When you've been skint, what was the cruellest thing anyone did to you?

[corygal]

Cos writing it down might help you banish it. Here's mine - and no, I'm not going to start with an apology.

When I left college, in debt and rather ill, I flat shared with friends. Kindly parents bailed us with cardboard boxes of edibles - we loved them more than Harrods hampers, even tho I bet Harrods don't include Tesco beans and Maxwell House chicory. Aware my own parents hadn't helped, I timidly asked Mum if she had anything spare I could carry back as loot to the girls.

She gave me one cooked sausage. Then announced she'd bought my brother a car. When I got home I realised the mash on the sausage was mould.

corygal sorry to read your story, that sounds horrid

Omg Cory that's awful! :(

:( Cory.

I don't think I have anything that remotely compares to that. Only copious examples of BILs and their wives being really insensitive when talking about their fab holidays they've had or have planned for the coming months. Or spending hundreds of £££s on Christmas presents for their kids to open in front of everyone at the big family Christmas gathering and telling us we're being selfish and ruining it for FIL by not wanting to be there for all the present-opening hoohah (because I don't want my DC's noses rubbed in it on Christmas day - they are already aware they have far less than their cousins, thank you very much! They seem to completely lack the awareness of how uncomfortable it is to sit there watching others open really extravagant gifts and trying to get your own children excited about a book or DVD again and again)

Argh, sorry, rant over. I have wanted to email them all about this soooo many times. Have tried tactfully suggesting we limit presents but they are constantly trying to outdo each other it seems

Two - that is GRIM for you. I wouldnt apol for being livid, but they may not change.

Take comfort in the fact that your kids are way better off in the ways that count, by the sounds of things.

Stole my empty but for loyalty cards purse this afternoon. Bastards. I needed those nectar points for nappies.

My parents lived in a huge house, my dad earnt a huge wage, they knew I had no food or money but let me carry on eating food at work that was free and go hungry. Never really forgiven them because they weren't short of money and all I wanted was food. Dad lost the money and had to downsize. Apologised last year, about 10 years too late

When we were really, really skint - dh unemployed, two young kids, absolutely no spare cash, my sil and her husband lived in the same street as us. Apart from him boasting about their buying wine for their wine cellar (and this was in a boxy 2 bedroomed terraced house without a cellar ) she insisted in telling all our neighbours about our money troubles and turned up on our doorstep with a big bag of hand-me-down clothes for our dd that she had collected from them. And no, she wasn't being nice.

No one's been cruel to me, but they have been weird.
My Dad tells me what I'll be able to buy when I inherit from him, whilst telling me he spends nothing, and he doesn't need his money, even when he knew I had doorstep loans to feed the gas meter.

Hung up on me when I asked about my grant money.

Didn't see it even when admitted to hospital with malnutrition.

Hope you're enjoying hell Dad.

Blimey Laurie malnutrition

Netto I will never ever understand parents that have money tucked away for their kids but refuse to let them have any when it is so obvious that they are in need NOW. It's madness.

Oh Laurie My heart just broke reading that. How any parent could stand by and let that happen.

Twolittlemonkeys - I feel your pain. I am in exactly the same position. It spoils Christmas to the extent I do not ook forward to it at all.

My mum is ace and even she if she cannot afford to give me cash, which often she can't, she'd empty her food cupboards for me. DH's mum is pretty good too and will bail us out when we need it. When DH lost his job just weeks before we were due to go on holiday she gave us the spending money so we could still go and didn't lose the money we'd paid. She also bought us a new oven when ours packed in the day before christmas eve.

My mother's parents are a different story. When myself and my two sisters were very yound our boiler broke. My parents had always struggled for money so we lived without heating and hot water for about a year. While this was going on my grandparents bought their other daughter a brand new car and paid for a holiday for her

My now exh2 had our last penny a £20 in his back pocket ready to buy electric on the key. He forgot it wasn't in his wallet and as he pulled his wallet out of his pocket, the £20 came out and fell on the floor behind him. He went to pay for the leccy and found it wasn't there...he'd heard the chap behind him say 'Jesus shit it's cold' as he bent down...

When I was 8 months pg with Dd, my ancient boiler died. Dd's father got his plumber friend round to give me a quote (so far so good) and said to me 'you decide what you want to do and I'll pay for it' but he knew I wouldn't do that (can't ask for money), so I could never understand why he didn't just say 'right, Pete is coming round to sort your new boiler out on Monday and it's all paid for'. Instead I brought a newborn Dd home from hospital to a freezing cold house in December and was without heating and hot water for an entire year. That'll 'learn' me!!
He did the same thing with regards a second story extension to my house to give Dd her own bedroom. The Dc's still share.
Oh yeah, I should mention that Dd's father is very well off.

We were in the middle of building work, no kitchen, living in one room of the house, cold as huge holes in walls, when DH was admitted to hospital with pneumonia.
PILs visited, booked themselves a hotel, and offered to "help with anything except cooking, washing, or looking after/ picking up DCs" - err, so all the things I might need help with then...
It turned out all they could help with was visiting DH in hospital. Not letting me or the DCs visit him. Very "helpful".

I can't do it Cassette, even now I find it very difficult to ask for help. If I'm given help, that's a different matter, but he wanted me to ask and he knew how it was for me; he wasn't being kind, he was being incredibly cruel.

After I'd left home, Mother knew I was skint. She told me I was allowed up to visit, after Christmas dinner as long as I helped with the washing up and went home before tea.
Nice.
Funny, she wanders round telling everyone what a perfect mother she was, and yet she's universally hated.

My grandparents gave us a $5 dollar note in a card as a wedding present. $5 dollars, that's about 2 quid. She bought my (male) cousin a car

My XH took my last £2 that I'd saved for cat food, and spent it on booze.

And there was the time he stole my purse with £40 shopping money in it. I found it months later, empty of cash with all my cards in.

My first BF who I lived with - I was unemployed and he was working. He threw the money for the rent on the floor so I had to pick it up.

So :( about these stories.

I don't get it. I can understand how some misunderstanding can arise - PILs helped BIL pay off some debt, to be "fair" they gave us the same in cash which we didn't expect them to do but they always make an effort to treat them the same. If they hadn't that's the sort of thing that could possibly lead to resentment. But plain meanness and complete favourtism?? How can you watch a member of your family struggle like that?

bringmesunshine have you called nectar and reported it stolen? I wouldn't be surprised if they can stop them and give you the points. I'd be surprised if any purse snatcher has thought to spend your nectar points!
Sorry that happened to you btw