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

Twllbach Have you ever tried a food bank? Just if you needed to take the milk, then surely you should be able to access some help?

This thread is really depressing.

The thing I hate is the constant excuse making. 'Oh no I can't come out for lunch with you as I have an appointment' 'Sorry, I can't take the DC's to the cinema with your DC this weekend as I already said we'd go something else'.

When really is all about money. Constantly trying to save money.

I think the things that make this thread depressing for me are:

1. We feel some level of shame about being poorer than others - I am quite upfront about it but still not wholly open

2. Other people would prefer us to lie than tell them we can't afford stuff - because then they don't have to feel troubled by it? I know my ILs in particular find our poverty inconvenient

3. That things like glasses, prescriptions, food, school uniform are hard to buy. I would love holidays etc, but I know they are luxuries. But I do feel angry when I can't afford necessities

If I have any money when I am older, I am going to watch my kids like a hawk and buy them really useful stuff - my ILs bought us some very, very expensive PLANTS when we couldn't afford to eat. The plants are dead, because we couldn't afford to repot them . They don't want to hear that we can't afford to eat, it spoils their day. If my kids ever can't afford to feed their kids, I will bloody well send them a supermarket voucher or something.

I am lucky, our period of extreme poverty has passed (til next time?) but we are still not well off and it still pisses me off how casually others dismiss our money worries.

Sorry for ranting...

Twll, I didn't mean my parents are poor, their not. I meant it in the way they don't earn £200k a year like some people I know that brag

Me & my dd live with my mum & dad I live it & will stay living here for as long as they'll have me. No rent either + babysitter on tap!

It's heartbreaking this thread, I am extremely lucky to have what I do. Of course I've been Skint in the past, when I was at college & everyone else was getting ema & I didn't have a child to support then or bills to pay,
I have always worked but I know when I do get a job on a graduate salary I will be working to pay a nursery. So I will need evenings/weekends, ect.

Oh, Xmas!

Its May and I am pancking already!

I count my blessings though.

That poor couple who lost 6 of their kids....

My ILs do give my dc money but they put it into their CTF accounts - so I cant access it I know that sounds ungrateful but, really, we need the help now, not when they are 18/21.

I think what gets me most is the assumptions that people make - DP has been out of work for 6 months since being made redundant, I've been self-employed and P/T employed since I got made redundant a year ago (both public sector), and I've lost count of the number of people (usually former colleagues who survived the cull) who have said things like "we just couldn't manage on one part-time salary"

It's as if they think we have this fairy godmother/trust fund/rich aunt making up the shortfall between the stupidly high household income we used to have, and what we have now - rather than actually making hard choices and going without. I realise it probably makes them feel better about it - assuming that we can manage helps them deal with the guilt of still having a job when we don't.

Our estimated household income for the coming year is less than 10% what it was 2 years ago.

PullUpAPew, that must be so frustrating, being bought frigging PLANTS when you're struggling to feed your family! My family are a bit like that, they just don't get it (I suppose it's quite far removed from their own experiences, but even so, a little imagination...!). MIL, on the other hand, is a star and generally finds she has bought too much food at M&S and would we like it?

This thread is making me cry. And rage at the same time. Dave "we're all in it together", come off it mate.
I literally did not have the cash spare to replace ds dangerously falling to bits gym shoes and made excuse after excuse - none in shop/bought new ones but left them in work again. the school secretary 'found a new pair handed in as spares just in his size'. Cried for hours following her kindness.

When you resist putting the heating on until December and it is off by February

When there ice on the inside of your bedroom window in winter because it is that cold and there is no double glazing. But we honestly don't get that cold; just wear a lot of woolies. It's no biggie - everyone of my grandparents age probably lived like this

When all my toddler's shoes come from car boots because I can't afford Clark's prices but I want him to have them

When I spend any birthday money for me to treat my child

We never buy (most) fresh food unless we can 'forage' for it in the bargain bin

When you realise that actually as a completely broke student, you had a lot more money than you have now

When colleagues spend on a lunch the same amount as your entire food budget for a week

when scrimping actually doesn't feel abnormal at all because it has become a way of life and a lot of your friends are doing the same

I live in the middle of nowhere and petrol and the cost of keeping cars working is a real problem.

I know young adults who are permanently in a viscous circle.

They can't afford to run a car because they haven't got a job, they can't keep a job because they have no reliable transport. On the rare occasions they have a car or motorbike that works they have no petrol. They can't leave home and live somewhere with buses because they have no job and no money.

They need supportive reliable parents to provide transport and/or financial support, but they don't have them.

I burst into tears on page one and haven't been able to pull myself together since

• not being able to afford the monthly insurance on the car, but not being able to afford the cancellation fee either, so just swim in arrears.
• turn the house phone on silent as you get palpitations whenever it rings in case it's people you owe money to.
• not being able to offer my nan a cuppa when she visits as I can't afford milk. Or tea bags. Or sugar. Or washing up liquid so she could have a clean mug
• find yourself saying 'I'll think of something' 10 times a day when the electric runs out/run out of bread/dh breaks zip on work trousers.

Bigging up cheapo food to the kids - hot dogs, chip rolls - because there is not the cash to do a proper shop. Happily my dc adore cheapo food nights/weeks.

Last winter my only pair of boots were taped up on the soles with electricians tape to keep out the water. Didn't work. Too tatty to take to the cobblers. Cobbler wld probably have laughed.

Not gone to work as no money for bus fare or petrol.

Cooking for 4 rather than the 5 in the household and hoping that the dc leftovers approximate the semblance of a full dinner.

Robbed the dc piggy banks - they know it & know also that it may be some time before its paid back.

Everyone I know just about is in this position

ThefirstMrsR

I've had gym shoes DDs never worn because school makes you buy them and then they do gym in bare feet.
By out door games in the summer they're too small.

There just seems no discrete system at school to pass stuff on.

No one buys anything if we have a uniform sale. They would if we were a private school.

When you ask the supermarket to unlock a trolley for you (to put your child in), as if you put your pound coin into the trolley there would be no money left for shopping!

I have also cried at this thread and I feel ashamed to live in a country which allows families to struggle and suffer like this :(

I know startail. I have handed in outgrown skirts/trousers etc as do most folk and in the main, they are kept as spares. There are shelves and shelves of things. How many kids are they expecting to pee themselves/fall into puddles on any one day?

If our school sold on outgrown uniform, there would be a scrum (with me at the front).

So many mums say 'no point in buying new trousers as little dc will just trash them instantly' or 'I can't believe dc have put on x/y/z .... they were going in the bin' - we all know the real meaning is that what is being worn is what there is and that will just need to do as there are no funds to renew the uniform.

Ah well, my dc (the boys anyway) thrive on being allowed to go scruffy.

You steal wads of toilet roll from work

When you watch your beloved dog suffering.... We've had her for 8 years,she had a really nasty accident when she was 1yo. She has cost us thousands over the years.She has always been very well insured,but as we have had so many claims, we now have an awful lot of exclusions.

Her most recent operation cost us £500.She was fine for about 2 weeks.Now she's back to being her crippled,sad little self again.We have NO more money left.We struggle to afford our food shop every week.

She should have an X-ray really to see what's actually going on.
I can NOT let her have one,or the pain killers at £4 a day.....

It breaks my heart,I so want to help her but I can't. I can't just let her being pts because of money though can I.....

I would love to pass my dc's clothes onto someone that needs them... I have lots of age 4/5 girls summer clothes. I also have some boys shorts age 2/3

Pm me, am in Essex

I have raided the copper jar for bread and milk. I love the fact that you can put them in the self service checkout rather than giving it to the cashier.

I had to sell my beloved Pandora last year. I am still upset about it.

This thread does make me sad, but in a weird way it's also comforting to hear I'm not alone in my skintness.

Lots of my friends aren't in the same position as us, so really don't get it when I say I can't afford to go to X, Y and Z playgroup each month.

I'm also embarrassed to have friends' children over for playdates as they always expect decent food and we whip up pasta or rice. Again.

When you wish your DH and DCs weren't trying to eat healty food like fruit and veg because it's so fecking expensive - and cheapo custard creams go a lot further .

When you ask another mum what her child might like for birthday, and hope desperately it's something you can make.

When you think of squirrelling away some of the presents your own DC get for birthdays in the hope of re-gifting them without being caught out. :(

When you can't accept weekend invitations from people who live a drive away because the petrol tank is empty.

When you hope desperately that your parents will invite you over for Sunday roast so that you don't have to have Basics Chicken again.

OMG this list is endless! :(

Oh thought of another: When you spend half an hour online comparing prices between Asda and Sainsbury's like-for-like and then go for Asda because it's all of 73p cheaper for the weekly shop.

Hi, Supermum, thanks for a,l the links. The sad thing is, it's not really the frames that are the problem, it's the lenses. I have quite a complex prescription (varifocal, prisms, hi strength, bla, bla, bla..) and can only use the very, very thin ones because of the level of prescrition on them. The last time I got new specs, the lenses were £450 for one pair. So I just put up with it, now. and make do.

It's all so depressing, all the stories of families really struggling. I find it hard to believe that in one of the world's most developed countries, people are allowed to struggle so badly. I am trying to convince my church to open a food bank, but I'm failing to convince all the nice, complacent, comfortable people that there is a very real need. Perhaps I should print out this thread and show them.

Stressed I'd like to print it out and show it to the mom who tried to get me to sign a petition at the school gate because she's so "disgusted" that people don't pay the "voluntary" fee for swimming and who looked perplexed when I asked her if she knew how many people just can't afford it. Like it had never occurred to her FFS

Better still I'd like to show it to David Cameron