 pull up nappies (LIDL) - maybe 30?

Both would have to be picked up from the Whitby area (N Yorkshire) or I could possibly deliver within 5 miles.

Hope people's situations improve soon x

Xenia, I understand that your concern is to prevent instances of poverty for the next generation but here people are dealing with the reality of it NOW. Their concern is how to feed and clothe their family today. If you want to help them, you could do as others are doing and see what you have that you could offer on the 'I have X' thread. Make a difference today.

It is not the key to the whole thread Xenia

If you're a lawyer I'm surprised you can't see that !

You probably have some interesting points to raise, but this is not the thread to do it IMHO

So men don't find themselves in these situations?

I chose my career path, I didn't rely on men to get myself where I am. I didn't marry or have a live-in partner until I was in my thirties. I went to university after my older son went to school. I bought my own property. I chose a career that I felt was ethical and useful. It doesn't pay much but it will hopefully get the next generation to think about some of the issues you have raised.

But none of what you say will convince me that you can do without the folk who are on minimum wage, and of course they have children. You still seem to be suggesting that it's less than desirable that they should. Someone has to do these jobs. They should be valued and not just monetarily.

Xenia what do you do, in practical terms, to help people?
Not advice, I don't mean, rather what material help are you able to offer?
You are fortunate, you have worked hard, you are in a position of wealth and influence, I would be interested to learn how that has helped you to help others.

Can't read all the thread to go back and see exactly what Xenia has written but i think i get the idea.....
I am working all hours in an average paid job, i am taking qualifications in my field to try and increase my pay and also move up the ladder.
I suppose i came to this position by a few wrong choices along the way career wise, but i was given oportunities that after thinking about i took and sadly things didn't work out. But, sometimes we have to take chances and maybe not always stick to the 'safe' road don't we?
Then, my ex husband walked out taking all our savings and anything worth any money with him. I was left with the kids and several jobs to do to keep our heads above water.
My eldest children are now either at Universitiy or just qualified and in their new careers, relatively well paid and respected positions.
So the kids are almost sorted then....that just leaves me!!! I really can't retrain as a lawyer now surely?? For one thing i'm pretty old and for another i need to earn money to pay ex husbands debts he kindly left me and put food on the table.
I feel i am helping myself Xenia. I also put in unpaid hours to help on the food run at our local Nightshelter and take vulnerable adults to Art Classes and other activities of their choice to hopefully improve their Mental Health.