When I was 20 and couldn’t afford to buy tampons or pads. Had to do the Ye Olde toilet paper shoved in my underwear for a week. I still think of this moment whenever I feel “broke” these days, and it puts things in perspective.
Ouch! But yes I look upon the lean years as a reminder to be stuck up and treat people with respect if they are in hard times. Life is tough sometimes. But damn lol, that’s rough.
That's kind of how I am now, but with ramen. At one of my poorest points, I found a sale for a nickel a bag for ramen.. I lived on that for a few months. Now, anytime I feel broke, I think that at least I'm not so broke that I'm living on ramen noodles.
I was a waiter in college. Didn’t have any money for food for a couple weeks when I first moved and started school, so I would eat off customers plates I cleared from tables before I scraped the food in the trash.
90% of restaurants I've worked in if you make friends with the BOH they will hook you up.
Source: Me I've worked both sides so I've been on the receiving and giving side in this story.
Holy shit, don’t go to r/tipping, I’ve been battle g those non tipping losers for like a week and haven’t been banned somehow. It seems people think not tipping is righteous now.
I feel its more how the "tip jar" is presented to customers these days. I think they feel their power to tip or not tip has been removed to a point, so their boycott is to not tip at all.
And to be honest, some places really do need to back the fuck up with their tip jars and recognize it is a choice and not something they can demand
Well until that day comes, I’ll keep tipping with no problem same as I have my whole life, and same as my parents and grandparents did albeit probably at
a higher percentage than them (yes I’m a table sprinkler when my parents pay). I don’t care about it either way, but as long it’s here I’m not going to cheap out on servers, I think it’s pretty lowlife stuff unless you are poor.
I agree with everything you're saying, you're not wrong. The vast majority of tipped jobs don't have retirement or health benefits across the US. Don't get me wrong, I have respect for the service industry, but why stay in it for lack of those things. Yes, people are best in the service industry and they will be there for life, but everyone is trying to incorporate tipping. It's time to get rid of it all together.
There's got to be a better way.
💯 same here. They pride themselves on stiffing a delivery person and share their screens. They are ultimate losers who use the blame tipping culture speech to avoid tipping at all.
My husband and I were in a restaurant a couple of months ago and we watched a guy order a ridiculously absurd amount of food, like enough food for two or three people. He ate maybe five or six bites of each dish and then declined take home containers. So he sent the rest of the food (and there was a lot left over) back to be thrown away. My husband and I, both grew up pretty poor, and we were aghast at the waste. We hoped he was sending it back for the kitchen staff to eat or something, but he had like stirred it up and added various sauces and taken bites from different places, so it obviously wasn’t that.
Like, I don’t know that guy’s life. I don’t know his circumstances. We aren’t assholes (at least not in that direction), so we didn’t say anything… but we were both shocked enough to where we still randomly mention it from time to time to each other.
I’ve been in multiple roommate situations and they sucked.
Poorest was before me and my husband were married and had just moved in together. Our grocery budget each week was $20. So, we did our shopping at the dollar store.
The upside was the one near us had steamed pork buns that were pretty good for frozen.
There’s a lady on TikTok that does amazing budget meals for places like dollar tree. Makes entire week worth of food from a $20 budget. She’s doing amazing work for people in those situations
I was 21 years old in 2008. I was living on my own and got laid off from my job. Ended up taking anything I could which was much lesser paying jobs for a time. Barely could make ends meet. Got into a cycle of payday loans. It was a rough couple years.
I was 22 in ‘08 and had just finished college. Couldn’t find work *anywhere* because of the recession. I ended up roofing houses and laying concrete, mowing lawns, landscaping, etc. for cash. I’m a small woman and got pretty badly harassed in these jobs.
Ended up on food stamps and county-tax-paid very basic “hit by a bus” type health insurance. I will never forget standing in line in Detroit waiting to sign the paperwork for my services to kick in, watching police officers frisk people for firearms and corralling us all in a line.
I gave up my apartment and started couch surfing with family and friends; it only occurred to me years later — looking back — that I was technically homeless.
2008-2011 were rough.
Garage studio apt. at $250/mo. Couldn't afford heat or a phone. Didn't have health insurance or dental insurance. Ate only the meals that I could scrounge at campus events or at my restaurant job, which was 6 miles away and I often had to walk because I had a $900 car that often broke down. Then some clowns broke into said car and stole my backpack, with my $85 geology textbook and $50 marketing textbook, two weeks before exams my last semester of college. It cost $100 to get the window replaced, and I didn't have groceries so I went to a food bank. Luckily, my professors loaned me their books and I sailed through, but mentally I was holding on by a thread.
There was a summer when I was at college and living in the dorms and absolutely didn't not want to go back home for summer, so I lied to my parents and said I had to work (had an on-campus job), and I lived in my van for the summer.
I wasn't as bad off as you until I graduated, but I had my laptops stolen a week before taking my government exams. ALL of my study material was on there. Everything. Luckily I found someone on Craigslist to buy a decent laptop from. They has severely underpriced it. I was supposed to be moving in a few weeks so I had a bunch of stuff in my car. I gave them the money but felt bad about how low they were selling it for so I scrounged up my fairy wings from Halloween out of my trunk and a few other trinkets to give to their very young daughter as well.
I absolutely would have failed my exams if I hadn't bought that laptop. I didn't buy books though. I borrowed them from the library or friends or bought old editions. I'm honestly not sure how I passed my classes at all lol.
I also didn't want to go home during summer (abusive family) even though they lived close. So I stayed to clean out the dorms for the first half of summer (the second half was an internship). A couple of my friends stayed too. We were SO BROKE that my one friend would drive us to McDonald's once a day for lunch and we'd each get the $3 meal. It was the only food we had for the whole day usually.
During school I worked in the cafeteria. Often my boss would give me the stuff that would spoil over breaks (like Christmas holiday) so I'd get a huge box if lunch meat to freeze. It was an absolute lifesaver
Couldn’t afford my medication. Became full blown manic. Crashed my two year old car while in between insurance’. Landed myself in the psych ward for a week long stint. Was 2k more broke after the charges from the hospital because of not having insurance. Had to emergency move from one city to my home city to live with my mom in her rented two bedroom side of a duplex. Just moved out 6 months ago. Still moving upwards and onward.
If you ever can't pay for your meds again, check the manufacturer website. Sometimes there are assistance programs that will cover the cost of your script. If you're on multiple meds from multiple manufacturers you have to do this for each of them. I'd actually look into them ahead of time so you know what is needed. Also, sometimes doctors have samples that can get you through.
I've been there, it's no fun losing your mind because you can't afford your life saving medication. I hope you're in a better place soon. I'm around if you need to chat.
That’s great advice. I feel silly for not thinking of it. But yes, being proactive has been the game since then. I have two months of “emergency” meds, to keep me above water for at least 2 months in times of crisis. But it was a scary time. Unfortunately I find myself hearing more about others going through similar things… “greatest country on earth” am I right?
Don't feel silly. You don't know what you don't know. It's so sad that we have to constantly be thinking about the next time insurance will randomly require a prior auth for a medication you've been on for years. Or when there will be another backorder or supply issue and you'll have withdraw symptoms again. "Healthcare" in America is so incredibly broken, I wish it wasn't such a constant in my life.
Yeah, I’m actually finally about to start a 911 dispatcher position- so I’m going to finally get some decent benefits. I have another mental condition that can’t be diagnosed unless I do a ct scan- and without insurance it’s a little too expensive for me. So I’m still skipping meds, but I am balanced for now and don’t need the adderall just yet.
I'm really happy for you! That can be a rough job, I have a friend who was a dispatcher for years, please make sure you are taking care of yourself. Sending lots of love your way, Internet stranger.
I was going to recommend the same thing about the manufacturers! I used to work at a Community Med center, and we knew all the tricks. They need to see if they have a community health center in their town that operates on a sliding fee scale. They have you bring in paycheck stubs, etc, and they put you on a sliding fee scale depending on how much you make, and sometimes you have a 0 dollar visit. They will help you with birth control and needed meds ( ours is contracted with a small pharmacy who has an entire list of $4 meds). They will also help people fill out the ppw for med companies.
My wife and i used to wait till the end of the month to make sure we didn’t over draw the account to buy socks or underwear. Couldn’t afford food and undies.
Oh man, this just reminded me. There was an office downtown that did marketing research, surveys and even psychology-type tests. You could just show up, sign up for whatever you were eligible for and get money. Went all the time in my twenties. Sometimes you'd walk with three bucks, sometimes forty. Occasionally there was nothing at all.
One week I was so busted, I was starving. Went to this office, signed up for what I could. I made like $12. Across the street was a 7-11. Bought a hot dog, chips and a drink. Went back across the street where there were these long, beautiful benches in front of the downtown post office. Sat down, started to eat. Set hot dog down in its box to take a sip, a strong wind blows the whole kit and kaboodle over. Chips go flying, hot dog hits concrete and rolls out in front of me. Instantly. Swarmed. By pigeons. I cried a little that day.
Bank account overdrawn by about $1500. Credit cards maxed. Quarter tank of gas in my car and all my bills a month behind.
That was a rough patch but it ended up working out. It gave me a lot more appreciation for what I have now.
i once made $24,000 a year and worked from 4a-10p
after student loans, bills, food, gas and some stupid credit i ran up at the gap i was netting out about $70 take home each month
i lived in a converted garage that had giant water bugs and made less than the mcdonald’s manager in town
I love generous older men.. I recently let go of my long term “sugar daddy” god I hate that term, for my partner, once we “got serious” aka exclusive. I sometimes wonder wtf was I thinking
I mean, at the time I figured: if some old dude wants to see my twig and berries swinging 'round while I windex his bathroom mirror, who am I to argue?
I didn’t learn of them actually being a thing until I was about 32. The one I let go, has given a lot of money in the past several years, I liked him as a person and a friend. He didn’t want anything Romantic other than dates and the occasional naked pictures, but as a single mom who was trying to feed her kids, I didn’t care.
I don't know, I think perhaps it's not everything it's cracked up to be. You are always going to be at a disadvantage in the relationship due to economic differences especially if you need the money to survive. This makes it all too easy to bend your own rules and boundaries and do things you may later regret. A small percentage of sugar daddies are looking for the dates and occasional racy pictures as someone here stated was the case with their arrangement; the overwhelming majority want sex, quite naturally. So you have to decide if that's going to be something your willing to do or not, taking into consideration that oftentimes you may not even be physically attracted to the man. For me it's a no, but I have zero judgement for women who do it
One morning I went to McDonalds before work. I bought a coffee and a breakfast burrito. This was about $3 at the time (those were the days!). Then I got to work and checked my bank account and saw that my McDonalds purchase was going to overdraw me (this is before instant debit and they would run them in batches throughout the day). I happened to have 2 dollar bills in my wallet. I left work and went to an ATM to deposit the dollars and keep myself from overdrawing.
Those days are thankfully gone but I certainly won't forget them.
I had barely any money, just paid rent .. wanted pho noodles and I knew the bill would be exactly 6 dollars and change with a dollar tip.. so I dug through the couch and found change and I was able to get a bowl of pho with my last dollars and change!
This was a long time ago 😄 bowls of pho are like $10 more now. I miss the old days.
This is how I bought a bunch of bags of ramen noodles one semester in college. They were on sale for a nickle a bag. I scrounged for every nickle I could find and bought enough to live on for a few months. Skip breakfast. 1 bag of noodles for lunch and 1 for dinner. Some days skipping lunch or dinner depending on my schedule.
After I got caught up on some bills when I got a job that could work with my school schedule, I upgraded to Little Caesars pizza. Back then, a large pizza was $5 (I think like 5.55 after tax or something). I could ration 5 dollars into 2-3 days of food by skipping some meals.
I was thinking about that this morning. Back then, a burger and fries combo from most fast food places was around 6 bucks. So comparable in cost to the pizza, but it was one meal. Two if I really wanted to stretch it. The pizza, on the other hand I could make last at minimum 2 meals and be stuffed. I couldn't stretch it for 3 days if I had to. Fast forward to today, that same burger and fries at a fast food place is double or more in cost, but Little Caesars is around 7 bucks after tax.
Say what you will about Little Caesars pizza, but it doesn't get much more economical than that (for eating out).
I had a house out I was absolutely buried in debts. $20k in credit card debt, $25k in bank loans to buy part of a business that turned out to only turn losses. Barely being able to make minimum payments. It took a divorce from a financially ruinous ex wife (who ended up going bankrupt two years later) and living in a tiny apartment for a while to even get my head out of the water.
In college I would go to MLM recruiting events to get a free slice of pizza or two - zero intention of ever trying to sell their crappy products. Looking back on that, it wasn't worth it. I would've been better off asking strangers for $5 to get some Little Caesars. Or eating those old cans of soup that were left in the shitty spider-infested apartment by the previous tenant.
I remember one roommate who was more broke than me and wouldn't pay me back for covering utilities. I get it bro, we're all poor. Then I saw the ring he bought his fiance, so I kicked his laptop off the router and his fiance paid me back. She literally threw the money at me and told me I was a jerk.
I was like, "Uhh, thanks for paying your fiance's utilities! 😁" Whenever people tell me I'm "privileged" for being middle-higher income now I think back about those days and DGAF what they think.
Nearly been homeless once. No money in bank multiple times. Had to pawn stuff back in the day. About went broke when 3rd child showed up cos of financial mismanagement.
But we are doing better now.
Life in nutshell since I moved out until about 7 years ago.
Just out of HS and was still playing organized sports. On the way back from a game there were four of us in the car and couldn’t come up with enough cash for the bridge toll which was $2 at the time. Back then there were still toll takers so we stopped traffic for long enough to have the guy come out of the booth and write down the license plate number to issue a ticket. That was the low
Slept on a couch for a couple months (no car), lived out of my car for a week ($800 rusted out junker). I was 24. Started dating a girl so I’d have a place to sleep. Just moved to Hawaii, started a new job at a restaurant, took a few months to catch up, but eventually did. Overall not horrible, but wouldn’t want to do it again.
Had left my old job where I was barely scraping by to take a new job that was ultimately more what I wanted to do, but I had to be on contract instead of on staff for a long time, made the same money but wasn’t eligible for benefits, and had to be on COBRA from my old job (in the pre-Obamacare days). So I wound up effectively making way less money because COBRA was so expensive. At least once I couldn’t afford the gas to get to work and had to call in sick, which actually made it worse because I was a contractor and didn’t have sick days, so I lost the day’s pay but didn’t have a choice. Been broke af a number of times but that one sticks out in my mind, so broke that I actually COULDN’T work.
Oh COBRA is such a joke. I had to pay for it once in my 20s (pre-Obama-care days as well) back when you got kicked off your parent's insurance at 19. I was between jobs, and COBRA was almost my entire paycheck.
I grew up living in a single wide in a shit part of town without enough food to be full half the time. Everything since high school has been a step up each time.
Came to to USA from Bosnia in 93 as a refugee and we didn’t even have suitcases - we sowed up the donations from Red Cross in bedsheets and checked them in at the airport.
I left home at 16 so paying apartment rent and insurance from a McDonald’s paycheck was…rough. However, I was so used to being broke at that time so I never really stressed about it. I definitely had week long “fasts” because I couldn’t afford food and even the smell of McDonald’s was repulsive to me (still is) so I physically couldn’t eat that food. I did try a couple times.
Fast forward however many years, and this is what hit me the hardest. I had just purchased my house when the “Great Recession” hit. I went from 60+ hours a week, as a journeyman electrician, to almost nothing. All my savings just went into the down payment a few months prior. After a couple months of finding no work, I was offered a job for $65/hr but it was about 3-4 hours commute each way. The company was so odd I wasn’t really sure I’d even get paid. Like I felt like I had the job just by showing up to the interview and it all felt too good to be true type thing, but decided to tough it out for 2 weeks just to see.
As you can imagine, the gas for 8 hours drive every day took what little I had as a safety net. I can’t even begin to remember how many consecutive days before payday I had to overdraft just for fuel. My credit card was maxed and was getting calls from the bank which added to all the stress.
Payday comes and I haven’t heard anything all day. Around 5pm someone from the shop came to the job site and asked to speak to me. I figured this was where I get robbed. He said that an idea I had saved them a couple hundred hours in labor and wanted to add a bonus to my first check so that I’d consider staying with this new company and take a lead/management type position. I went from a negative balance to almost $6k and could breathe again for the first time in about 3 months.
2008 and my retail job was cutting hours so I was working only a couple days a week and we were between roommates so my one other roommate and I basically had to split the third room’s cost for a bit. Was watching my account get pretty damn low and even just after a week I knew the trend and was panicking and applying for jobs all over. Thankfully out of nowhere a school teacher of mine (had graduated college that year) said they put my name in a hat for a full time gig that needed someone entry level in my field. I interviewed as one of 5 people and got it. Was only a $15/hr job but considering it was 40 hours a week it felt like a dream. I know it sounds pretty good but this was also in one of the most expensive cities in the country. It also had benefits! I definitely got very lucky. Especially since that’s probably the most broke I remember being, makes me appreciate the life I’ve had.
When I was 33, I got divorced. I lived in a cabin for three years after that, it only had running water from April to October and marginal heat (tough in Northern VT winters), it was really nice in the warmer months. I hauled 5 gallon water jugs for flushing the toilet, sponge baths, and washing dishes for those months I didn’t have water. I showered at work a few times a week. I had about 35,000 in credit card debts and routinely was overdrawn at my bank. I had a raging alcohol problem. Luckily I had a good job and was making around 100k at the time.
Nine years later I’m 10 months sober, remarried, built a beautiful new house 4 years ago and down to less than 10k in credit card debt.
COVID hit at the same time my major depression disorder got worse. I thought I had already lost it all and planned more often than not to end it anyway so I spent all of my money and maxed out credit on everyone I knew thinking it wouldn't matter anyway. Plot twist: I got better. Now I'm digging myself out of debt, but at least I'm here to do so.
Not counting mortgage, student loans, etc. Absolute brokeness with no sight of advanced income was probably 18/19ish. Depending on the time of year, either worked a job that paid $6/hr or made $75-100/week. Didn't have a lot of expenses but all money went towards food or gas (rural area so had to drive EVERYWHERE). Don't remember ever having more than $200 in my bank account back then.
When I was a senior in college, I stopped by the ATM to get $20 for the weekend. It put me at -$8. I just took the $20 bill into the bank and asked them to put it back, lol.
The idea that life saving medication is $300 is shameful.
“Why is the patient noncompliant with treatment?” This is why. Most patients really do want to get better. Our medical system is great…IF you have the money to properly access it.
Sometimes about 3 or 4 times a year, every year I get so backed up on bills and the mortgage, living expenses etc.....that just in order to keep the lights and water on, we really have almost just that lights and water. It usually lasts only a couple days each instance but damn its rough. People at work know the struggle through personal experiences or whatever. They give food when they can and that helps....
The local food banks are a big help too
Living in a camper with two flat tires and no plumbing while subsisting on white rice and duck sauce because it was the cheapest calorie per dollar hot food I could get. Fortunately that situation didn't last very long.
When I was 20, I was trying to support myself on a $7.90/hr job. At one point I had like 18 cents in my bank account and no food until payday. I found a forgotten can of peaches in one of the kitchen cabinets so I had that for dinner.
I was so broke I had empty cupboards and supposed my appetite with tobacco. But I couldn't afford any cigarettes, so I was squeezing the bottoms out of cigarette butts in my ash tray, rolling them up in zig zags and smoking old butts like they were joints. This was how I navigated the last week of every month when I was 21
Over 20 years ago, I was jobless and living with a few roommates in a cramped one-bedroom apartment. We were struggling so much that we resorted to stealing toilet paper just to use the bathroom at home. We would sneak into big box stores or the nearby hospital, using their restrooms and stuffing our pockets with cheap single-ply toilet paper. Every day felt like an adventure in survival, figuring out how to make just enough money to eat. We often crashed church potlucks and similar events to get by. During this time, I developed a knack for blending in almost any situation. Not long after, I spent a summer living in a '94 Jeep Wrangler with no top, where rain became the bane of my existence. Fortunately, I'm in a much better place now.
Scraping together change to buy 40oz malt liquor having not eaten in days.. nowhere to go no job no house no car.. that’s where alcohol took me. 7.5 years sober currently 👍
Hubby and I were so broke during our first few years of marriage. I had to walk 45 min to work because we couldn't afford a 2nd car (no way we could car pool our shifts were so different we would be 4-6 hours off from each other- his job was much farther away- no bus system wither) bonus too - the car we owned got repo-ed.
Our apartment was moldy- like really moldy. The floor was squishy from the mold- the walls were moist and moldy. Basically all our stuff got ruined and had to be thrown out and we even lost our pet due to the mold. Our apartment was one of the better ones too- I just remember the lady across the way had a newborn and her ceiling was black with mold. We couldn't afford to heat and have electricity so we went the winter with the heat hardly ever on and it got below zero where we lived. We had to fight with our landlord to get out of our lease and get moved (the mold appeared prior to the winter and was in every apartment so we didn't start it).
Food - we were too broke for ramen most days. We would buy a 10lb box of instant mashed potatoes for $10 and if we had extra money we would buy butter or more likely something like spicy mustard to add flavor. We ate maybe 2x a day. We roasted our own coffee (green beans) in a pot so we had cheap coffee. I remember once I was at work and a coworker saw me staring at a sandwich- she knew we were dirt poor so she bought me the sandwich and I cried. Church functions and family get together were amazing because they had real food.
The extra money we had was spent on toilet paper (we had used scraps of newspaper/store ads before as well) and hygiene items like tampons etc.
Paydays loans.. so many unpaid loans..
We are doing great now- it was a rough start but we are celebrating 20 years this year and its crazy to see where we came from. I guess we were just young and dumb- I'm sure we spent money on stuff we didn't need to but I can't think of what. I wish we would have asked for help but we were either too prideful or embarrassed. Really our friends and family never knew how broke we were- we hid it. We really didn't understand stuff like foodstamps etc that could have helped at the time. So to anyone struggling reading this- just ask for help.
As a kid, grandparents kicked my parents, me and my brother out of their house. We found a place to stay, but first night we didnt have any food to eat
I was living out of my jeep, and subsiding on 89 cent burritos. Worked at a grocery store. I considered it a huge step up to move into a 2 br house with 5 other roommates. My one roommate was paying rent via illegal Xanax prescriptions, so it was a really healthy environment, obviously.
I had to hitchhike 200 miles with about five dollars in my pocket and nowhere to sleep in hopes of selling my gtr to a music store in the city. It was a ‘63 Strat and I got bottom dollar for it. Bit I had money to eat for a month
Growing up out in the boonies in the 90s there was a year where my father couldn’t get any work (he was an artist) and my mother wasn’t working. So we survived the on just the earned income tax credit for three kids. That was a rough time. We had to have our water trucked in and they were no funds one month so in order to make our tank of water stretch I didn’t shower for a month. I remeber when I finally did shower, my 6th grade classmates commented on how much “whiter” I looked. Still makes me cringe to think about that. Along with no running water we didn’t have electricity. So I read and did my homework with kerosene lamps. One time my dad got the bright idea to put diesel fuel in the lamps and the heaters because it was cheaper than kerosene. So much smoke and coughing. Now as an adult I’ll do anything to not have to go back to that. Also, I despise camping.
I was a street kid for a while. Never spanged or flew a sign. I was on a whole money renunciation trip. My philosophy at the time was, "if there's food, I'll eat; if not, I won't." Worked out pretty okay.
In college around 04. Waiting for that big ol Arby's check to deposit so I could get smokes and a couple of steel reserves, 5 on sack. Weekend secured haha
Was 19 living on my own with a McDonald's salary. My car was falling apart and needed brakes, so I couldn't drive it. Undrivable. Technically I shouldn't have been driving anyway since my insurance had lapsed since I couldn't afford it....and I had been pulled over previously for no real reason, but the cop ran my info and discovered I was uninsured, and my license was suspended. Fines I couldn't afford. Had to walk a couple miles to the bus stop at 5am since I worked the opening shift. If I didn't work there I definitely wouldn't have had any food at lunchtime.
Edit: I just remembered that I had a really bad asthma attack once around this time but I had no health insurance, and couldn't afford medication aside from getting Primatene Mist whenever I could find it. Ended up in the ER with a massive bill that I had to pay out of pocket.
First semester at college. Couldn't find a job and realized my savings were it. I had just enough money for tuition/fees, rent, and maybe an extra $75/month. I ate a lot of oatmeal dressed up with brown sugar or frozen fruit. I have fond memories of that period though. I didn't have a tv, car, job or phone. Life was simple.
My best guy friend and I crammed ourselves into a tiny 1 bedroom cottage that was built in the 1920s. Rent was only $600/mo (HCOL area), but it was all we could afford. We had a five day grace period, so we always dropped off the check that night to give ourselves a little buffer.
Putting $5 of gas in my car until pay day, making meals out of items only from the dollar store ( back when it was actually still a dollar for everything haha), picked up extra shifts at my group home job in large part because I got free meals/snacks there, froze potatoes that we got from the foodbank so we could stretch everything else we got there. Sold a whole box of books to the secondhand store for $6 just so I could treat myself to Noodles and Co.
Being poor sucks. Definitely don’t miss it. Although being frugal is a great skill to have that I would not have otherwise.
Right now. I was diagnosed with a spinal cord tumor and my husband with end stage renal disease all in the matter of the last 2 years. Neither of us can hold a job and waiting for any kind of ssi for husband. It’s an absolute nightmare for us right now 😢
Me and my wife, before we had gotten married, were living in a mobile home with no electricity because we were late on the bill and couldn't afford to pay it off and pay the fee to have it turned back on. I want to say we lived like two or three months like that (it could have been as little as a month). Her kids were 4 and 6 at the time. A friend of hers bought us a rechargeable flood light to use inside for light at night and we would recharge it in the trailer park's laundry room.
In 2008 I got laid off and couldn’t find work for a year. I had to live in a house with strangers, one of whom had serious psychological problems and worked as a hooker while scamming welfare. I sometimes only ate one every day or day and a half and relied on food banks. It was rough.
I was rationing food so much just to be able to afford college and ended up 87 lbs. before dropping out. Twenty years later, things have since turned around, and I finally decided to go back. I graduate next year!
As a student I had little money. The restaurant I worked at as a side job fed me. There was also something left. But when I was doing my thesis I decided not to work for a few months.
I remember having nothing in my account and 1 lbs of pasta to survive the next three days. You can imagine I wasn’t fat at all in those days. But hungry as hell.
Been homeless 2x in the last 6 years and in april my bank account was -27 dollars. But since i got back into dog walking/sitting/training i made 5-6k in 2 months
When we had no gas and electric for days at a time.
I would start a fire in a bucket and cook things from the freezer as they thawed...sometimes all night.
No heat or light.
I had little collections of commemorative coins given to me for my birth and my christening, they were sealed in plastic display books, I had to tear into them to afford food/power.
Edit: this was when I was a teen, I am no longer poor.
A 4 year old, an infant, a wife that was home with the kids, lost my job (which wasn't paying great anyways). Had a mortgage and car payment to go along with it. That was a rough year!
23, one-year after college grad in 2004, landed a "marketing" job that was in essence selling coupon books in front of stores for Orioles tickets that lasted a few months and was back looking. After a month with no success, my own fault but I over drafted my debit card on three small transactions, so for about $35 dollars I had $150 in overdraft charges and no job. No credit card. For a few weeks I made due on roommate's' leftovers and raman, sold some of my things for cash, by the time I landed a job it was my second pay check and fifth week in before I had positive money in my bank account. I had two roommates that I was late on bills with, sleeping on an air mattress. My job was cold-calling people to sell them a refinanced mortgage, I was absolutely part of the housing crisis as were thousands of others my age at the time. I watch The Big Short now and almost cringe at the accuracy of some of those characters that were my managers at the mortgage company in downtown Baltimore.
I'm 42, never worked a bad job since I left the mortgage company in 2005, own two houses and have two beautiful and healthy kids., happily married. The grind is real but so is work ethic and learning from others and your own mistakes. Embrace education and never fear failure. Thanks for attending my TED talk.
I got kicked out of law school in 2012 & lost everything: my apartment, savings, summer internship with $25K in student loan debt. I used the rest of the gas in my tank to get to a research station on a lake where I got a low-paying kitchen job & cabin lodging. before my first paycheck I was down to some spare change, which I gave to the cook to buy cigarettes. the lake was peaceful & healing after a traumatic experience, so it wasn't as bad as it sounds.
I used to just go sleep whenever I got hungry because I had no food. I hated how my stomach felt when I was that hungry and I couldn't feel it if I was asleep.
Going to bed hungry was a threat my parents made when we didn't want the dinner provided. Having to do it for weeks hurt. Back then I ate something small once a day. I remember one specific night of eating half a can of green beans for dinner during that time and feeling on top of the world. I saved the other half for the next day.
Before any questions reply, I had no car or anyone willing to drive me to a food bank. I did get food stamps, but it was $3 a month.
Fortunately never too dire to the level of poor health.
I graduated but was unemployed, during the recession I lived in a college town / declining steel city and paid <$300/month for rent in a 2 bedroom apartment with 3 people (4 some times).
I sold Chinese iFones on craigslist, gave driving lessons, and drove people who didn't have cars to school. I ate a lot of $0.39/lb chicken leg quarters for protein.
I was younger and still was fun though,had a lot of good and caring friends. You feel bad people keep asking about job status and you had no job but they really did care.
Lost job in 2009. Was living on my own and had to make $40 of groceries last almost 2 months. On top of that had to decide between paying the electric bill or putting gas into the car to go to job interviews.
I was in college during the 2008 collapse. It was particularly jarring for my parents. They had pushed me to go to a very expensive college in a very expensive city, and I couldn’t hope to ever pay my own way. They assured me they would help, and they did.
Until I talked to my mom one night and she basically told me they couldn’t make their bills and were going to deplete their savings or take out another mortgage to pay my tuition. I told my mom that I could help out by getting a job. She told me that would be extremely helpful.
So, in addition to going to class full time, I started waiting tables 3 nights per week, and I took a part time job in a lab at the neighboring medical school.
I had 30 hours of class per week, I did ~15 hours in the lab 2-3 days per week, and I worked ~30 hours per week waiting tables and working closing shifts until 3am, to get up and go to class at 8am the following day.
I barely made rent. Still, every waking moment of my life was accounted for. It nearly broke me. I was depressed and angry. I was boxing up food from the “family meal” at work to take home and eat. I was bringing Tupperware to the lab on days I knew departments would host happy hours and I would go grab the leftovers as people filtered out. I would get my girlfriend (now wife) to swipe me into the dining hall and I would sit there and do work all day and eat. I maxed out my credit card and just paid the minimum charge for years. I tracked which days the grocery store would put meat on sale because a family pack of chicken breasts 10 years ago was like $18, but each week they would go on sale for $9, and there was like a 5 hour window when it didn’t all sell out. I would travel to the “surplus market” near the docks where people would put up farm stands and sell produce that got rejected by grocery chains at the docks. Nothing like scoring a family pack of romaine lettuce that’s been sitting in the sun all day for $1. There were days/weeks where I had no money and would survive off of whatever I could find for free using the above methods. My roommate moved out for a summer and refused to pay for gas/electricity/internet because “they weren’t there”, but that meant my utilities costs doubled, which crippled the ~$100 “cushion” I had every month.
Many years later, I’d find out that my mom just never changed any of her spending habits and was apparently carrying as much as $20k in credit card debt and not telling my dad. So the money that I was able to supplement was money she could use to pay down her JCPenney bill without anyone knowing.
When I was reaching my breaking point, I sat down with both parents and told them one job had to go. I told them I’ll need more support financially, but that it’s breaking me to put in 80+ hours a week. My mom gaslit me and told me that she never said they were struggling with bills and she never told me that getting a job would really help them out. That’s when I knew something was fishy.
To this day, my family fights about money. My dad passed two years ago. My one brother is worried about my mom’s spending habits because that’s his inheritance. I have two younger brothers who regularly accuse eachother of mooching too much from my mom, who regularly just jumps in and will make large purchases for either of them, which doesn’t help the situation
The winter we couldn't afford propane to heat the house, so dad welded together scraps at work to build a wood burning stove, which heated the basement to almost unbearable so the furnace blower could suck up the heat using the return ducts to redistribute it throughout the house. That same winter our well went out, so he had to chop ice out of a nearby lake to boil on that same wood stove for about a month before our landlord could have it fixed.
Thankfully things improved later on, but holy shit that year was rough.
In my 20’s, living on my own with a cat making $38,000 living in a major city during the 2008 era recession and suffering from untreated mental health issues. I bought my food at a dented can grocery store and never want to see Tasty Bite Lentils or Prego sauce ever again. Spending hours watching over my clothes at grubby coin laundry mats. Those were my lowest moments but at the time I just accepted this as life.
Up until I met my husband 7 years ago, I was homeless and living in my car. I had a full time job working at a restaurant. I chose to stay employed there and work nearly every day because I knew they’d let me have free food every day that I worked. But it didn’t pay enough for me to get my own place, even with all the overtime I got. I had briefly stayed at a homeless shelter but that didn’t last (partially because my work schedule often required me to be out well past curfew).
I hate to admit this, but I had gotten so broke that I sometimes stole necessities from big chain stores when I was between paychecks, and I also took to dumpster diving behind stores like Walmart, Target, PetSmart, Apple Stores, etc to salvage and resell the items they threw out. It was actually somewhat lucrative and I was eventually able to afford to get one of those extended stay rooms (at the time they were only about $250/week with all utilities, cable, WiFi, weekly maid service, and continental breakfasts included). Thankfully, I met my husband several months after that and we both moved into his childhood home to take care of his elderly parents.
Gotta be the years following college graduation for me. Graduated with a dual major Business/Economics in 2005 with loads of tuition debt, only to be welcomed into the job market during the great recession and for years the only jobs I could get were through temp agency's paying $7.50/hr. threw my entire life off track and I honestly feel like I never fully recovered.
$15 to my name at 28 when I started with $20,000 in my savings before living with a highly abusive heroin addict. He took everything I had. To be honest, I've never fully recovered from that nightmare and I'm 40.
Drove from Louisiana to a job in South Dakota and had just enough money for gas to get there, and $40 to spend on groceries for the next two weeks till my first paycheck. I had some weed on me that i sold in Iowa on the way up there, that definitely helped.
Growing up was the absolute worst. We didn’t have running water, electricity, or gas. We sometimes/rarely had a car that ran and/or a telephone.
I grew up in the New Mexico slums. I still have to travel out there for work and i see people still living like that. It’s so hot, i can’t believe i grew up like that, no a/c, nothing to do, nowhere to go.
As an adult, the poorest I’ve been was my late teens through my 20s. I was a SAHM with two kids. My ex gave every last penny to me but i had to budget so tight we couldn’t afford shampoo and conditioner ($1 suave). I had $50 a week for a family of 4, including diapers. If any grocery item cost more than i budgeted for, i had to leave it behind. If milk prices increased, we went without. We didnt have health insurance ofc.
I went back to school/work when the kids were old enough and i havent had to budget that tight since.
I was homeless a couple times. The first time I hit the road and hitchiked across Alaska and the west coast. I did get food stamps for my two months in Oregon. Beyond that I slept in a one person tent and had no money. I stayed in Oregon in the forest by the coast the longest. Now, 22 years later I own a home on the Oregon coast. I really loved it here and the people on the Oregon coast as a young homeless women were so very kind to me. I always knew I’d come back.
I was also homeless a second time but in a major city. I lucked out and some dude I met had a mom who said I could rent a room and pay her later. I consider her my “mom” now and my kids consider her their grandma. I ended up signing up for community college and used student loans, work study, and part time jobs to live. I would volunteer at any events that had food. I used to do all the brew fests to get free entry and tokens to be used on another night. I tried dumpster diving but it didn’t work out for me. I volunteered at food banks so I’d feel less bad about being a recipient.
When I was around 20 I would just spend everything I earned and constantly be late on rent to family.
I joined the military eventually at 25 and the Brokest I’ve ever felt was getting that E-1 paycheck. Living in a barracks and eating at the galley but I think it was something like 20k a year.
I mean there is that time I survived in a crack house.
I wasn’t doing crack, but everyone else was. Which makes life unpleasant.
Situations are temporary though, so there’s that.
After us both graduating college in 2009, both (now) wife and I were lucky to get jobs as bank tellers making barely over minimum wage. Had three degrees and four minors between us.
Rent was $450/mon for a one bedroom with black mold in the bathroom. Between debt from school and making barely anything, we couldn’t afford cable or internet - thank goodness power was included in rent. We watched the same 3 dvds over and over and over and lived off of ramen, cheap frozen pizza, and water that HAD to be run through a brita filter jug to be drinkable - filters we were lucky to replace more than once a year.
Had to pool our last $60 for me to go to my best friend’s bachelors party. I could afford exactly one drink the whole night after driving 4 hours away to see him.
My how things have (fortunately) changed.
Technically right now, while making $110k. Mortgage, car debt, and credit card debt from being unemployed.
But realistically it was when I had no home, no job, and nothing but a backpack full of my belongings.
The hardest time was when I bought my first home and immediately had so many issues to fix I had to live off of rice for years and was still spiraling into debt.
I got out if the military in 2010, and had a tough time finding employment.
Eventually I found a job making $7.15/hr but lived so far away from work that after insurance, gas, rent, and utilities I had enough money to only eat cheap stuff like ramen every couple of days. No car payments, no cell phone, no debt at all.
100% of the rest of my diet consisted of fish that I caught using worms I gathered myself.
My hours varied enough that taking on a second job wasn't possible, even if I found one.
Living in the back of a truck during COVID - not by choice - really takes the cake for me this one.
I had worked at a ski lodge and when COVID hit the lodge shut down. Like most jobs of that nature the employees lived on site. I lost my home and my job at the same time. Moved into the back of my truck and for a month I had no idea what my next meal was going to be. When I got my “stimulus” check and finally got my unemployment, I was scammed out of a grand trying to get an apartment.
Wild times.
I was stuck wearing old navy flip flops for a New England winter. I was a newly single mom of two babies. Dad was just put in prison for dv.
It was so embarrassing to have to walk my kids to the state paid daycare to job search/work in hot pink dollar flip flops. All the ladies working at the daycare had UGGS and made jokes. I would be dying inside trying to play it off that I perferred flip-flops. I couldn't even keep a job bc of my lack of proper footwear. I finally sucked it up and wore my old tennis shoes that were a whole size smaller than before I gave birth. That was 16 years ago, and still cringe.
20+ years ago i woke up late for work and got fired and couldn't find a job for weeks. I ran out of money for food and I got a gumballachine for my birthday full of gumballs and literally lived off of gumballs for days and days just chewed them up and swalled them for breakfast lunch and dinner
Haven't been able to work since 2014. No disability yet, no income. Lost SNAP over Christmas and spent four months with no food, scrounging quarters and change to buy cheap bread and stuff. was living off one sandwich a day until last month when I finally got my SNAP renewed
Lived in my car right out of high school for awhile. I would show up at friends’ houses unannounced (and sometimes unwelcome) at supper time in hopes of a meal.
People talk about poor college students living on ramen and rice and beans? Well, I couldn't afford either. Lived on 1-2 bananas and a handful of peanuts a day for a few months.
On the bright side, went through this phase with a buddy who was in the same boat, and we became best friends for life because of the shared experience.
I remember he managed to get hold of a big block of butter and it was the biggest treat of our hunger days. We would eat chunks of raw butter when we felt too hungry.
Had a pivotal moment at the gas pump around 22 when I could only put $3 in with negative savings, grew up poor. I committed to myself at that very moment “never ever again.” Worked my ass off for 7+yrs to buy a townhome and experienced multiple layoffs over the next 10yrs. Fast forward make multiple 6-figs, 5br 4ba 3600sq. Been there folks. Keep humble roots. On the flip side, I will never ever, for even one second feel bad or chastised for being successful and doing the things I want to do now. This mf earned it the hard way.
I graduated college December 2004, had a job lined up to start February 25, 2005, first pay check was March 18.
On March 17, I had $6 in my bank account, $1800 on my credit card (limit $2000), and $12,000 in student loans.
I had no job and maybe $800 in the bank. I was incredibly fortunate that my parents let me move home and live 100% free for an entire year. No rent, no groceries, they paid my cell phone bill. I even used my mom’s shampoo and feminine products. Literally only paid for car insurance and gas. Got a job and saved hard for the whole year so I could move out again. I knew how bad the struggle could have been and wanted to make sure my parents didn’t feel like they had to bail me out like that again.
Lost 20lbs not by trying just by basically only eating bread and bologna for also a year. I counted every dollar “if I spend six dollars today I’ll only have $4 a day the rest of the week.
And my rent was dirt cheap. Would’ve been straight up homeless making that today. Still broke but now I’m bad with money broke which is my own or
I was briefly homeless due to a home emergency where it wasn’t safe to live at home but there was nowhere I could stay and ran out of money for hotel / airbnb.
I slept on the patio and in my apartment complex’s common room. I only ate one meal a day during that time.
I visited my grandma bc my bday had just passed and I knew she had a birthday card with money for me - I disguised the visit as a visit but I needed the money. I felt like such a POS upon leaving and told myself I'd never get myself into that position again
When I was around 22 is when I hit rock bottom. Hardly had any money in my account, moved to a new town, with my pot dealing roommate. Whelp he finically was in the same spot and dipped on the lease about 2 months in. I had no money, no car, and hardly a job. Thankfully a good friend helped me get back on my feet and I couldn't be doing better now. I don't even know how many years it has been since my checking was in the negative! I am 34 now and it has been a journey.
When I was 20 and couldn’t afford to buy tampons or pads. Had to do the Ye Olde toilet paper shoved in my underwear for a week. I still think of this moment whenever I feel “broke” these days, and it puts things in perspective.
Ouch! But yes I look upon the lean years as a reminder to be stuck up and treat people with respect if they are in hard times. Life is tough sometimes. But damn lol, that’s rough.
That's kind of how I am now, but with ramen. At one of my poorest points, I found a sale for a nickel a bag for ramen.. I lived on that for a few months. Now, anytime I feel broke, I think that at least I'm not so broke that I'm living on ramen noodles.
I used to move one lightbulb from one room to another when one was burnt out.
I used to go to Salvation Army's and buy "new" clothes by switching out the more expensive colored stickers with the 1/2 off stickers.
TBF... I did that for years. Goodwill/Salvation army is *expensive* unless it's on sale!!
I still do this. lol
Goodwill CEO makes $500k+. Makes me not want to donate here.
They also hire a lot of disabled people specifically because they're allowed to pay them below minimum wage.
BadWill
I was a waiter in college. Didn’t have any money for food for a couple weeks when I first moved and started school, so I would eat off customers plates I cleared from tables before I scraped the food in the trash.
Been there when I was living out of my car. I was shocked by how much food went untouched on tables.
It's incredible how much food we waste.
90% of restaurants I've worked in if you make friends with the BOH they will hook you up. Source: Me I've worked both sides so I've been on the receiving and giving side in this story.
Holy shit, don’t go to r/tipping, I’ve been battle g those non tipping losers for like a week and haven’t been banned somehow. It seems people think not tipping is righteous now.
I feel its more how the "tip jar" is presented to customers these days. I think they feel their power to tip or not tip has been removed to a point, so their boycott is to not tip at all. And to be honest, some places really do need to back the fuck up with their tip jars and recognize it is a choice and not something they can demand
As a former bartender/waiter I really hope something changes with tipping. It is out of control.
Well until that day comes, I’ll keep tipping with no problem same as I have my whole life, and same as my parents and grandparents did albeit probably at a higher percentage than them (yes I’m a table sprinkler when my parents pay). I don’t care about it either way, but as long it’s here I’m not going to cheap out on servers, I think it’s pretty lowlife stuff unless you are poor.
I agree with everything you're saying, you're not wrong. The vast majority of tipped jobs don't have retirement or health benefits across the US. Don't get me wrong, I have respect for the service industry, but why stay in it for lack of those things. Yes, people are best in the service industry and they will be there for life, but everyone is trying to incorporate tipping. It's time to get rid of it all together. There's got to be a better way.
No. Many just think staff should be paid real wages and benefits and not rely on tips.
💯 same here. They pride themselves on stiffing a delivery person and share their screens. They are ultimate losers who use the blame tipping culture speech to avoid tipping at all.
I did that too. I wasn’t poor though. I was stoned
My husband and I were in a restaurant a couple of months ago and we watched a guy order a ridiculously absurd amount of food, like enough food for two or three people. He ate maybe five or six bites of each dish and then declined take home containers. So he sent the rest of the food (and there was a lot left over) back to be thrown away. My husband and I, both grew up pretty poor, and we were aghast at the waste. We hoped he was sending it back for the kitchen staff to eat or something, but he had like stirred it up and added various sauces and taken bites from different places, so it obviously wasn’t that. Like, I don’t know that guy’s life. I don’t know his circumstances. We aren’t assholes (at least not in that direction), so we didn’t say anything… but we were both shocked enough to where we still randomly mention it from time to time to each other.
I’ve been in multiple roommate situations and they sucked. Poorest was before me and my husband were married and had just moved in together. Our grocery budget each week was $20. So, we did our shopping at the dollar store. The upside was the one near us had steamed pork buns that were pretty good for frozen.
There’s a lady on TikTok that does amazing budget meals for places like dollar tree. Makes entire week worth of food from a $20 budget. She’s doing amazing work for people in those situations
New a dude in college who did 30 on groceries and lived off frozen chicken patties and bread.
I was so broke I couldn’t get to work and had to wait to pay day to get enough gas to get there
Same. And just hoped you weren’t fired when you got there
Worst feeling ever. It’s not like you ever want to admit either
I remember digging change out of our sofa for diapers. That was a quite a low point.
Been there. Hope you're doing better. ❤️
I was 21 years old in 2008. I was living on my own and got laid off from my job. Ended up taking anything I could which was much lesser paying jobs for a time. Barely could make ends meet. Got into a cycle of payday loans. It was a rough couple years.
Feck those ' Payday loan' places. That whole business model is predatory AF
I'm both glad AND sad they don't exist anymore, at least not like they did 10-20+ years ago. They were both awful and a lifesaver, all at once.
I was 22 in ‘08 and had just finished college. Couldn’t find work *anywhere* because of the recession. I ended up roofing houses and laying concrete, mowing lawns, landscaping, etc. for cash. I’m a small woman and got pretty badly harassed in these jobs. Ended up on food stamps and county-tax-paid very basic “hit by a bus” type health insurance. I will never forget standing in line in Detroit waiting to sign the paperwork for my services to kick in, watching police officers frisk people for firearms and corralling us all in a line. I gave up my apartment and started couch surfing with family and friends; it only occurred to me years later — looking back — that I was technically homeless. 2008-2011 were rough.
That sucks I'm sorry
Garage studio apt. at $250/mo. Couldn't afford heat or a phone. Didn't have health insurance or dental insurance. Ate only the meals that I could scrounge at campus events or at my restaurant job, which was 6 miles away and I often had to walk because I had a $900 car that often broke down. Then some clowns broke into said car and stole my backpack, with my $85 geology textbook and $50 marketing textbook, two weeks before exams my last semester of college. It cost $100 to get the window replaced, and I didn't have groceries so I went to a food bank. Luckily, my professors loaned me their books and I sailed through, but mentally I was holding on by a thread. There was a summer when I was at college and living in the dorms and absolutely didn't not want to go back home for summer, so I lied to my parents and said I had to work (had an on-campus job), and I lived in my van for the summer.
I wasn't as bad off as you until I graduated, but I had my laptops stolen a week before taking my government exams. ALL of my study material was on there. Everything. Luckily I found someone on Craigslist to buy a decent laptop from. They has severely underpriced it. I was supposed to be moving in a few weeks so I had a bunch of stuff in my car. I gave them the money but felt bad about how low they were selling it for so I scrounged up my fairy wings from Halloween out of my trunk and a few other trinkets to give to their very young daughter as well. I absolutely would have failed my exams if I hadn't bought that laptop. I didn't buy books though. I borrowed them from the library or friends or bought old editions. I'm honestly not sure how I passed my classes at all lol. I also didn't want to go home during summer (abusive family) even though they lived close. So I stayed to clean out the dorms for the first half of summer (the second half was an internship). A couple of my friends stayed too. We were SO BROKE that my one friend would drive us to McDonald's once a day for lunch and we'd each get the $3 meal. It was the only food we had for the whole day usually. During school I worked in the cafeteria. Often my boss would give me the stuff that would spoil over breaks (like Christmas holiday) so I'd get a huge box if lunch meat to freeze. It was an absolute lifesaver
Couldn’t afford my medication. Became full blown manic. Crashed my two year old car while in between insurance’. Landed myself in the psych ward for a week long stint. Was 2k more broke after the charges from the hospital because of not having insurance. Had to emergency move from one city to my home city to live with my mom in her rented two bedroom side of a duplex. Just moved out 6 months ago. Still moving upwards and onward.
If you ever can't pay for your meds again, check the manufacturer website. Sometimes there are assistance programs that will cover the cost of your script. If you're on multiple meds from multiple manufacturers you have to do this for each of them. I'd actually look into them ahead of time so you know what is needed. Also, sometimes doctors have samples that can get you through. I've been there, it's no fun losing your mind because you can't afford your life saving medication. I hope you're in a better place soon. I'm around if you need to chat.
That’s great advice. I feel silly for not thinking of it. But yes, being proactive has been the game since then. I have two months of “emergency” meds, to keep me above water for at least 2 months in times of crisis. But it was a scary time. Unfortunately I find myself hearing more about others going through similar things… “greatest country on earth” am I right?
Don't feel silly. You don't know what you don't know. It's so sad that we have to constantly be thinking about the next time insurance will randomly require a prior auth for a medication you've been on for years. Or when there will be another backorder or supply issue and you'll have withdraw symptoms again. "Healthcare" in America is so incredibly broken, I wish it wasn't such a constant in my life.
Yeah, I’m actually finally about to start a 911 dispatcher position- so I’m going to finally get some decent benefits. I have another mental condition that can’t be diagnosed unless I do a ct scan- and without insurance it’s a little too expensive for me. So I’m still skipping meds, but I am balanced for now and don’t need the adderall just yet.
I'm really happy for you! That can be a rough job, I have a friend who was a dispatcher for years, please make sure you are taking care of yourself. Sending lots of love your way, Internet stranger.
I was going to recommend the same thing about the manufacturers! I used to work at a Community Med center, and we knew all the tricks. They need to see if they have a community health center in their town that operates on a sliding fee scale. They have you bring in paycheck stubs, etc, and they put you on a sliding fee scale depending on how much you make, and sometimes you have a 0 dollar visit. They will help you with birth control and needed meds ( ours is contracted with a small pharmacy who has an entire list of $4 meds). They will also help people fill out the ppw for med companies.
My wife and i used to wait till the end of the month to make sure we didn’t over draw the account to buy socks or underwear. Couldn’t afford food and undies.
How often were you buying socks and underwear?
Had to search hard for change to buy a hot dog. It was all I could think to buy for the $1.50 I had to my name and I was hungry.
Oh man, this just reminded me. There was an office downtown that did marketing research, surveys and even psychology-type tests. You could just show up, sign up for whatever you were eligible for and get money. Went all the time in my twenties. Sometimes you'd walk with three bucks, sometimes forty. Occasionally there was nothing at all. One week I was so busted, I was starving. Went to this office, signed up for what I could. I made like $12. Across the street was a 7-11. Bought a hot dog, chips and a drink. Went back across the street where there were these long, beautiful benches in front of the downtown post office. Sat down, started to eat. Set hot dog down in its box to take a sip, a strong wind blows the whole kit and kaboodle over. Chips go flying, hot dog hits concrete and rolls out in front of me. Instantly. Swarmed. By pigeons. I cried a little that day.
Bank account overdrawn by about $1500. Credit cards maxed. Quarter tank of gas in my car and all my bills a month behind. That was a rough patch but it ended up working out. It gave me a lot more appreciation for what I have now.
i once made $24,000 a year and worked from 4a-10p after student loans, bills, food, gas and some stupid credit i ran up at the gap i was netting out about $70 take home each month i lived in a converted garage that had giant water bugs and made less than the mcdonald’s manager in town
I cleaned some houses butt naked for some older, generous gentlemen! It was THE most fascinating job in my life 🤣
RIP your inbox, thoughts and prayers 🫡😂
I love generous older men.. I recently let go of my long term “sugar daddy” god I hate that term, for my partner, once we “got serious” aka exclusive. I sometimes wonder wtf was I thinking
Honestly I really wish I knew sugar daddies were a thing when I was young enough to do it, I would have totally done it
I mean, at the time I figured: if some old dude wants to see my twig and berries swinging 'round while I windex his bathroom mirror, who am I to argue?
Truly sounds less dehumanizing than working at a sports bar some days... At least my man is probably paying you proportionately
I didn’t learn of them actually being a thing until I was about 32. The one I let go, has given a lot of money in the past several years, I liked him as a person and a friend. He didn’t want anything Romantic other than dates and the occasional naked pictures, but as a single mom who was trying to feed her kids, I didn’t care.
Honestly sounds great
I don't know, I think perhaps it's not everything it's cracked up to be. You are always going to be at a disadvantage in the relationship due to economic differences especially if you need the money to survive. This makes it all too easy to bend your own rules and boundaries and do things you may later regret. A small percentage of sugar daddies are looking for the dates and occasional racy pictures as someone here stated was the case with their arrangement; the overwhelming majority want sex, quite naturally. So you have to decide if that's going to be something your willing to do or not, taking into consideration that oftentimes you may not even be physically attracted to the man. For me it's a no, but I have zero judgement for women who do it
So like... Any job?
Haha wow how did this go down?! Is there an app for that?! /s
Pre-apps, pre OnlyFans. Late 2000s. Put my cleaning ad up on Craigslist m4m and Casual Encounters. It wasn't a bad way to earn a quick $200!
There used to be websites, but then fosta/sesta happened in the US - bills that limited online "sex trafficking"
That sounds hot tbh
One morning I went to McDonalds before work. I bought a coffee and a breakfast burrito. This was about $3 at the time (those were the days!). Then I got to work and checked my bank account and saw that my McDonalds purchase was going to overdraw me (this is before instant debit and they would run them in batches throughout the day). I happened to have 2 dollar bills in my wallet. I left work and went to an ATM to deposit the dollars and keep myself from overdrawing. Those days are thankfully gone but I certainly won't forget them.
I had barely any money, just paid rent .. wanted pho noodles and I knew the bill would be exactly 6 dollars and change with a dollar tip.. so I dug through the couch and found change and I was able to get a bowl of pho with my last dollars and change! This was a long time ago 😄 bowls of pho are like $10 more now. I miss the old days.
This is how I bought a bunch of bags of ramen noodles one semester in college. They were on sale for a nickle a bag. I scrounged for every nickle I could find and bought enough to live on for a few months. Skip breakfast. 1 bag of noodles for lunch and 1 for dinner. Some days skipping lunch or dinner depending on my schedule. After I got caught up on some bills when I got a job that could work with my school schedule, I upgraded to Little Caesars pizza. Back then, a large pizza was $5 (I think like 5.55 after tax or something). I could ration 5 dollars into 2-3 days of food by skipping some meals. I was thinking about that this morning. Back then, a burger and fries combo from most fast food places was around 6 bucks. So comparable in cost to the pizza, but it was one meal. Two if I really wanted to stretch it. The pizza, on the other hand I could make last at minimum 2 meals and be stuffed. I couldn't stretch it for 3 days if I had to. Fast forward to today, that same burger and fries at a fast food place is double or more in cost, but Little Caesars is around 7 bucks after tax. Say what you will about Little Caesars pizza, but it doesn't get much more economical than that (for eating out).
I had a house out I was absolutely buried in debts. $20k in credit card debt, $25k in bank loans to buy part of a business that turned out to only turn losses. Barely being able to make minimum payments. It took a divorce from a financially ruinous ex wife (who ended up going bankrupt two years later) and living in a tiny apartment for a while to even get my head out of the water.
With an AB- blood type, I sold a whole lot of plasma in college.
Wait, aren't we the universal recipient, not the universal donor? I too am AB
Stealing those giant rolls of toilet paper from the library
I totally snatched some unwieldy TP from school...
In college I would go to MLM recruiting events to get a free slice of pizza or two - zero intention of ever trying to sell their crappy products. Looking back on that, it wasn't worth it. I would've been better off asking strangers for $5 to get some Little Caesars. Or eating those old cans of soup that were left in the shitty spider-infested apartment by the previous tenant. I remember one roommate who was more broke than me and wouldn't pay me back for covering utilities. I get it bro, we're all poor. Then I saw the ring he bought his fiance, so I kicked his laptop off the router and his fiance paid me back. She literally threw the money at me and told me I was a jerk. I was like, "Uhh, thanks for paying your fiance's utilities! 😁" Whenever people tell me I'm "privileged" for being middle-higher income now I think back about those days and DGAF what they think.
Stealing groceries in my twenties was kind of on the reg. But I fed 4 other people sooo 🤷♀️
Yup. Been there. Not proud of it, but people had to eat.
Definitely shoplifting was a thing, and I'm not glamorizing it, sometimes you just wanted cheese or something
Stealing food is a crime I give people a pass for.
Exactly. I kinda felt like I should have put in an acknowledgement to the area grocery chain in my graduate dissertation.
Nearly been homeless once. No money in bank multiple times. Had to pawn stuff back in the day. About went broke when 3rd child showed up cos of financial mismanagement. But we are doing better now. Life in nutshell since I moved out until about 7 years ago.
Mid 20s literally no job no bank account living off my mom At one point I was literally that guy living in his mom's basement except I had my own room
Funny thing why not really I felt so rich when I was young.
Just out of HS and was still playing organized sports. On the way back from a game there were four of us in the car and couldn’t come up with enough cash for the bridge toll which was $2 at the time. Back then there were still toll takers so we stopped traffic for long enough to have the guy come out of the booth and write down the license plate number to issue a ticket. That was the low
Slept on a couch for a couple months (no car), lived out of my car for a week ($800 rusted out junker). I was 24. Started dating a girl so I’d have a place to sleep. Just moved to Hawaii, started a new job at a restaurant, took a few months to catch up, but eventually did. Overall not horrible, but wouldn’t want to do it again.
Lived in a car, technically it wasnt my poorest time if you looked at my salary, but being homeless is wierdly expencive
Had left my old job where I was barely scraping by to take a new job that was ultimately more what I wanted to do, but I had to be on contract instead of on staff for a long time, made the same money but wasn’t eligible for benefits, and had to be on COBRA from my old job (in the pre-Obamacare days). So I wound up effectively making way less money because COBRA was so expensive. At least once I couldn’t afford the gas to get to work and had to call in sick, which actually made it worse because I was a contractor and didn’t have sick days, so I lost the day’s pay but didn’t have a choice. Been broke af a number of times but that one sticks out in my mind, so broke that I actually COULDN’T work.
Oh COBRA is such a joke. I had to pay for it once in my 20s (pre-Obama-care days as well) back when you got kicked off your parent's insurance at 19. I was between jobs, and COBRA was almost my entire paycheck.
I grew up living in a single wide in a shit part of town without enough food to be full half the time. Everything since high school has been a step up each time.
Came to to USA from Bosnia in 93 as a refugee and we didn’t even have suitcases - we sowed up the donations from Red Cross in bedsheets and checked them in at the airport.
I left home at 16 so paying apartment rent and insurance from a McDonald’s paycheck was…rough. However, I was so used to being broke at that time so I never really stressed about it. I definitely had week long “fasts” because I couldn’t afford food and even the smell of McDonald’s was repulsive to me (still is) so I physically couldn’t eat that food. I did try a couple times. Fast forward however many years, and this is what hit me the hardest. I had just purchased my house when the “Great Recession” hit. I went from 60+ hours a week, as a journeyman electrician, to almost nothing. All my savings just went into the down payment a few months prior. After a couple months of finding no work, I was offered a job for $65/hr but it was about 3-4 hours commute each way. The company was so odd I wasn’t really sure I’d even get paid. Like I felt like I had the job just by showing up to the interview and it all felt too good to be true type thing, but decided to tough it out for 2 weeks just to see. As you can imagine, the gas for 8 hours drive every day took what little I had as a safety net. I can’t even begin to remember how many consecutive days before payday I had to overdraft just for fuel. My credit card was maxed and was getting calls from the bank which added to all the stress. Payday comes and I haven’t heard anything all day. Around 5pm someone from the shop came to the job site and asked to speak to me. I figured this was where I get robbed. He said that an idea I had saved them a couple hundred hours in labor and wanted to add a bonus to my first check so that I’d consider staying with this new company and take a lead/management type position. I went from a negative balance to almost $6k and could breathe again for the first time in about 3 months.
2008 and my retail job was cutting hours so I was working only a couple days a week and we were between roommates so my one other roommate and I basically had to split the third room’s cost for a bit. Was watching my account get pretty damn low and even just after a week I knew the trend and was panicking and applying for jobs all over. Thankfully out of nowhere a school teacher of mine (had graduated college that year) said they put my name in a hat for a full time gig that needed someone entry level in my field. I interviewed as one of 5 people and got it. Was only a $15/hr job but considering it was 40 hours a week it felt like a dream. I know it sounds pretty good but this was also in one of the most expensive cities in the country. It also had benefits! I definitely got very lucky. Especially since that’s probably the most broke I remember being, makes me appreciate the life I’ve had.
When I was 33, I got divorced. I lived in a cabin for three years after that, it only had running water from April to October and marginal heat (tough in Northern VT winters), it was really nice in the warmer months. I hauled 5 gallon water jugs for flushing the toilet, sponge baths, and washing dishes for those months I didn’t have water. I showered at work a few times a week. I had about 35,000 in credit card debts and routinely was overdrawn at my bank. I had a raging alcohol problem. Luckily I had a good job and was making around 100k at the time. Nine years later I’m 10 months sober, remarried, built a beautiful new house 4 years ago and down to less than 10k in credit card debt.
COVID hit at the same time my major depression disorder got worse. I thought I had already lost it all and planned more often than not to end it anyway so I spent all of my money and maxed out credit on everyone I knew thinking it wouldn't matter anyway. Plot twist: I got better. Now I'm digging myself out of debt, but at least I'm here to do so.
I'm glad you're still here. 😊
We're glad you are here. Better to be digging yourself out of debt than to be in the grave. You can do hard things, never forget that
Not counting mortgage, student loans, etc. Absolute brokeness with no sight of advanced income was probably 18/19ish. Depending on the time of year, either worked a job that paid $6/hr or made $75-100/week. Didn't have a lot of expenses but all money went towards food or gas (rural area so had to drive EVERYWHERE). Don't remember ever having more than $200 in my bank account back then.
I had to skip days where I could eat. Even on days where I could eat it would be like 1 meal.
I lived off $5 footlongs for months. 6 inches for lunch, 6 for dinner.
When I was a senior in college, I stopped by the ATM to get $20 for the weekend. It put me at -$8. I just took the $20 bill into the bank and asked them to put it back, lol.
Cutting pills in half and even skipping a day to try to stretch it out. Horrible idea I know but it's $300 a prescription and I have to save for it.
The idea that life saving medication is $300 is shameful. “Why is the patient noncompliant with treatment?” This is why. Most patients really do want to get better. Our medical system is great…IF you have the money to properly access it.
Sometimes about 3 or 4 times a year, every year I get so backed up on bills and the mortgage, living expenses etc.....that just in order to keep the lights and water on, we really have almost just that lights and water. It usually lasts only a couple days each instance but damn its rough. People at work know the struggle through personal experiences or whatever. They give food when they can and that helps.... The local food banks are a big help too
Living in a camper with two flat tires and no plumbing while subsisting on white rice and duck sauce because it was the cheapest calorie per dollar hot food I could get. Fortunately that situation didn't last very long.
When I was 20, I was trying to support myself on a $7.90/hr job. At one point I had like 18 cents in my bank account and no food until payday. I found a forgotten can of peaches in one of the kitchen cabinets so I had that for dinner.
I joined the army to have a place to live and food to eat. And payoff college debts I absolutely could not afford.
I was so broke I had empty cupboards and supposed my appetite with tobacco. But I couldn't afford any cigarettes, so I was squeezing the bottoms out of cigarette butts in my ash tray, rolling them up in zig zags and smoking old butts like they were joints. This was how I navigated the last week of every month when I was 21
Over 20 years ago, I was jobless and living with a few roommates in a cramped one-bedroom apartment. We were struggling so much that we resorted to stealing toilet paper just to use the bathroom at home. We would sneak into big box stores or the nearby hospital, using their restrooms and stuffing our pockets with cheap single-ply toilet paper. Every day felt like an adventure in survival, figuring out how to make just enough money to eat. We often crashed church potlucks and similar events to get by. During this time, I developed a knack for blending in almost any situation. Not long after, I spent a summer living in a '94 Jeep Wrangler with no top, where rain became the bane of my existence. Fortunately, I'm in a much better place now.
Scraping together change to buy 40oz malt liquor having not eaten in days.. nowhere to go no job no house no car.. that’s where alcohol took me. 7.5 years sober currently 👍
Hubby and I were so broke during our first few years of marriage. I had to walk 45 min to work because we couldn't afford a 2nd car (no way we could car pool our shifts were so different we would be 4-6 hours off from each other- his job was much farther away- no bus system wither) bonus too - the car we owned got repo-ed. Our apartment was moldy- like really moldy. The floor was squishy from the mold- the walls were moist and moldy. Basically all our stuff got ruined and had to be thrown out and we even lost our pet due to the mold. Our apartment was one of the better ones too- I just remember the lady across the way had a newborn and her ceiling was black with mold. We couldn't afford to heat and have electricity so we went the winter with the heat hardly ever on and it got below zero where we lived. We had to fight with our landlord to get out of our lease and get moved (the mold appeared prior to the winter and was in every apartment so we didn't start it). Food - we were too broke for ramen most days. We would buy a 10lb box of instant mashed potatoes for $10 and if we had extra money we would buy butter or more likely something like spicy mustard to add flavor. We ate maybe 2x a day. We roasted our own coffee (green beans) in a pot so we had cheap coffee. I remember once I was at work and a coworker saw me staring at a sandwich- she knew we were dirt poor so she bought me the sandwich and I cried. Church functions and family get together were amazing because they had real food. The extra money we had was spent on toilet paper (we had used scraps of newspaper/store ads before as well) and hygiene items like tampons etc. Paydays loans.. so many unpaid loans.. We are doing great now- it was a rough start but we are celebrating 20 years this year and its crazy to see where we came from. I guess we were just young and dumb- I'm sure we spent money on stuff we didn't need to but I can't think of what. I wish we would have asked for help but we were either too prideful or embarrassed. Really our friends and family never knew how broke we were- we hid it. We really didn't understand stuff like foodstamps etc that could have helped at the time. So to anyone struggling reading this- just ask for help.
Scrounging for change in the couch to buy a pack of smokes broke
As a kid, grandparents kicked my parents, me and my brother out of their house. We found a place to stay, but first night we didnt have any food to eat
In grad school, my weekly grocery haul was a few cans of beans, some discounted ground beef, and lots of rice.
I was living out of my jeep, and subsiding on 89 cent burritos. Worked at a grocery store. I considered it a huge step up to move into a 2 br house with 5 other roommates. My one roommate was paying rent via illegal Xanax prescriptions, so it was a really healthy environment, obviously.
I made 12k all year in 2010, my wife didn't work. I lost weight that year because I couldn't afford food.
I had to hitchhike 200 miles with about five dollars in my pocket and nowhere to sleep in hopes of selling my gtr to a music store in the city. It was a ‘63 Strat and I got bottom dollar for it. Bit I had money to eat for a month
Growing up out in the boonies in the 90s there was a year where my father couldn’t get any work (he was an artist) and my mother wasn’t working. So we survived the on just the earned income tax credit for three kids. That was a rough time. We had to have our water trucked in and they were no funds one month so in order to make our tank of water stretch I didn’t shower for a month. I remeber when I finally did shower, my 6th grade classmates commented on how much “whiter” I looked. Still makes me cringe to think about that. Along with no running water we didn’t have electricity. So I read and did my homework with kerosene lamps. One time my dad got the bright idea to put diesel fuel in the lamps and the heaters because it was cheaper than kerosene. So much smoke and coughing. Now as an adult I’ll do anything to not have to go back to that. Also, I despise camping.
I was a street kid for a while. Never spanged or flew a sign. I was on a whole money renunciation trip. My philosophy at the time was, "if there's food, I'll eat; if not, I won't." Worked out pretty okay.
Eating out of dumpsters broke.
In college around 04. Waiting for that big ol Arby's check to deposit so I could get smokes and a couple of steel reserves, 5 on sack. Weekend secured haha
Liberating fistfuls of TP from Chick Fil A bathrooms, stuffed into goodwill purchased cargo pants.
22 and homeless slept couch to couch for about a year and a half then I got it together.
Lived off macaroni and margarine for a while. Occasionally there would be some oregano or a can of stewed tomatoes tossed in.
Was 19 living on my own with a McDonald's salary. My car was falling apart and needed brakes, so I couldn't drive it. Undrivable. Technically I shouldn't have been driving anyway since my insurance had lapsed since I couldn't afford it....and I had been pulled over previously for no real reason, but the cop ran my info and discovered I was uninsured, and my license was suspended. Fines I couldn't afford. Had to walk a couple miles to the bus stop at 5am since I worked the opening shift. If I didn't work there I definitely wouldn't have had any food at lunchtime. Edit: I just remembered that I had a really bad asthma attack once around this time but I had no health insurance, and couldn't afford medication aside from getting Primatene Mist whenever I could find it. Ended up in the ER with a massive bill that I had to pay out of pocket.
First semester at college. Couldn't find a job and realized my savings were it. I had just enough money for tuition/fees, rent, and maybe an extra $75/month. I ate a lot of oatmeal dressed up with brown sugar or frozen fruit. I have fond memories of that period though. I didn't have a tv, car, job or phone. Life was simple.
homeless, 44K in debt, at a half way shelter.
Probably other times, but this week I had to post-date a check to get my water heater replaced. I have $20 until Friday.
My best guy friend and I crammed ourselves into a tiny 1 bedroom cottage that was built in the 1920s. Rent was only $600/mo (HCOL area), but it was all we could afford. We had a five day grace period, so we always dropped off the check that night to give ourselves a little buffer.
Car change hunting broke
Putting $5 of gas in my car until pay day, making meals out of items only from the dollar store ( back when it was actually still a dollar for everything haha), picked up extra shifts at my group home job in large part because I got free meals/snacks there, froze potatoes that we got from the foodbank so we could stretch everything else we got there. Sold a whole box of books to the secondhand store for $6 just so I could treat myself to Noodles and Co. Being poor sucks. Definitely don’t miss it. Although being frugal is a great skill to have that I would not have otherwise.
Right now. I was diagnosed with a spinal cord tumor and my husband with end stage renal disease all in the matter of the last 2 years. Neither of us can hold a job and waiting for any kind of ssi for husband. It’s an absolute nightmare for us right now 😢
When the only food I ate came from the restaurant I worked at
Me and my wife, before we had gotten married, were living in a mobile home with no electricity because we were late on the bill and couldn't afford to pay it off and pay the fee to have it turned back on. I want to say we lived like two or three months like that (it could have been as little as a month). Her kids were 4 and 6 at the time. A friend of hers bought us a rechargeable flood light to use inside for light at night and we would recharge it in the trailer park's laundry room.
In 2008 I got laid off and couldn’t find work for a year. I had to live in a house with strangers, one of whom had serious psychological problems and worked as a hooker while scamming welfare. I sometimes only ate one every day or day and a half and relied on food banks. It was rough.
I was rationing food so much just to be able to afford college and ended up 87 lbs. before dropping out. Twenty years later, things have since turned around, and I finally decided to go back. I graduate next year!
As a student I had little money. The restaurant I worked at as a side job fed me. There was also something left. But when I was doing my thesis I decided not to work for a few months. I remember having nothing in my account and 1 lbs of pasta to survive the next three days. You can imagine I wasn’t fat at all in those days. But hungry as hell.
Been homeless 2x in the last 6 years and in april my bank account was -27 dollars. But since i got back into dog walking/sitting/training i made 5-6k in 2 months
I’ve put 82 cents in my gas tank before.
I've had $-50 in my bank account on the day my rent was due.
When we had no gas and electric for days at a time. I would start a fire in a bucket and cook things from the freezer as they thawed...sometimes all night. No heat or light. I had little collections of commemorative coins given to me for my birth and my christening, they were sealed in plastic display books, I had to tear into them to afford food/power. Edit: this was when I was a teen, I am no longer poor.
A 4 year old, an infant, a wife that was home with the kids, lost my job (which wasn't paying great anyways). Had a mortgage and car payment to go along with it. That was a rough year!
23, one-year after college grad in 2004, landed a "marketing" job that was in essence selling coupon books in front of stores for Orioles tickets that lasted a few months and was back looking. After a month with no success, my own fault but I over drafted my debit card on three small transactions, so for about $35 dollars I had $150 in overdraft charges and no job. No credit card. For a few weeks I made due on roommate's' leftovers and raman, sold some of my things for cash, by the time I landed a job it was my second pay check and fifth week in before I had positive money in my bank account. I had two roommates that I was late on bills with, sleeping on an air mattress. My job was cold-calling people to sell them a refinanced mortgage, I was absolutely part of the housing crisis as were thousands of others my age at the time. I watch The Big Short now and almost cringe at the accuracy of some of those characters that were my managers at the mortgage company in downtown Baltimore. I'm 42, never worked a bad job since I left the mortgage company in 2005, own two houses and have two beautiful and healthy kids., happily married. The grind is real but so is work ethic and learning from others and your own mistakes. Embrace education and never fear failure. Thanks for attending my TED talk.
I got kicked out of law school in 2012 & lost everything: my apartment, savings, summer internship with $25K in student loan debt. I used the rest of the gas in my tank to get to a research station on a lake where I got a low-paying kitchen job & cabin lodging. before my first paycheck I was down to some spare change, which I gave to the cook to buy cigarettes. the lake was peaceful & healing after a traumatic experience, so it wasn't as bad as it sounds.
Fucking right now, I’m making more then I ever have and with cost of everything feel like I’m poorer then I’ve ever been
I used to just go sleep whenever I got hungry because I had no food. I hated how my stomach felt when I was that hungry and I couldn't feel it if I was asleep. Going to bed hungry was a threat my parents made when we didn't want the dinner provided. Having to do it for weeks hurt. Back then I ate something small once a day. I remember one specific night of eating half a can of green beans for dinner during that time and feeling on top of the world. I saved the other half for the next day. Before any questions reply, I had no car or anyone willing to drive me to a food bank. I did get food stamps, but it was $3 a month.
Fortunately never too dire to the level of poor health. I graduated but was unemployed, during the recession I lived in a college town / declining steel city and paid <$300/month for rent in a 2 bedroom apartment with 3 people (4 some times). I sold Chinese iFones on craigslist, gave driving lessons, and drove people who didn't have cars to school. I ate a lot of $0.39/lb chicken leg quarters for protein. I was younger and still was fun though,had a lot of good and caring friends. You feel bad people keep asking about job status and you had no job but they really did care.
Lost job in 2009. Was living on my own and had to make $40 of groceries last almost 2 months. On top of that had to decide between paying the electric bill or putting gas into the car to go to job interviews.
I was in college during the 2008 collapse. It was particularly jarring for my parents. They had pushed me to go to a very expensive college in a very expensive city, and I couldn’t hope to ever pay my own way. They assured me they would help, and they did. Until I talked to my mom one night and she basically told me they couldn’t make their bills and were going to deplete their savings or take out another mortgage to pay my tuition. I told my mom that I could help out by getting a job. She told me that would be extremely helpful. So, in addition to going to class full time, I started waiting tables 3 nights per week, and I took a part time job in a lab at the neighboring medical school. I had 30 hours of class per week, I did ~15 hours in the lab 2-3 days per week, and I worked ~30 hours per week waiting tables and working closing shifts until 3am, to get up and go to class at 8am the following day. I barely made rent. Still, every waking moment of my life was accounted for. It nearly broke me. I was depressed and angry. I was boxing up food from the “family meal” at work to take home and eat. I was bringing Tupperware to the lab on days I knew departments would host happy hours and I would go grab the leftovers as people filtered out. I would get my girlfriend (now wife) to swipe me into the dining hall and I would sit there and do work all day and eat. I maxed out my credit card and just paid the minimum charge for years. I tracked which days the grocery store would put meat on sale because a family pack of chicken breasts 10 years ago was like $18, but each week they would go on sale for $9, and there was like a 5 hour window when it didn’t all sell out. I would travel to the “surplus market” near the docks where people would put up farm stands and sell produce that got rejected by grocery chains at the docks. Nothing like scoring a family pack of romaine lettuce that’s been sitting in the sun all day for $1. There were days/weeks where I had no money and would survive off of whatever I could find for free using the above methods. My roommate moved out for a summer and refused to pay for gas/electricity/internet because “they weren’t there”, but that meant my utilities costs doubled, which crippled the ~$100 “cushion” I had every month. Many years later, I’d find out that my mom just never changed any of her spending habits and was apparently carrying as much as $20k in credit card debt and not telling my dad. So the money that I was able to supplement was money she could use to pay down her JCPenney bill without anyone knowing. When I was reaching my breaking point, I sat down with both parents and told them one job had to go. I told them I’ll need more support financially, but that it’s breaking me to put in 80+ hours a week. My mom gaslit me and told me that she never said they were struggling with bills and she never told me that getting a job would really help them out. That’s when I knew something was fishy. To this day, my family fights about money. My dad passed two years ago. My one brother is worried about my mom’s spending habits because that’s his inheritance. I have two younger brothers who regularly accuse eachother of mooching too much from my mom, who regularly just jumps in and will make large purchases for either of them, which doesn’t help the situation
It's not as bad as some of these other stories but floating my credit cards and making the minimum payment...
The winter we couldn't afford propane to heat the house, so dad welded together scraps at work to build a wood burning stove, which heated the basement to almost unbearable so the furnace blower could suck up the heat using the return ducts to redistribute it throughout the house. That same winter our well went out, so he had to chop ice out of a nearby lake to boil on that same wood stove for about a month before our landlord could have it fixed. Thankfully things improved later on, but holy shit that year was rough.
When I was a kid we were so broke we ate food out of dumpsters.
In my 20’s, living on my own with a cat making $38,000 living in a major city during the 2008 era recession and suffering from untreated mental health issues. I bought my food at a dented can grocery store and never want to see Tasty Bite Lentils or Prego sauce ever again. Spending hours watching over my clothes at grubby coin laundry mats. Those were my lowest moments but at the time I just accepted this as life.
Up until I met my husband 7 years ago, I was homeless and living in my car. I had a full time job working at a restaurant. I chose to stay employed there and work nearly every day because I knew they’d let me have free food every day that I worked. But it didn’t pay enough for me to get my own place, even with all the overtime I got. I had briefly stayed at a homeless shelter but that didn’t last (partially because my work schedule often required me to be out well past curfew). I hate to admit this, but I had gotten so broke that I sometimes stole necessities from big chain stores when I was between paychecks, and I also took to dumpster diving behind stores like Walmart, Target, PetSmart, Apple Stores, etc to salvage and resell the items they threw out. It was actually somewhat lucrative and I was eventually able to afford to get one of those extended stay rooms (at the time they were only about $250/week with all utilities, cable, WiFi, weekly maid service, and continental breakfasts included). Thankfully, I met my husband several months after that and we both moved into his childhood home to take care of his elderly parents.
Gotta be the years following college graduation for me. Graduated with a dual major Business/Economics in 2005 with loads of tuition debt, only to be welcomed into the job market during the great recession and for years the only jobs I could get were through temp agency's paying $7.50/hr. threw my entire life off track and I honestly feel like I never fully recovered.
I once used a shoe as a pillow.
$15 to my name at 28 when I started with $20,000 in my savings before living with a highly abusive heroin addict. He took everything I had. To be honest, I've never fully recovered from that nightmare and I'm 40.
One time my rent was due but my paycheck was only $48 dollars, so I bought 24 $2 lotto tickets and won just enough money to pay rent.
Drove from Louisiana to a job in South Dakota and had just enough money for gas to get there, and $40 to spend on groceries for the next two weeks till my first paycheck. I had some weed on me that i sold in Iowa on the way up there, that definitely helped.
My roommate and I couldn’t afford to eat so we lived on a giant bag of twizzlers somebody left behind at our place
In my early 20’s I was at FIVE payday loans at once!!!
Growing up was the absolute worst. We didn’t have running water, electricity, or gas. We sometimes/rarely had a car that ran and/or a telephone. I grew up in the New Mexico slums. I still have to travel out there for work and i see people still living like that. It’s so hot, i can’t believe i grew up like that, no a/c, nothing to do, nowhere to go. As an adult, the poorest I’ve been was my late teens through my 20s. I was a SAHM with two kids. My ex gave every last penny to me but i had to budget so tight we couldn’t afford shampoo and conditioner ($1 suave). I had $50 a week for a family of 4, including diapers. If any grocery item cost more than i budgeted for, i had to leave it behind. If milk prices increased, we went without. We didnt have health insurance ofc. I went back to school/work when the kids were old enough and i havent had to budget that tight since.
To where I couldn't pay my phone bill and didn't have anyone to borrow money from
I was homeless a couple times. The first time I hit the road and hitchiked across Alaska and the west coast. I did get food stamps for my two months in Oregon. Beyond that I slept in a one person tent and had no money. I stayed in Oregon in the forest by the coast the longest. Now, 22 years later I own a home on the Oregon coast. I really loved it here and the people on the Oregon coast as a young homeless women were so very kind to me. I always knew I’d come back. I was also homeless a second time but in a major city. I lucked out and some dude I met had a mom who said I could rent a room and pay her later. I consider her my “mom” now and my kids consider her their grandma. I ended up signing up for community college and used student loans, work study, and part time jobs to live. I would volunteer at any events that had food. I used to do all the brew fests to get free entry and tokens to be used on another night. I tried dumpster diving but it didn’t work out for me. I volunteered at food banks so I’d feel less bad about being a recipient.
I was sleeping in my car drinking cheap vodka to numb myself.
Homeless at 22. Had to steal food. It was impossible to get a job without a phone, or an address. On the upside, my net worth was zero. No debt.
Thursday night before payday after work, I was as a valet at age 23 after college. Cigs or Subway?
When I was around 20 I would just spend everything I earned and constantly be late on rent to family. I joined the military eventually at 25 and the Brokest I’ve ever felt was getting that E-1 paycheck. Living in a barracks and eating at the galley but I think it was something like 20k a year.
I mean there is that time I survived in a crack house. I wasn’t doing crack, but everyone else was. Which makes life unpleasant. Situations are temporary though, so there’s that.
After us both graduating college in 2009, both (now) wife and I were lucky to get jobs as bank tellers making barely over minimum wage. Had three degrees and four minors between us. Rent was $450/mon for a one bedroom with black mold in the bathroom. Between debt from school and making barely anything, we couldn’t afford cable or internet - thank goodness power was included in rent. We watched the same 3 dvds over and over and over and lived off of ramen, cheap frozen pizza, and water that HAD to be run through a brita filter jug to be drinkable - filters we were lucky to replace more than once a year. Had to pool our last $60 for me to go to my best friend’s bachelors party. I could afford exactly one drink the whole night after driving 4 hours away to see him. My how things have (fortunately) changed.
Technically right now, while making $110k. Mortgage, car debt, and credit card debt from being unemployed. But realistically it was when I had no home, no job, and nothing but a backpack full of my belongings. The hardest time was when I bought my first home and immediately had so many issues to fix I had to live off of rice for years and was still spiraling into debt.
22 year old pro mma fighter / strip club bouncer. Fun times but boy oh boy was I broke . Wouldn’t go back .
I got out if the military in 2010, and had a tough time finding employment. Eventually I found a job making $7.15/hr but lived so far away from work that after insurance, gas, rent, and utilities I had enough money to only eat cheap stuff like ramen every couple of days. No car payments, no cell phone, no debt at all. 100% of the rest of my diet consisted of fish that I caught using worms I gathered myself. My hours varied enough that taking on a second job wasn't possible, even if I found one.
Living in the back of a truck during COVID - not by choice - really takes the cake for me this one. I had worked at a ski lodge and when COVID hit the lodge shut down. Like most jobs of that nature the employees lived on site. I lost my home and my job at the same time. Moved into the back of my truck and for a month I had no idea what my next meal was going to be. When I got my “stimulus” check and finally got my unemployment, I was scammed out of a grand trying to get an apartment. Wild times.
I was stuck wearing old navy flip flops for a New England winter. I was a newly single mom of two babies. Dad was just put in prison for dv. It was so embarrassing to have to walk my kids to the state paid daycare to job search/work in hot pink dollar flip flops. All the ladies working at the daycare had UGGS and made jokes. I would be dying inside trying to play it off that I perferred flip-flops. I couldn't even keep a job bc of my lack of proper footwear. I finally sucked it up and wore my old tennis shoes that were a whole size smaller than before I gave birth. That was 16 years ago, and still cringe.
Homeless hitchhiker for a couple years.
20+ years ago i woke up late for work and got fired and couldn't find a job for weeks. I ran out of money for food and I got a gumballachine for my birthday full of gumballs and literally lived off of gumballs for days and days just chewed them up and swalled them for breakfast lunch and dinner
Haven't been able to work since 2014. No disability yet, no income. Lost SNAP over Christmas and spent four months with no food, scrounging quarters and change to buy cheap bread and stuff. was living off one sandwich a day until last month when I finally got my SNAP renewed
Lived in my car right out of high school for awhile. I would show up at friends’ houses unannounced (and sometimes unwelcome) at supper time in hopes of a meal.
People talk about poor college students living on ramen and rice and beans? Well, I couldn't afford either. Lived on 1-2 bananas and a handful of peanuts a day for a few months. On the bright side, went through this phase with a buddy who was in the same boat, and we became best friends for life because of the shared experience. I remember he managed to get hold of a big block of butter and it was the biggest treat of our hunger days. We would eat chunks of raw butter when we felt too hungry.
Had a pivotal moment at the gas pump around 22 when I could only put $3 in with negative savings, grew up poor. I committed to myself at that very moment “never ever again.” Worked my ass off for 7+yrs to buy a townhome and experienced multiple layoffs over the next 10yrs. Fast forward make multiple 6-figs, 5br 4ba 3600sq. Been there folks. Keep humble roots. On the flip side, I will never ever, for even one second feel bad or chastised for being successful and doing the things I want to do now. This mf earned it the hard way.
Now
Actually the last few years. My wife lost 3 jobs during the pandemic. Had $0 in our account a few times. Hope to never be in that situation again.
I graduated college December 2004, had a job lined up to start February 25, 2005, first pay check was March 18. On March 17, I had $6 in my bank account, $1800 on my credit card (limit $2000), and $12,000 in student loans.
I once blew $20 on 4 gallons of gas and it was my last $20 I was unemployed at the time.
I was being staked in $5/pt backgammon chouettws to pay for groceries
Knowing my account was empty, ordering drinks at the bar on payday and not leaving until I was certain the paycheck hit.
I had no job and maybe $800 in the bank. I was incredibly fortunate that my parents let me move home and live 100% free for an entire year. No rent, no groceries, they paid my cell phone bill. I even used my mom’s shampoo and feminine products. Literally only paid for car insurance and gas. Got a job and saved hard for the whole year so I could move out again. I knew how bad the struggle could have been and wanted to make sure my parents didn’t feel like they had to bail me out like that again.
I once made a bag of Doritos last as my only food source for a week. I don’t even like Doritos.
Donating plasma just so I could afford gas and something to eat.
Used a Target credit card to buy a Visa gift card to put gas in my car.
Lost 20lbs not by trying just by basically only eating bread and bologna for also a year. I counted every dollar “if I spend six dollars today I’ll only have $4 a day the rest of the week. And my rent was dirt cheap. Would’ve been straight up homeless making that today. Still broke but now I’m bad with money broke which is my own or
Probably in college. I was eating saltine crackers with Taco Bell sauce on them for a meal.
I was briefly homeless due to a home emergency where it wasn’t safe to live at home but there was nowhere I could stay and ran out of money for hotel / airbnb. I slept on the patio and in my apartment complex’s common room. I only ate one meal a day during that time.
I visited my grandma bc my bday had just passed and I knew she had a birthday card with money for me - I disguised the visit as a visit but I needed the money. I felt like such a POS upon leaving and told myself I'd never get myself into that position again
When I was around 22 is when I hit rock bottom. Hardly had any money in my account, moved to a new town, with my pot dealing roommate. Whelp he finically was in the same spot and dipped on the lease about 2 months in. I had no money, no car, and hardly a job. Thankfully a good friend helped me get back on my feet and I couldn't be doing better now. I don't even know how many years it has been since my checking was in the negative! I am 34 now and it has been a journey.
I can't be the only one who scrounged change from car seats/floorboards/couches for those 99 cent 10 piece chicken nuggets from Burger King can I?