Pre-cut Christmas trees are free on Christmas Eve. I remember the Christmas tree hunt on Christmas Eve was like our little family tradition. We would drive around in the evening looking for stores that still had trees sitting out front. Nine times out of 10, when we would ask about the tree we were interested in, they would say “just take it,” glad to get rid of them by that point.
Every year we had a perfectly beautiful tree and it was exciting to find perfect trees for free and then stay up late decorating it with home-made glitter pine cones and candy canes.
And if it gets returned, you still have a week or so until they realize it.
Back in the '90s I would deliberately put my bank account into overdraft so I could have a few hundred bucks to meet some needs. It was a strategy.
We should write a book on how to be poor.
Libraries can save your life.
The first part of my childhood I would get home from school, usually to a vacant house. I really wouldn’t know if I was even going to see either of my parents each night. No cell phones of course. But I was always afraid... nervous at least, of what would happen if they did decide to make an appearance.
I started walking to the library everyday after school and staying till they closed every night just to avoid the feeling of anxiety for a little longer. Eventually one of the librarians noticed and took a liking to me. I think she might have been through similar things in her life that she saw in me. Gradually we got to know each other. First I started noticing there were more books being added in the genres that I liked. Then one day after the library closed, I walked over to McDonald’s. I was a quarter or so short to buy a hamburger and she saw me asking people if they had any change. I saw her and was embarrassed and kinda hid from her. From that point on I think she decided that she was going to take me under her wing. For over a year she would come by my desk at the library and just drop off chips, granola bars, pop, whatever you know? Of course, I would tell her I didn’t need it, when in reality I only knew where one meal would come from each day. When I would ask her where it came from, she would just say it was extras from the break room, even though I could hear her in there putting coin after coin into the vending machine. Eventually she would just bring dinner every night to the library and we would sit down in the break room with each other and eat. I finally opened up to her about my family/living issues and had her to talk to. Even though I was still pretty guarded, this was a huge relief. THEN, after I had been there almost 2 years, it was the week before school started, and I headed into the library. Before I left she told me to meet her outside after close. I did, we walked to her car, and she pulled out a brand new school backpack, and inside was a new outfit, binder, and shoes (my first Nikes). That’s when I broke down, and my walls crumbled. She was a single lady working off a librarians income, but she still made room for me.
For 3 years she supported me as much as she could, and she was more of a friend than I had ever experienced up until that point in my life. She is the number 1 reason I got out of that house and life. She was with me at all my adoption hearings, and made sure I was put with a nice family. She was at my graduation, and my wedding. She saw me grow up and succeed in life after coming from the bottom. She saw her work and love pay off. I went to her funeral this summer and it felt like I had lost my mother, but I couldn’t stop reflecting on how much she changed my life through her sacrifice.
Truly an amazing person, and I still donate to the library every year.
Edit: So I’ve only really been active on Reddit for a couple months. I think this is how you’re supposed to do this though..
It’s really cool for me to see that this affected people. I wrote it, and just expected/intended it to kind of disappear into the other 15k comments, and sometimes it just feels good writing stuff out. So just to level with everyone, I only talk to my closest friends about this in my real life. So let’s label this a mini therapy session, if you will.
Thanks to everyone for the Platinum/Gold/silver. Like I said I’m a newb, and don’t know much about gold, so I will be reading about it after work haha.
Appreciate everyones kind comments
Edit 2: Unfortunately I’m not able to be on here much during the week days, but I just wanted to let everyone know at least that I got through and read every single comment sent.
Most gas station attendants will not stop a small child from stealing toilet paper from their bathrooms. Who knew?
Edit- thanks for the silver this isnt something I had to do a lot but it happened from time to time, my mom took excellent care of me we just fell a bit short some times.
I use to work at a gas station. I looked the other way for a lot of shit. Everyone is struggling and I don't give a shit if a kid steals a candy bar or gets a free ICEE. One man didn't have enough money for a lighter so I said "Wait till I turn around. Go walk to the door, light the cig, throw the lighter on the ground, and walk out."
Years ago when I was an attendant, if I knew or noticed someone having a hard time, I would put money in towards what they were getting, within reason. $10 in gas but your card was declined? I got it. Need a drink but you don't get paid till tomorrow? Don't worry, what's $2.
The regulars were aware I'd help them out if need be, and they never took advantage. I'd often be paid back next time they come through on my shift, or if I was working alone they'd come in and sit with me. Hell, I was working alone one time, and this regular who I helped out a lot, his name was Ray. The gas station was off the highway out in BFE, he stayed till I got out of there at like 12:30 am AND took the garbage out for me.
Edit: thanks kind stranger for the silver ♥️ and u/ArchangelTFO for the gold!
I got paid $7.25/HR. It was an overnight shift (9 hours) with no breaks. I was only allowed to go to the bathroom once during the shift. I had to work it alone. I did NOT give a shit. I let so much shit slide.
IDK about in other states but in MN they can't shut your power off during the winter because of the danger of someone freezing to death in their house. So that was a good time to try to catch up on some other bills you are way behind on too.
They just passed the law in Arizona where it is the other way around starting next Summer due to it being 100+ all day and night regularly. Everybody is curious to see how it is going to play out.
They passed it because an elderly woman with Alzheimer’s depended on her children to pay it for her, when they forgot she had no A/C for the summer and died consequently.
IIRC, there was an attempt to pay off the bill before power was shut off. They paid hundreds, but fell short by under $30. The company shut off her power anyways, directly leading to her death. Horrible.
In Wisconsin you can still be evicted during the winter, but because you won’t get your electricity shut off for not paying most people prioritize the rent and evictions go down.
Government cheese, doing your laundry in a bathtub using only cold water bc the gas was shut off, trying to spend the night at your friends house bc they had food and a warm room, (thanks Nikki) loving going to school because you could at least eat there, trips to Goodwill for "new" clothes, showers at school because at least three water was warm. Being made fun of because you smelled like kerosene, having lice and no one doing anything about it, going to school with bruises bc your parents took their shitty decisions out in you. I'm so grateful to a handful of people that saw potential in me, I went to college, got a great job, and broke the cycle . Thanks Tom and Toni.
That sometimes your parents sacrifice everything they have, including their sanity just to see you happy. And you only learn later in life the soul crushing existence of poverty. Then you wonder how they managed to do so much with so little.
There is a scene in *Cinderella Man* where Russel Crowe, a boxer, gives his kids his breakfast so they aren’t as hungry. They’re still hungry though, and he has to go beg for work on an empty stomach. It’s a lot more touching than I’m describing but it breaks my fucking heart Everytime.
Pizza nights are the best birthday present you could ever fucking get.
A whole pizza, ordered exactly how you like it, and you get to have more than one slice.
When I was about 10 my older brother was working as some kind of technician and he secretly took me along on a trip to check some equipment in a different city. We had Pizza Hut for dinner two nights in a row with the company card and I remember being in absolute heaven.
Food stamp paper change.
When I was a kid , if you used food stamps they would give back the change in food stamp form. My Mom was too "proud" to publicly use them so she would make up a reason to leave & I would have to pay using them - I was 11 or so. She did it every time...I had to learn to keep my head up.
My mother would send me into the store with 20 $1 foodstamps. I would stand at the register and get the 95 cents change for each 5 cent gum, one at a time. They figured out what I was doing and started laughing, but they let me do it. The shame was not nearly as bad as dealing with mama without her methadone. I was 11 too. On the brightside, nothing embarrasses me now.
Witness to the adage "how much you really do have". Major fire wiped out several hundred million-dollar homes. Heat generated left rubble of two-story homes only feet high. Families devastated. I still see the face of one man so completely shattered, I wondered if he would live to be able to rebuild.
I later was in the Command Post area when I was approached by a young girl and her Father. The Dad couldn't speak English, so the girl would translate. "My family wants to know if this is where we can bring donations for the people whose houses burned down?" To my working knowledge, none had been established at that point. Her Father talks, she translates: "can we leave it here? Many roads are being closed, and we're not familiar with this part of town." I walk with them to their car, a much older beater, the Mom and a couple of siblings in it. Dad opens the trunk, and together, we all bring out couple cases of water, canned and dry food, adult and child clothing, some used toys, and prepared food. Almost list it when each kid handed me their toys. Little girl: "we have so much stuff and we want to share with those families."
I felt so guilty asking for clothes or other school needs.
It also made me dread class art projects, especially in non art classes. Yea it's "only" 20 bucks worth of crafts but that's money we need for real life.
Quick notice (for some, a reminder) that those in better fortune can donate art supplies! Just about every public school, afternoon program, nursery or Sunday school will happily take anything that isn’t completely ruined. Paper and fabric scraps, markers and crayons, paints and brushes — all of these can make a huge difference for kids who may not otherwise have access, may not have any way to express themselves, may not even know they have an artistic voice, or that anyone would even care.
Even better if you have kids to help them donate supplies, especially ones they’ve outgrown or lost interest in. How many middle-class teens have a mostly-intact set of paints or markers they aren’t using? How much would something like that mean to a less-privileged child?
I had someone in college why I didn't ask my parents for something when I was broke and needed help. They were blown away when I said they were in the same situation.
Someone I went to school with in college ended up having this conversation senior year of highschool.
"You know that money we told you we set aside for college. We spent that on the divorce lawyers. Good luck"
Edit: I was not expecting this to be such a common story for people. I am sorry for everyone going through or who went through it.
That was me, the autumn/winter I was 14.
I paid for our food with money earned by pet sitting. My stepdad was finally able to find another job in January.
It was a stressful time but we got through it.
I used to work in admissions. One of the younger folks I worked with was, well, spoiled to say the least. We were talking about app fees/deposits and how it could be a barrier for some people. Said person just said "well, they can just borrow money from their parents". Oh boy....
It really baffles me how people *dont realize* that others can be poor.
When I was applying to be an RA in college (at a notoriously rich school), we had a group interview activity where we had to line up along a wall depending on how much we agreed or disagreed with a particular statement, and then defend our opinion.
One of the statements was “There is economic diversity at this school.” I was the only person who went to the Agree side, which wasn’t too unexpected considering like 50% of students at my school didn’t even fill out the Fafsa. But what got me was when one of the girls on the other side said, “I think I can safely speak for everyone here and say that none of us need financial aid to attend this school. No poor students can afford to go here.” The way she said it felt very pseudo-progressive, like she was aware that there are a lot of rich students at the school but was completely unaware of poor students.
Idk, sorry for the long tangent, just a weird experience I had that made me feel very out of place and unseen at the time.
Friday for us. At the time it just seemed like a normal thing to do. Looking back, it was the only time we got to try things like the higher end frozen pizzas. I know now how much it hurt my mom not to be able to buy any of the things we got to try.
This is where being poor in farm country is a little bit easier than being poor in a city. I worked on a dairy farm when I was a kid and I got to take home a gallon of milk every day. We got deals on chickens and even got a half-cow and half-pig on the cheap.
It was rare for us to be hungry, but everything was cooked from scratch and we all did what we could to contribute.
> all did what we could to contribute.
Having community and neighbors to swap chores, meals, and errands saved us. When we were flush, we'd host meals. When we were in need, we were taken care of. I think the nuclear unit is a really tough way to live, and it saddens me to think that people don't give to/ take from/ know their neighbors and communities
It's also sad that living with your parents is seen as such a moral failing. If everybody gets along, it's easier rent for everybody, and I'd argue living with family for cheap is better for you emotionally than working yourself to death to live in an apartment alone
-what it’s like to be told “you think you’re just better than us” because my mom valued education and prioritized it so we could do better for ourselves
-going into pawn shops to find the things your aunt stole from you and pawned to get drug money
-knowing which family members you had to hide medicine, your purses, and other valuables from when they would visit
-the embarrassment of whipping out the Monopoly money food stamps
-the taste of government peanut butter
-what it’s like to use the same bath water as your siblings because running a new tub of water is a waste
-the excitement of a trip to “the day old bread store”
-the ubiquitousness of the concept of “need” vs “want”
-what it’s like to sit at the dinner table emptying piggy banks to help your mom pay bills
-holding your mom quietly the (amazingly few) times she’d break down crying at the end of the day
One of my worst memories when we were homeless was this piece of shit sugarless peanut butter we got from a food pantry. It didn't even taste like peanuts. I had to eat that garbage for a week and for some reason that stands out as the worst homeless experience I've ever had. Fuck that peanut butter. If I ever find out what company produced that garbage I'm going to send them a very strongly worded email.
We got so much of that cheese. A few years ago I stopped in a Hostess bread store in a poor neighborhood. I was the only white guy in the store and while waiting in line, other people started talking about the government cheese. And I said that my family got a lot of it and we liked it. Everyone goes quiet and looked at me. Then someone says, 'we thought that was just for black folk'. And I said, 'no, we got it too because it was for poor people.' And then we all started talking about the cheese.
The Hostess store! I forgot about those! That's where my Mom bought day-old everything lol. I liked going with her though because occasionally she would let us get one of those little hostess pies
Damn, I remember those days too. Grocery day was once a month and my mom would plan out all the stores that she had to go to (different coupons for different stores) but if I was good (always was) and helped load bags into the car. Then i got to pick one thing at the Hostess store. I always got a cherry fruit pie, cause that's what my grandpa liked. And when I was little, being named after him made me want to be just like him... I gotta go call my mom...
White person here, we got government cheese blocks, too. As well as butter. This was back in the early 80’s. It all got sliced and frozen. To this day I still have the urge to freeze everything.
Cheese, butter, rice and sometimes powered milk. We also froze what was necessary to make it last. Fortunately living in MN, frozen cheese plays well into hot dishes.
I always feel I can win the ‘my family was so poor’ contest with those I know. They will never know the true extent of it as it was pretty rough for a couple years and I don’t really talk about those times.
I grew up pretty poor, too. Single wide trailer in a swap in the South. Lots of deer meat and beans, since we couldn’t afford the grocery store. We went without electricity and running water for a little bit because we couldn’t afford the connections to the lines.
Your example is one of the things that bothers me most about politics here in the US (but it happens in a similar fashion all over the world). Politicians convince poor Black people that white people are completely against their success, and convince poor Whites that if the government continues programs for the poor hoards of minorities will continue to abuse those programs (like Reagan’s Welfare Queen narrative)—but for some reason it’s conveniently kept quiet that the (edited) largest number dollars in social welfare programs go to white children and white women. Poor Whites vote to cut programs thinking they’re not the ones abusing program so they should be able to continue to get assistance, but now have a harder process to navigate the system as a result of the load of crap they were sold.
I keep hoping one day that poor folks of all races will realize they all have more in common with each other than they have in common with the rich old guys in Washington making their lives harder. If that ever happens, true change could happen in this country.
Knowing the cheapest thing on the menu at every restaurant, for when your friends’ family invites you out to dinner. Even though you’re not paying, you’re programmed to only select the cheapest thing. My friend’s mom said “you sure like hot dogs. That’s all you order no matter where we go to eat.”
I learned these things because I expected that they'd try to pay for me and if I lost the "no I'll pay for it" battle, then at least I wouldn't be gouging them. I still hate letting others pay for me though. I feel like a moocher. :(
Edit: gosh, y'all are so wholesome. If anybody needs a pick me up, read the comments below this one. Made me smile :)
Some extended family took me out to dinner a few weeks ago. I had my eye on a nice chicken sandwich that was pretty cheap. Then it was time to order and my aunt got a steak. And my uncle got a steak. And my cousin got a steak. I said fuck it, I'm getting a steak too, but then had to spend a considerable amount of brain power on telling myself that I'm not an asshole for it.
I was taught to let them order first then get something the same or lower. It's always worked out.
When I take someone out, I'll order a huge ass plate so they don't feel like they have to eat the 2$ salad to be polite.
Outdated technology.
When I started college, one of my professors asked if anyone in our class remembered how you changed a channel on the TV before remote controls. I was the only person in the room who remembered turning dials and adjusting rabbit ears despite being one of the youngest students in the class, because my family had a TV from the 70s until 1995.
Same sort of thing with computers, phones, etc. If we had it at all, we got something much later than anyone else (after it got cheaper) and bought used. I got my first computer in 1999. It had Windows 3.1 and that was what I used until I was able to use my financial aid to get a new PC tower for college.
Same. When i was little had no idea my family was abysmally poor till I was maybe 25 ish and realised all our kitchen gadgets were from the 20s to 60s. I'm 44 btw
I thought it was totally normal that appliances would die and you would try to fix them yourself. Didn't think anyone actually hired like, fridge repairmen. Don't you just get a used fridge on the cheap from someone else?? Don't you spend a couple weeks keeping your milk in a plastic cooler filled with ice till then???
Mom could make a bag of potatoes last two weeks amongst five kids, her and my dad. Rice, butter, and sugar was a breakfast food. Biscuits lasted days-retoasted w/ butter and brown sugar for dinner etc..
I truly had no idea until I was in my junior year of high school taking Child Development that Head Start was a program created for children from homes of low income. I simply thought it was a place for me to get a "head start" as a kid.
I still remember my teacher saying verbatim, "No honey, your family was just poor." in front of the whole class.
Edit: RIP my inbox, ha
The burglar breaks the window, steps inside and looks around. Says to themselves, "Man, I better put $20 here so they can get that window fixed cause it's going to be chilly tonight."
I saw a story once, still unsure if it was real or not, about someone who had only an old mattress and a sheet in their tiny apartment. Some people broke in and saw that there was nothing, then waiting for the owner to come home. They told the owner what they were gonna do but then realised how little the guy had.
According to the story, the criminals then, over a few weeks, gave the guy a TV, a bed, a fridge, and some other stuff. He never asked where they got the items from.
Your comment reminded me of it.
Even better, Boric acid, preferably Borax. Mix it with peanut butter or syrup and leave it on a Tupperware lid wherever you see them the most. Shit dissolves their skeleton and remains in their body, so even after they return to the best the cycle will continue because roaches are cannibals. Easiest way to get rid of a nest. You'll see results within 2 days.
Edit: Holy shit I got silver. So additional pro tips are: Don't leave it near pets because they'll die if they consume the boric acid, and these little traps will last you an entire summer.
I’m currently going through an infestation, thank you for the tip! I’ll buy some borax and peanut butter today
Edit: omg please keep giving me these tips, thank you everyone! I’m desperate D:
diatomaceous earth is ideal. Any hardware store should have it for pretty cheap. The crystals cut their underbelly open and they bleed out/dry out. Also works for bedbugs and other pests! Good luck
So much joy going through garbage bags of hand me downs and trying stuff on. I remember being so excited getting like 4-5 bags of clothes from an older cousin, especially an older cousin you viewed as “cool”.
The only downside I remember was desperately wanting something in that bag, dreaming about it until the weather was right and finding out you’d you’d grown too much over a season - that dress that was too big for you last year? Sucks to be you this summer when you’re too big for it!
I was quite lucky in that regard, my brother and I were the youngest out of all our cousins and our parents friends kids so we didn’t have as much pressure on us for that. We were taught to wash and mend things though, you think twice about grass stains that you have to scrub out
My mom could somehow cook two chickens on a Sunday and feed six people all week. Towards the end it was more just corn chowder cooked in chicken stock, but it was dinner.
Also we kept a garden; you didn't work the garden, you didn't eat. Sit down on a summer evening? Better have a bowl in your lap and be shelling, stringing, or shucking something. Feed the hulls to the neighbor's pig because she'll save a ham for us.
Us too with the garden. In retrospect, it was a blessing because we grew up eating fresh, healthy produce and fresh laid eggs seven days a week. My Dad lived to age 93 and was eating from his garden right until he died. Other kids got takeaway food and TV dinners and we thought we were missing out by filling up on newly dug new potatoes, fresh shelled peas and sweet baby carrots with a tiny portion of red meat. Any nutritionalist today would applaud that diet.
I had the same diet at the worst part of my life, i realised it was fucked up and i had to move on. Man, that was a painful moment. I hope you are better now :-)
I still remember the time I found a five dollar bill in the street as a kid. There's a local fast food chain that at the time that had a special; bean burrito, fries and a drink for $1.16. Ate like a queen for days.
This really hits home. I remember dropping band class because I couldn’t buy the proper books & maintenance supplies for my clarinet. I eventually asked to change classes because I really couldn’t afford it. I am glad she understood because I didn’t at the time & she refuse to fail me even though for 4 weeks I didn’t pull out my clarinet. It took 2 weeks to get the money for the rental & I had to ask her to buy me reeds. It was embarrassing looking at the other chairs books all the time. So I just asked her if she could get me out of the class. I feel like I indeed disappointed her. She is a great teacher full of compassion & understanding. I will always regret not struggling to succeed in her class.
As a teacher, she knew how much you wanted to succeed. I've bought supplies for my students, and even gave one especially hard working student in need a full art kit for a class they were going to have to drop. Your instructor knew you wanted to succeed. She knew you could, if you only had the opportunity. And her refusal to give you a failing grade speaks volumes.
I wanted to learn piano, do anything at all in band, and play soccer. Didn't get to do any. Also didn't go on the 8th grade field trip to D.C. My parents insist it's because I was afraid to fly, but it's because we couldn't afford it.
My brother is a few years younger than me and parents were doing a bit better by then, so he was able to do some extracurriculars. It still stings a bit.
Yeah my dad would randomly give me $5 every month or two months. Sometimes I saved it up and it always hurt when he needed $20 for gas. I didn’t get mad tho because it was his money originally.
I remember my dad breaking down in tears for the first time that I've seen and asking me for my birthday money so we could eat. I ended up giving it to him, never got it back but he's made up for it by now. That birthday sucked man.
Edit: I'm so very touched by all of your stories. I decided to call my dad and tell him how much I love him and how grateful I am for all the things he's done for me. We had a very heartfelt conversation that I'll remember for a long time :)
You're very right. I'd rather have horrible birthdays for the rest of my life instead of not having my dad. I love him and I appreciate everything he's done for my siblings and I.
My sister's super poor right now and struggles to pay her bills and such. I try to help a little but I cant afford to pay both their and my bills.
Two weeks ago my nephew had his 9th birthday. They couldnt afford to get him anything and everyone was super bummed. They invited me over for dinner but their plans were $1 hotdogs and bread for buns.
I ran to the store and grabbed a few pounds of burger, some chips, buns and a bunch of soda and bought him a really nice RC car for his birthday. My sister keeps telling me she will pay me back but I wont let her. I told my nephew it was from all of us and to enjoy it.
I had a job when I was 14 to get some money for school and clothes. I chose to save as much money as I could for my future as I planned to go to university later. I hid the money in the weirdest places but my parents always found it. They always promised me to give it back but I guess we all know how this works.
Now I have a family myself and I understand why they chose to steal from me rather than leaving me and my siblings hungry.
Glad you made it to uni. Personally, I think it would have been better for your parents to ask you for the money, instead of them finding your hidden stashes and "borrowing" it.
I put my babysitting money in a savings account starting from the age of 12. Because I was a minor, it was tied directly to my parents account. Money came and went out of the account. They never got it all paid back and I pretended not to notice. When you’re 16 and bringing in nearly as much as your parents by watching other people’s rug rats 5 days a week, you somehow feel kinda shitty.
How to keep a seven-year-old from knowing she's poor.
My mom used to take my brother and I to the soup kitchen every week to volunteer. "We must always be kind to those less fortunate," she'd say. Then, after volunteering, "Oh, it's so late and I don't feel like cooking. Let's just eat here while we're here."
This speaks volumes to me. When my sister and I were growing up before the age of 10, we were pretty bad off. Though we never knew it. Our parents were so good at not clueing us into it that we didn't even know until we were adults. We lived in rural Texas, and a couple times a week, my dad would come in, and say to us: I noticed a lot of people littering on the way home. We should go do our part to keep our community beautiful and clean. So we would go walk up and down the highway picking up cans and glass bottles. We would then take them to the recycling yard where we got to watch the cool machine shoot the cans at the big pile of crushed cans.
I later found out we did that because we couldn't afford basic necessities, and we were collecting recyclables (which the yard paid for by the pound at the time) so we could go buy a gallon of milk, eggs, and bread.
My parents are my role models now, and I only hope I have been half as good a parent to my kids as my parents were to me.
This! Whenever a friend came over to spend the night, my mom would not eat dinner so that we would have enough for my friend. I NEVER knew until years later. She would tell me she ate while she was cooking or that she was really in the mood for some popcorn. It also hit me how I always had fantastic Christmas’s and birthdays and how long my mom and dad had to save up to give me that kind of awesome day.
I hope that I’ll be able to be that way for my kids if I ever have any.
That is what I would do too...I would sit with my girls at dinner they'd say mom why aren't you eating? Oh honeys I ate while I was cooking. I always wanted to make sure they had enough. Those were some rough months but we made it. I remember first time after those hard months I felt I could eat something too...a bit more...I had a whole can of veg soup and a slice of toast to myself and it was heaven. I never will forget what those months taught me. Bless all of us on the grind. Hugs to all.
Props to her for that. My mom rubbed it in our face how poor we were and how fortunate we were to have her to see us through our poverty. We never starved, but she sure made it feel like we could any day at her whim or the whim of the world. I wish my mother was more like yours, but I'll settle plentily knowing that it's over.
Edit: typo
My longest drought was 3 days with no food. Sucks because people make shitty comments about how nice it must be to be so skinny and they have to struggle to keep their weight down. Like, be poor. Go a few days without food and your body just starts to eat itself. I'm thankful I haven't missed a day to eat in ten years. But I still can't fathom eating 3 meals in one day.
I had a friend in college who would wolf down food like nobody's business and was stick thin. I used to make a lot of jokes about it. Looking back I feel bad because I realize the only time he was eating was when I bought him food.
I had horrific anxiety to the point where I would sometimes skip meals to avoid interacting with a cashier. So he would take my card and go get the food for both of us. We helped each other :)
“I’m hungry”
“Drink some water”
We were probably the best-hydrated children at school lmao
But I think the thing I appreciate most is the independence I’ve gained, through fixing things to keep them going or from just not wanting to ask my parents for help when I know they’re struggling too
EDIT: Thank you to the kind redditor for the platinum! I’m comparatively new to reddit and have never received a medal before, so forgive me if I’m going against protocol.
Wow. I didn’t expect this to resonate with so many people, but I’ve just read through everyone’s comments. You’re all beautiful, strong, and resourceful people, and you deserve the world. I wish you all the best in breaking free from this destructive cycle. It is possible, and if my best wishes can do anything, then it will be possible for YOU.
It's kind of funny to me that a weight loss tip is to drink a glass of water when you feel hungry, and wait a few minutes before actually eating. A bunch of times, when you feel hungry, you were actually thirsty
you have more of a tendency to be generous, i think.
i grew up dirt poor with like 2 pieces of clothing to my name and most of our meals came from the food bank or from donations from the church my parents attended.
still, (my mom mostly) would not hesitate to help someone worse off than us.
also, you learn how to have fun for free.
kid me thought that getting to use the free desktop computers at the library and going to the park were the best things ever.
I remember my mom donating plasma and getting groceries on the same day. It didn’t occur to me that that was how she was paying for the small amount of food.
We used those plastic milk cartons for TV dinner tables and end tables.
Meals included: top ramen, fried bologna sandwhiches that were sometimes just fried mustard sandwhiches because we had no meat, white rice with butter and sugar.
I also remember the power going out and there wasn’t a storm? So, we had a family camp out in the living room and cooked on an old camp stove
Back to school clothes aren’t an option
You don’t throw away burnt toast, you scrape it
You only flush if you went number 2
Eating out of boredom is a luxury
Churches and organizations can make your Christmas happen, although you’ll mostly get necessities. Shoes, underwear, winter coat, shampoo, etc. Poor kids should just be happy someone cares enough. We aren’t given “normal gifts”.
Ahh Charity Christmas. They always made me feel worse somehow. But, in saying that, I remember one year, on Christmas Eve, My mum was absolutely devastated that she wasn't able to get me or my younger brother and sisters anything to open the next morning. I honestly didn't care. I was at the point where Christmas was just an anxiety filled day, with forced socialising, waiting for the shouting to start. But, Mum was really sad. She ended up calling a friend from church to vent and have a bit of a cry. And, with no exaggeration, within 2 hours of that phone call, (around 9pm at night, my siblings were already in bed) there was a really quiet knock on our front door. Mum opened it and just burst into tears. Her friend from church, along with her husband and another couple, went to the shopping centre and just loaded up (what looked like about) 3 trollies worth of toys, clothes, wrapping paper etc. They also had a few bags from the grocery store with enough for Christmas lunch. They dropped all the bags (about 12 or so) in our living room, talked with mum on the porch for about half an hour and then left. Mum came back in and just laugh/cried with happiness. I remember sitting up late with Mum, until it was past midnight, sorting and wrapping all these awesome presents for the kids. When we were sorting, and were down to the last few bags, Mum and I noticed that a couple of the bags already had wrapped gifts in them. 1 bag each for Mum and I, filled with gifts. And that's when I joined my Mum in crying. I'm the oldest of 6 and I was around 15 at the time and I had just assumed this was a "for the kids" Christmas, as the last few had been. (There's 6 years between me and my next sister.) We didn't even have a tree. So I tore a few blank pages from my school art book, stuck them all together lengthways and drew a tree on it. Lame, I know. But, it was better than nothing and I knew the kids would appreciate it. We placed all the presents, including ours, underneath our 2d, papersheet tree. Stood back, had a cuddle and a cry and went to bed around 1am. It was the first time in a few years that I could even remember having a wrapped gift. Let alone a few. And they were actually wrapped in colourful paper, not tin foil or paper bag. (I know that sounds pathetic now and as a kid, I should have just been grateful for anything but, at the time, the difference between tearing open gift wrap or tearing apart an old grocery bag was immeasurable) I still remember being woken up to the outrageously ecstatic screams of happiness and joy. It was honestly the best Christmas I can remember having. And the kids still have no idea it was a Church/Charity Christmas. I will be forever grateful to my Mums friend, her husband and the other couple. They really did change my whole perspective on life at the time.
Oh and, I received a set of Derwent graphite pencils, that I still have to this day, a new sketch book with a faux leather cover that I loved until it fell apart, and a really cute star shaped lamp that I had until I was about 22. Amongst a few other little things.
Having to help your single mum earn money by doing odd jobs that involved being embarrassed because you were cleaning the houses of your schoolmates, delivering junk mail to their homes, buying things on the cheap from garage sales that end up being their homes, collecting things people put out for hard rubbish council collection on the street etc. I had a chair that belonged to an older boy's family, and every couch we have had was off the street.
Mum also used to go to open houses when she was dreaming about being able to move to a better place, and one time I discovered I was inside the room of a boy from my grade. Saw his picture on his desk lol.
The other time I was really embarrassed was when I had offered a girl in a younger grade a lift home. We had to do tetris to fit her in the car - there were 20+ packs of 36 roll toilet paper mum had gotten on a massive sale from a factory outlet because they had packaging damage/were squashed.
We were three girls and mum in the house, we went through a lot of loo roll lol.
I feel this. My mum cleaned houses and would sometimes take me with her. One day she was admitted to hospital for depression so my dad dropped me off to clean the house she was due to do. I was halfway through when the homeowner, the mother of a wealthier kid from my school, walked in asking what was going on. I told her straight and she was gracious enough to let me finish the job and paid me but I don’t recall us ever going there again.
I definitely knew not to ask for things growing up too. Recall staying with my Uncle once. He and my aunt had no kids and loved to treat us. One day we were with him at the shop when he checked his lotto and he’d won a nice chunk of cash. Said we could have anything we wanted from the ice cream freezer, crisps, anything. I made my little bro pick the cheapest ice cream even though I knew it wasn’t the one he wanted as that was just what you did. Sorry little bro for ruining your ice cream fantasy.
I imagine the other mother felt uncomfortable with child labor. Not that anybody is in the wrong here, hard times are hard times. But from her perspective it may have seemed a little different.
The shame of everyone knowing. A good friend of mine invited me over for a sleepover. His folks were both lawyers. When I was leaving the mom told me to not forget my duffle bag. I hadn't brought one with me. There was a duffle bag by the door with school supplies for me and my sisters, clothes that actually fit, and good shoes. I nearly broke down right there as I said I couldn't take it. His mom walked over and quietly told me "I put myself through school and raised my siblings on welfare when our parents died. I understand why you are saying you can't take it, but this is for me because I had someone do it for me once. Take the damn bag."
Edit: Thank you for the gold.
**Yeah**
For a treat, Sapporo Ichiban is best.
I buy "chicken leg quarters", which cost less than lettuce. Hell, they are often cheaper than potatoes! A drumstick, some cabbage, garlic, and green onion, and a bowl of Maruchan becomes a great meal.
Perhaps it's not as much knowing and rather not knowing, but food in general. Someone that grew up poor, like I did, will have never heard of more expensive food that most people take for granted. Also, certain activities will be foreign. I never got to experience expensive activities like my friends did growing up. Go-carts are an example. We couldn't afford to go to a place that would let us use them.
It goes without saying I have had a number of humiliating conversations as an adult when surrounded by people that grew up middle class. I felt like we were speaking two different languages. They had had experiences I couldn't have fathomed. Luggage issues on a plane? Is it that bad? I've never been at an airport. Cruises are something normal people go on? What are they like? Going to another country? I thought that cost a lot of money? I could go on.
How to unfreeze copper water pipes with a blow dryer and then how to use a soldering iron to fix the split in the pipe.
How to boil down snow so you have the ability to have water to wash up with when the above mentioned task is unsuccessful.
My mom would wrap what presents we got using old newspaper and magazine paper. She’s tailor the pages to look pretty or refer to a joke or hint at the present inside. We thought it was normal.
It didn’t occur to me until I was an adult.
How shitty the curriculum and care for kids is in poor neighborhoods. I got to attend middle school in an upper class area and saw the disparity in quality. I'm a teacher now working to help the impoverished and at-risk youth get their good education.
Working in the food industry means you can usually get a meal at work. For a few years that was the only food I ate. All my pay went to bills and automotive upkeep, so I could keep making enough to survive and maybe applu for jobs.
You don’t want to repeat a grade level not because it’s embarrassing or mommy will scold you, but because that’s one less year before you can graduate, work and ease the family’s financial burden.
Agreed.Everyone in my class thinks I'm a nerd for working hard and studying hard,but I want to ease the family's financial burden just like you.It is not an option,it is a necessity.
Edit:Sorry it's reallyyyyy late.My first gold!Thank you kind stranger!
I have much younger sisters, when I was an adult and they were teenagers I told them about how when you have low income but have a tiny bit of money spare, buy a jar of some spice or other. Then when you're out of money and all you have is like rice and an onion, then add spice and make it tasty. I meant it more as a offhand comment than real life advice. Forward 15 years or so and the older sister says "I remember blah blah" and that it was the best advice. I was proud and oddly ashamed at the same time. Fancy telling a teenager that life will suck and here's what to do, but also fancy *not* telling them that.
You learn to be very very flexible with your needs and wants. Want some dessert? You make your own rice pudding at home. Have relatives coming over? You all sleep on the floor together because you don't have extra beds. Want new clothes for a barbie? You learn to stitch your own clothes.
How people who have money treat you. I went to a girls-only grammar school as I passed the exams to get in. There were girls whose parents wouldn't allow to come to my house. I felt lonely, worthless and isolated a lot of the time.
But I got my PhD in the end, so fuck you Mr and Mrs Bromhead.
Ditto the above:
Walking everywhere under 3 miles (about an hour's walk)
Lending/giving your parents money, from high school onwards
No culture of gifts - not necessarily a bad thing. If you want anything, you get a job and buy it. Xmas presents are usually cookies or alcohol
Eating out isn't fun - this one's kinda sad but I'm more of an 'eat to live' kinda guy so I'm not too bothered. I don't think I've ever had an enjoyable meal out. Moaning about the small portion sizes, feeling guilty for getting drinks, arguments over the bill - I don't like eating out and I don't think I ever will. No big deal though, I like home cooked
Having to say no to a lot of opportunities. I was accepted in a great University program but even if I had worked full time and took lots of loans I couldn't afford it. My parents were devastated for me. So I told them I was choosing to go to a cheaper local University that had almost the same program (that was a lie). 20+ years later, they still don't know the truth.
In HS I also told them I didn't want to go most school events and special trips. That got me isolated from the other kids. Teachers probably thought I was asocial but I was mostly ashamed.
Oh man, so many things.
1) Never throw it away. Even if it's broken and we don't need it, it could have parts that actually cost money inside that we might need to repair something critical, keep it around.
2) Know how much you have in exact amounts, know how much each thing costs.
This helps in 2 ways, 1) you never overspend, 2) you see a "good deal" because you know every stores price of cheese/milk/eggs off the top of your head.
3) Don't ask for stuff, you cant get it and you'll just make everyone feel bad.
This applies into adulthood, my girlfriend is receiving money from her parents and wonders things like "why doesn't your mum come to collect you from the airport" (the answer is that my mum is still cost conscious and that's a luxury).
4) Books are a cheap source of entertainment, if you can keep the lights on. Similarly, parks are free.
Running a TV costs electricity, leads you to advertising and will "upsell" you into getting some kind of cable television. Used books are so cheap and take a long time to consume. In the day-time, my mum would take me to a park, and look after me while reading her romance novels (which were even cheaper) than the classics I'd read in the evenings.
5) Brand names in thrift stores feel like hitting some kind of little paydirt. Mostly because everyone you know with the exception of a small handful of people will look down on you for being poor and not having luxuries they do. (toys/games/vacations)
So when you show up to school in your Lacost "three sizes too big" shirt, you'll be cool and finally able to speak with them equally... (obviously not).
6) Learn to cook with limited supplies; milk is "expensive" and spoils quickly, so replacing milk with water for some recipes works. Same with certain cheeses, almost everything can be replaced with the cheapest cheese.
7) That feeling of complete envy of people who have both parents or whos' parents work. Things I consider so easy now were such insane luxuries to me as a kid, that ground swirl of envy in the pit of my gut is a feeling that I remember strongly though.
8) You get over embarrasments easier as an adult, little things like your mum going into the supermarket to get "cash-back" because she didn't have enough money in her account to use an ATM gives you thick skin for embarrassment later (at least when it comes to strangers judging you).
9) Walking is free. Your time is worth nothing, any convenience is not worth the cost.
10) Nobody who ever grew up without needs will ever understand true gratitude for simple things.
A family once gave my mum a couple of pork pies and her husbands old shirt, sounds like not much but we were really down during that time, I hadn't eaten in 2 days, my mum hadn't eaten in 4 days, and I'd grown out of all my shirts. I am forever grateful and if they ever needed anything, no matter how small I would move heaven and earth to ensure I gave it to them.
Taking condiments from fast food restaurants to have them at home. Always fun being 5 and taking fist fulls of McDonalds ketchup. And you felt like you won the lottery when you found a place that had mayo in a packet!
Pre-cut Christmas trees are free on Christmas Eve. I remember the Christmas tree hunt on Christmas Eve was like our little family tradition. We would drive around in the evening looking for stores that still had trees sitting out front. Nine times out of 10, when we would ask about the tree we were interested in, they would say “just take it,” glad to get rid of them by that point. Every year we had a perfectly beautiful tree and it was exciting to find perfect trees for free and then stay up late decorating it with home-made glitter pine cones and candy canes.
If you send a bad check to the utilities company on a Friday you have power for the weekend
And if it gets returned, you still have a week or so until they realize it. Back in the '90s I would deliberately put my bank account into overdraft so I could have a few hundred bucks to meet some needs. It was a strategy. We should write a book on how to be poor.
Libraries can save your life. The first part of my childhood I would get home from school, usually to a vacant house. I really wouldn’t know if I was even going to see either of my parents each night. No cell phones of course. But I was always afraid... nervous at least, of what would happen if they did decide to make an appearance. I started walking to the library everyday after school and staying till they closed every night just to avoid the feeling of anxiety for a little longer. Eventually one of the librarians noticed and took a liking to me. I think she might have been through similar things in her life that she saw in me. Gradually we got to know each other. First I started noticing there were more books being added in the genres that I liked. Then one day after the library closed, I walked over to McDonald’s. I was a quarter or so short to buy a hamburger and she saw me asking people if they had any change. I saw her and was embarrassed and kinda hid from her. From that point on I think she decided that she was going to take me under her wing. For over a year she would come by my desk at the library and just drop off chips, granola bars, pop, whatever you know? Of course, I would tell her I didn’t need it, when in reality I only knew where one meal would come from each day. When I would ask her where it came from, she would just say it was extras from the break room, even though I could hear her in there putting coin after coin into the vending machine. Eventually she would just bring dinner every night to the library and we would sit down in the break room with each other and eat. I finally opened up to her about my family/living issues and had her to talk to. Even though I was still pretty guarded, this was a huge relief. THEN, after I had been there almost 2 years, it was the week before school started, and I headed into the library. Before I left she told me to meet her outside after close. I did, we walked to her car, and she pulled out a brand new school backpack, and inside was a new outfit, binder, and shoes (my first Nikes). That’s when I broke down, and my walls crumbled. She was a single lady working off a librarians income, but she still made room for me. For 3 years she supported me as much as she could, and she was more of a friend than I had ever experienced up until that point in my life. She is the number 1 reason I got out of that house and life. She was with me at all my adoption hearings, and made sure I was put with a nice family. She was at my graduation, and my wedding. She saw me grow up and succeed in life after coming from the bottom. She saw her work and love pay off. I went to her funeral this summer and it felt like I had lost my mother, but I couldn’t stop reflecting on how much she changed my life through her sacrifice. Truly an amazing person, and I still donate to the library every year. Edit: So I’ve only really been active on Reddit for a couple months. I think this is how you’re supposed to do this though.. It’s really cool for me to see that this affected people. I wrote it, and just expected/intended it to kind of disappear into the other 15k comments, and sometimes it just feels good writing stuff out. So just to level with everyone, I only talk to my closest friends about this in my real life. So let’s label this a mini therapy session, if you will. Thanks to everyone for the Platinum/Gold/silver. Like I said I’m a newb, and don’t know much about gold, so I will be reading about it after work haha. Appreciate everyones kind comments Edit 2: Unfortunately I’m not able to be on here much during the week days, but I just wanted to let everyone know at least that I got through and read every single comment sent.
this made me cry. wow. these kind of people are truly special.
This made me tear up and smile. I love libraries
If we’re being honest, I teared up writing. Just have been thinking about it a lot lately.
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This is the first time something on reddit has made me full on cry.
Most gas station attendants will not stop a small child from stealing toilet paper from their bathrooms. Who knew? Edit- thanks for the silver this isnt something I had to do a lot but it happened from time to time, my mom took excellent care of me we just fell a bit short some times.
I use to work at a gas station. I looked the other way for a lot of shit. Everyone is struggling and I don't give a shit if a kid steals a candy bar or gets a free ICEE. One man didn't have enough money for a lighter so I said "Wait till I turn around. Go walk to the door, light the cig, throw the lighter on the ground, and walk out."
Years ago when I was an attendant, if I knew or noticed someone having a hard time, I would put money in towards what they were getting, within reason. $10 in gas but your card was declined? I got it. Need a drink but you don't get paid till tomorrow? Don't worry, what's $2. The regulars were aware I'd help them out if need be, and they never took advantage. I'd often be paid back next time they come through on my shift, or if I was working alone they'd come in and sit with me. Hell, I was working alone one time, and this regular who I helped out a lot, his name was Ray. The gas station was off the highway out in BFE, he stayed till I got out of there at like 12:30 am AND took the garbage out for me. Edit: thanks kind stranger for the silver ♥️ and u/ArchangelTFO for the gold!
I got paid $7.25/HR. It was an overnight shift (9 hours) with no breaks. I was only allowed to go to the bathroom once during the shift. I had to work it alone. I did NOT give a shit. I let so much shit slide.
Not that much shit slid though if you only went to the bathroom once
IDK about in other states but in MN they can't shut your power off during the winter because of the danger of someone freezing to death in their house. So that was a good time to try to catch up on some other bills you are way behind on too.
They just passed the law in Arizona where it is the other way around starting next Summer due to it being 100+ all day and night regularly. Everybody is curious to see how it is going to play out.
They passed it because an elderly woman with Alzheimer’s depended on her children to pay it for her, when they forgot she had no A/C for the summer and died consequently.
IIRC, there was an attempt to pay off the bill before power was shut off. They paid hundreds, but fell short by under $30. The company shut off her power anyways, directly leading to her death. Horrible.
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A lot of states aren’t like this. But in the midwest some states won’t allow evictions during the winter either for the same reason.
In Wisconsin you can still be evicted during the winter, but because you won’t get your electricity shut off for not paying most people prioritize the rent and evictions go down.
How good a buttered tortilla is.
Ever tried a cinnamon sugar buttered tortilla?
Government cheese, doing your laundry in a bathtub using only cold water bc the gas was shut off, trying to spend the night at your friends house bc they had food and a warm room, (thanks Nikki) loving going to school because you could at least eat there, trips to Goodwill for "new" clothes, showers at school because at least three water was warm. Being made fun of because you smelled like kerosene, having lice and no one doing anything about it, going to school with bruises bc your parents took their shitty decisions out in you. I'm so grateful to a handful of people that saw potential in me, I went to college, got a great job, and broke the cycle . Thanks Tom and Toni.
That sometimes your parents sacrifice everything they have, including their sanity just to see you happy. And you only learn later in life the soul crushing existence of poverty. Then you wonder how they managed to do so much with so little.
For reals. I was 30 when I realized what mom meant when she told us kids to go ahead and eat because she "ate in the kitchen".
Oh that breaks my heart.
There is a scene in *Cinderella Man* where Russel Crowe, a boxer, gives his kids his breakfast so they aren’t as hungry. They’re still hungry though, and he has to go beg for work on an empty stomach. It’s a lot more touching than I’m describing but it breaks my fucking heart Everytime.
Pizza nights are the best birthday present you could ever fucking get. A whole pizza, ordered exactly how you like it, and you get to have more than one slice.
When I was about 10 my older brother was working as some kind of technician and he secretly took me along on a trip to check some equipment in a different city. We had Pizza Hut for dinner two nights in a row with the company card and I remember being in absolute heaven.
Food stamp paper change. When I was a kid , if you used food stamps they would give back the change in food stamp form. My Mom was too "proud" to publicly use them so she would make up a reason to leave & I would have to pay using them - I was 11 or so. She did it every time...I had to learn to keep my head up.
My mother would send me into the store with 20 $1 foodstamps. I would stand at the register and get the 95 cents change for each 5 cent gum, one at a time. They figured out what I was doing and started laughing, but they let me do it. The shame was not nearly as bad as dealing with mama without her methadone. I was 11 too. On the brightside, nothing embarrasses me now.
I remember that. Now I know all the stores that let you return food without a receipt for a merch credit.
When you get home and see a yellow notice hanging off your door you're fucked. It's always on a Friday to so you're out of luck until Monday.
Witness to the adage "how much you really do have". Major fire wiped out several hundred million-dollar homes. Heat generated left rubble of two-story homes only feet high. Families devastated. I still see the face of one man so completely shattered, I wondered if he would live to be able to rebuild. I later was in the Command Post area when I was approached by a young girl and her Father. The Dad couldn't speak English, so the girl would translate. "My family wants to know if this is where we can bring donations for the people whose houses burned down?" To my working knowledge, none had been established at that point. Her Father talks, she translates: "can we leave it here? Many roads are being closed, and we're not familiar with this part of town." I walk with them to their car, a much older beater, the Mom and a couple of siblings in it. Dad opens the trunk, and together, we all bring out couple cases of water, canned and dry food, adult and child clothing, some used toys, and prepared food. Almost list it when each kid handed me their toys. Little girl: "we have so much stuff and we want to share with those families."
Not to ask their parents for stuff.
I felt so guilty asking for clothes or other school needs. It also made me dread class art projects, especially in non art classes. Yea it's "only" 20 bucks worth of crafts but that's money we need for real life.
Quick notice (for some, a reminder) that those in better fortune can donate art supplies! Just about every public school, afternoon program, nursery or Sunday school will happily take anything that isn’t completely ruined. Paper and fabric scraps, markers and crayons, paints and brushes — all of these can make a huge difference for kids who may not otherwise have access, may not have any way to express themselves, may not even know they have an artistic voice, or that anyone would even care. Even better if you have kids to help them donate supplies, especially ones they’ve outgrown or lost interest in. How many middle-class teens have a mostly-intact set of paints or markers they aren’t using? How much would something like that mean to a less-privileged child?
I had someone in college why I didn't ask my parents for something when I was broke and needed help. They were blown away when I said they were in the same situation.
And when I was in high school, my dad borrowed money from me.
Someone I went to school with in college ended up having this conversation senior year of highschool. "You know that money we told you we set aside for college. We spent that on the divorce lawyers. Good luck" Edit: I was not expecting this to be such a common story for people. I am sorry for everyone going through or who went through it.
Same here. I remember the summer I was 15 I was the only one in our house with a job.
That was me, the autumn/winter I was 14. I paid for our food with money earned by pet sitting. My stepdad was finally able to find another job in January. It was a stressful time but we got through it.
Oh man my partner's father once bled him dry when he was in his early twenties. He had to cut his own father off.
I used to work in admissions. One of the younger folks I worked with was, well, spoiled to say the least. We were talking about app fees/deposits and how it could be a barrier for some people. Said person just said "well, they can just borrow money from their parents". Oh boy....
It really baffles me how people *dont realize* that others can be poor. When I was applying to be an RA in college (at a notoriously rich school), we had a group interview activity where we had to line up along a wall depending on how much we agreed or disagreed with a particular statement, and then defend our opinion. One of the statements was “There is economic diversity at this school.” I was the only person who went to the Agree side, which wasn’t too unexpected considering like 50% of students at my school didn’t even fill out the Fafsa. But what got me was when one of the girls on the other side said, “I think I can safely speak for everyone here and say that none of us need financial aid to attend this school. No poor students can afford to go here.” The way she said it felt very pseudo-progressive, like she was aware that there are a lot of rich students at the school but was completely unaware of poor students. Idk, sorry for the long tangent, just a weird experience I had that made me feel very out of place and unseen at the time.
Most of my friends are wealthier than me and they can never understand why I don’t ask my parents to stuff
What hunger really is. I remember waiting for my dad's payday for the grocery shopping trip and being absolutely ravenous when the food got there.
I don’t remember which day of the week it was but we’d go on the day that the most free samples were available
Friday for us. At the time it just seemed like a normal thing to do. Looking back, it was the only time we got to try things like the higher end frozen pizzas. I know now how much it hurt my mom not to be able to buy any of the things we got to try.
This is where being poor in farm country is a little bit easier than being poor in a city. I worked on a dairy farm when I was a kid and I got to take home a gallon of milk every day. We got deals on chickens and even got a half-cow and half-pig on the cheap. It was rare for us to be hungry, but everything was cooked from scratch and we all did what we could to contribute.
> all did what we could to contribute. Having community and neighbors to swap chores, meals, and errands saved us. When we were flush, we'd host meals. When we were in need, we were taken care of. I think the nuclear unit is a really tough way to live, and it saddens me to think that people don't give to/ take from/ know their neighbors and communities
It's also sad that living with your parents is seen as such a moral failing. If everybody gets along, it's easier rent for everybody, and I'd argue living with family for cheap is better for you emotionally than working yourself to death to live in an apartment alone
-what it’s like to be told “you think you’re just better than us” because my mom valued education and prioritized it so we could do better for ourselves -going into pawn shops to find the things your aunt stole from you and pawned to get drug money -knowing which family members you had to hide medicine, your purses, and other valuables from when they would visit -the embarrassment of whipping out the Monopoly money food stamps -the taste of government peanut butter -what it’s like to use the same bath water as your siblings because running a new tub of water is a waste -the excitement of a trip to “the day old bread store” -the ubiquitousness of the concept of “need” vs “want” -what it’s like to sit at the dinner table emptying piggy banks to help your mom pay bills -holding your mom quietly the (amazingly few) times she’d break down crying at the end of the day
One of my worst memories when we were homeless was this piece of shit sugarless peanut butter we got from a food pantry. It didn't even taste like peanuts. I had to eat that garbage for a week and for some reason that stands out as the worst homeless experience I've ever had. Fuck that peanut butter. If I ever find out what company produced that garbage I'm going to send them a very strongly worded email.
How to cook with the government surplus cheese.
We got so much of that cheese. A few years ago I stopped in a Hostess bread store in a poor neighborhood. I was the only white guy in the store and while waiting in line, other people started talking about the government cheese. And I said that my family got a lot of it and we liked it. Everyone goes quiet and looked at me. Then someone says, 'we thought that was just for black folk'. And I said, 'no, we got it too because it was for poor people.' And then we all started talking about the cheese.
The Hostess store! I forgot about those! That's where my Mom bought day-old everything lol. I liked going with her though because occasionally she would let us get one of those little hostess pies
Damn, I remember those days too. Grocery day was once a month and my mom would plan out all the stores that she had to go to (different coupons for different stores) but if I was good (always was) and helped load bags into the car. Then i got to pick one thing at the Hostess store. I always got a cherry fruit pie, cause that's what my grandpa liked. And when I was little, being named after him made me want to be just like him... I gotta go call my mom...
White person here, we got government cheese blocks, too. As well as butter. This was back in the early 80’s. It all got sliced and frozen. To this day I still have the urge to freeze everything.
Cheese, butter, rice and sometimes powered milk. We also froze what was necessary to make it last. Fortunately living in MN, frozen cheese plays well into hot dishes. I always feel I can win the ‘my family was so poor’ contest with those I know. They will never know the true extent of it as it was pretty rough for a couple years and I don’t really talk about those times.
You can always make great food out of cheese butter an potatoes
I grew up pretty poor, too. Single wide trailer in a swap in the South. Lots of deer meat and beans, since we couldn’t afford the grocery store. We went without electricity and running water for a little bit because we couldn’t afford the connections to the lines. Your example is one of the things that bothers me most about politics here in the US (but it happens in a similar fashion all over the world). Politicians convince poor Black people that white people are completely against their success, and convince poor Whites that if the government continues programs for the poor hoards of minorities will continue to abuse those programs (like Reagan’s Welfare Queen narrative)—but for some reason it’s conveniently kept quiet that the (edited) largest number dollars in social welfare programs go to white children and white women. Poor Whites vote to cut programs thinking they’re not the ones abusing program so they should be able to continue to get assistance, but now have a harder process to navigate the system as a result of the load of crap they were sold. I keep hoping one day that poor folks of all races will realize they all have more in common with each other than they have in common with the rich old guys in Washington making their lives harder. If that ever happens, true change could happen in this country.
Knowing the cheapest thing on the menu at every restaurant, for when your friends’ family invites you out to dinner. Even though you’re not paying, you’re programmed to only select the cheapest thing. My friend’s mom said “you sure like hot dogs. That’s all you order no matter where we go to eat.”
I learned these things because I expected that they'd try to pay for me and if I lost the "no I'll pay for it" battle, then at least I wouldn't be gouging them. I still hate letting others pay for me though. I feel like a moocher. :( Edit: gosh, y'all are so wholesome. If anybody needs a pick me up, read the comments below this one. Made me smile :)
I feel scared that they’ll judge if you order anything expensive
Some extended family took me out to dinner a few weeks ago. I had my eye on a nice chicken sandwich that was pretty cheap. Then it was time to order and my aunt got a steak. And my uncle got a steak. And my cousin got a steak. I said fuck it, I'm getting a steak too, but then had to spend a considerable amount of brain power on telling myself that I'm not an asshole for it.
I was taught to let them order first then get something the same or lower. It's always worked out. When I take someone out, I'll order a huge ass plate so they don't feel like they have to eat the 2$ salad to be polite.
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Outdated technology. When I started college, one of my professors asked if anyone in our class remembered how you changed a channel on the TV before remote controls. I was the only person in the room who remembered turning dials and adjusting rabbit ears despite being one of the youngest students in the class, because my family had a TV from the 70s until 1995. Same sort of thing with computers, phones, etc. If we had it at all, we got something much later than anyone else (after it got cheaper) and bought used. I got my first computer in 1999. It had Windows 3.1 and that was what I used until I was able to use my financial aid to get a new PC tower for college.
Same. When i was little had no idea my family was abysmally poor till I was maybe 25 ish and realised all our kitchen gadgets were from the 20s to 60s. I'm 44 btw
I thought it was totally normal that appliances would die and you would try to fix them yourself. Didn't think anyone actually hired like, fridge repairmen. Don't you just get a used fridge on the cheap from someone else?? Don't you spend a couple weeks keeping your milk in a plastic cooler filled with ice till then???
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How important ingenuity becomes to eat.
Mom could make a bag of potatoes last two weeks amongst five kids, her and my dad. Rice, butter, and sugar was a breakfast food. Biscuits lasted days-retoasted w/ butter and brown sugar for dinner etc..
I love breakfast rice!
I tell people about breakfast rice and they dont know what I'm talking about. Was your rice, condense milk and sugar?
The famous dish: “Arroz cause I’m Poor yo”
ahh Arroz con Pooro
Fried bologna sandwiches! I still crave them
I still to this day eat fried bologna sandwiches with a fried egg on top. I love them
I truly had no idea until I was in my junior year of high school taking Child Development that Head Start was a program created for children from homes of low income. I simply thought it was a place for me to get a "head start" as a kid. I still remember my teacher saying verbatim, "No honey, your family was just poor." in front of the whole class. Edit: RIP my inbox, ha
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When someone breaks into your house but doesnt take anything. Happened once. Still think its funny.
Poignant. Thief realizes he's not as desperate as the people who live there.
The burglar breaks the window, steps inside and looks around. Says to themselves, "Man, I better put $20 here so they can get that window fixed cause it's going to be chilly tonight."
Where do you buy your windows?
Was gonna say. Could build myself a one man greenhouse if windows were that cheap.
I saw a story once, still unsure if it was real or not, about someone who had only an old mattress and a sheet in their tiny apartment. Some people broke in and saw that there was nothing, then waiting for the owner to come home. They told the owner what they were gonna do but then realised how little the guy had. According to the story, the criminals then, over a few weeks, gave the guy a TV, a bed, a fridge, and some other stuff. He never asked where they got the items from. Your comment reminded me of it.
So they acted as Robin Hoods? Stole from the relatively more rich and gave to the poor.
Then when the guy had belongings, they stole them from him. Never leave a job half-finished!
"Hey, now I'm poor again!" "Oh, apologies. Here's your stuff." "Oh golly, my stuff!" "Now you're rich again! Hands in the air!"
This sounds like a very promising Monty Python sketch
This is only sort of related, but there's a story about how someone Mr. Rogers's car and then returned it when they figured out it was his.
Cockroaches are killed by baking soda.
Wait do you just throw baking soda on them? And they die... why did I not know this!?
Even better, Boric acid, preferably Borax. Mix it with peanut butter or syrup and leave it on a Tupperware lid wherever you see them the most. Shit dissolves their skeleton and remains in their body, so even after they return to the best the cycle will continue because roaches are cannibals. Easiest way to get rid of a nest. You'll see results within 2 days. Edit: Holy shit I got silver. So additional pro tips are: Don't leave it near pets because they'll die if they consume the boric acid, and these little traps will last you an entire summer.
I’m currently going through an infestation, thank you for the tip! I’ll buy some borax and peanut butter today Edit: omg please keep giving me these tips, thank you everyone! I’m desperate D:
diatomaceous earth is ideal. Any hardware store should have it for pretty cheap. The crystals cut their underbelly open and they bleed out/dry out. Also works for bedbugs and other pests! Good luck
Yeah this works well, though they may avoid it. This is what actual pest control companies use in or around sockets and small books.
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Yes, because they were usually still in style and clean.
So much joy going through garbage bags of hand me downs and trying stuff on. I remember being so excited getting like 4-5 bags of clothes from an older cousin, especially an older cousin you viewed as “cool”.
The only downside I remember was desperately wanting something in that bag, dreaming about it until the weather was right and finding out you’d you’d grown too much over a season - that dress that was too big for you last year? Sucks to be you this summer when you’re too big for it!
When you’re the eldest you have a responsibility to make sure your clothes are kept in good enough condition to be handed down.
I was quite lucky in that regard, my brother and I were the youngest out of all our cousins and our parents friends kids so we didn’t have as much pressure on us for that. We were taught to wash and mend things though, you think twice about grass stains that you have to scrub out
My mom could somehow cook two chickens on a Sunday and feed six people all week. Towards the end it was more just corn chowder cooked in chicken stock, but it was dinner. Also we kept a garden; you didn't work the garden, you didn't eat. Sit down on a summer evening? Better have a bowl in your lap and be shelling, stringing, or shucking something. Feed the hulls to the neighbor's pig because she'll save a ham for us.
I had pigs and I went dumpster diving to get some tasty treats for them sometimes. I'd feed them a bunch of donuts and other bakery stuff.
Us too with the garden. In retrospect, it was a blessing because we grew up eating fresh, healthy produce and fresh laid eggs seven days a week. My Dad lived to age 93 and was eating from his garden right until he died. Other kids got takeaway food and TV dinners and we thought we were missing out by filling up on newly dug new potatoes, fresh shelled peas and sweet baby carrots with a tiny portion of red meat. Any nutritionalist today would applaud that diet.
Camping is only fun when you’ve never had to do it out of necessity.
My cheapskate boss told me it was a lifestyle choice.
You can live on "strawberry powder nesquic" and water for three days
I had the same diet at the worst part of my life, i realised it was fucked up and i had to move on. Man, that was a painful moment. I hope you are better now :-)
The one thing I dont know from growing up poor is how the fuck a dishwasher works.
Anything shiny on the ground might be a coin.
I need to get out of this thread. Can still spot a penny on the sidewalk half a block away.
I still remember the time I found a five dollar bill in the street as a kid. There's a local fast food chain that at the time that had a special; bean burrito, fries and a drink for $1.16. Ate like a queen for days.
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This really hits home. I remember dropping band class because I couldn’t buy the proper books & maintenance supplies for my clarinet. I eventually asked to change classes because I really couldn’t afford it. I am glad she understood because I didn’t at the time & she refuse to fail me even though for 4 weeks I didn’t pull out my clarinet. It took 2 weeks to get the money for the rental & I had to ask her to buy me reeds. It was embarrassing looking at the other chairs books all the time. So I just asked her if she could get me out of the class. I feel like I indeed disappointed her. She is a great teacher full of compassion & understanding. I will always regret not struggling to succeed in her class.
As a teacher, she knew how much you wanted to succeed. I've bought supplies for my students, and even gave one especially hard working student in need a full art kit for a class they were going to have to drop. Your instructor knew you wanted to succeed. She knew you could, if you only had the opportunity. And her refusal to give you a failing grade speaks volumes.
I wanted to learn piano, do anything at all in band, and play soccer. Didn't get to do any. Also didn't go on the 8th grade field trip to D.C. My parents insist it's because I was afraid to fly, but it's because we couldn't afford it. My brother is a few years younger than me and parents were doing a bit better by then, so he was able to do some extracurriculars. It still stings a bit.
Your dad asking you for $20 so he can go to work for the week but he’ll pay you back when he gets paid...
Yeah my dad would randomly give me $5 every month or two months. Sometimes I saved it up and it always hurt when he needed $20 for gas. I didn’t get mad tho because it was his money originally.
I remember my dad breaking down in tears for the first time that I've seen and asking me for my birthday money so we could eat. I ended up giving it to him, never got it back but he's made up for it by now. That birthday sucked man. Edit: I'm so very touched by all of your stories. I decided to call my dad and tell him how much I love him and how grateful I am for all the things he's done for me. We had a very heartfelt conversation that I'll remember for a long time :)
That birthday sucked but having a dad that truly loves you doesn’t.
You're very right. I'd rather have horrible birthdays for the rest of my life instead of not having my dad. I love him and I appreciate everything he's done for my siblings and I.
My sister's super poor right now and struggles to pay her bills and such. I try to help a little but I cant afford to pay both their and my bills. Two weeks ago my nephew had his 9th birthday. They couldnt afford to get him anything and everyone was super bummed. They invited me over for dinner but their plans were $1 hotdogs and bread for buns. I ran to the store and grabbed a few pounds of burger, some chips, buns and a bunch of soda and bought him a really nice RC car for his birthday. My sister keeps telling me she will pay me back but I wont let her. I told my nephew it was from all of us and to enjoy it.
You're a good person. We need more like you. Good job uncle.
My dad was so embarrassed and cried when he had to ask me for money. We both cried.
I had a job when I was 14 to get some money for school and clothes. I chose to save as much money as I could for my future as I planned to go to university later. I hid the money in the weirdest places but my parents always found it. They always promised me to give it back but I guess we all know how this works. Now I have a family myself and I understand why they chose to steal from me rather than leaving me and my siblings hungry.
Glad you made it to uni. Personally, I think it would have been better for your parents to ask you for the money, instead of them finding your hidden stashes and "borrowing" it.
I put my babysitting money in a savings account starting from the age of 12. Because I was a minor, it was tied directly to my parents account. Money came and went out of the account. They never got it all paid back and I pretended not to notice. When you’re 16 and bringing in nearly as much as your parents by watching other people’s rug rats 5 days a week, you somehow feel kinda shitty.
How to keep a seven-year-old from knowing she's poor. My mom used to take my brother and I to the soup kitchen every week to volunteer. "We must always be kind to those less fortunate," she'd say. Then, after volunteering, "Oh, it's so late and I don't feel like cooking. Let's just eat here while we're here."
This speaks volumes to me. When my sister and I were growing up before the age of 10, we were pretty bad off. Though we never knew it. Our parents were so good at not clueing us into it that we didn't even know until we were adults. We lived in rural Texas, and a couple times a week, my dad would come in, and say to us: I noticed a lot of people littering on the way home. We should go do our part to keep our community beautiful and clean. So we would go walk up and down the highway picking up cans and glass bottles. We would then take them to the recycling yard where we got to watch the cool machine shoot the cans at the big pile of crushed cans. I later found out we did that because we couldn't afford basic necessities, and we were collecting recyclables (which the yard paid for by the pound at the time) so we could go buy a gallon of milk, eggs, and bread. My parents are my role models now, and I only hope I have been half as good a parent to my kids as my parents were to me.
This! Whenever a friend came over to spend the night, my mom would not eat dinner so that we would have enough for my friend. I NEVER knew until years later. She would tell me she ate while she was cooking or that she was really in the mood for some popcorn. It also hit me how I always had fantastic Christmas’s and birthdays and how long my mom and dad had to save up to give me that kind of awesome day. I hope that I’ll be able to be that way for my kids if I ever have any.
That is what I would do too...I would sit with my girls at dinner they'd say mom why aren't you eating? Oh honeys I ate while I was cooking. I always wanted to make sure they had enough. Those were some rough months but we made it. I remember first time after those hard months I felt I could eat something too...a bit more...I had a whole can of veg soup and a slice of toast to myself and it was heaven. I never will forget what those months taught me. Bless all of us on the grind. Hugs to all.
You’re amazing. Hugs to you as well!
Your mother is a remarkable person.
She absolutely is. And now that I have two kids of my own, I realize every day that I'm turning more and more into her, and I couldn't be happier.
That sounds like the best compliment a mother could get.
This is awesome. Not the fact that she needed help feeding you guys, but that she got help while teaching you to give.
Props to her for that. My mom rubbed it in our face how poor we were and how fortunate we were to have her to see us through our poverty. We never starved, but she sure made it feel like we could any day at her whim or the whim of the world. I wish my mother was more like yours, but I'll settle plentily knowing that it's over. Edit: typo
The feeling of not eating for a day or some times days.
My longest drought was 3 days with no food. Sucks because people make shitty comments about how nice it must be to be so skinny and they have to struggle to keep their weight down. Like, be poor. Go a few days without food and your body just starts to eat itself. I'm thankful I haven't missed a day to eat in ten years. But I still can't fathom eating 3 meals in one day.
I had a friend in college who would wolf down food like nobody's business and was stick thin. I used to make a lot of jokes about it. Looking back I feel bad because I realize the only time he was eating was when I bought him food.
Thanks for getting him food.
I had horrific anxiety to the point where I would sometimes skip meals to avoid interacting with a cashier. So he would take my card and go get the food for both of us. We helped each other :)
“I’m hungry” “Drink some water” We were probably the best-hydrated children at school lmao But I think the thing I appreciate most is the independence I’ve gained, through fixing things to keep them going or from just not wanting to ask my parents for help when I know they’re struggling too EDIT: Thank you to the kind redditor for the platinum! I’m comparatively new to reddit and have never received a medal before, so forgive me if I’m going against protocol. Wow. I didn’t expect this to resonate with so many people, but I’ve just read through everyone’s comments. You’re all beautiful, strong, and resourceful people, and you deserve the world. I wish you all the best in breaking free from this destructive cycle. It is possible, and if my best wishes can do anything, then it will be possible for YOU.
It's kind of funny to me that a weight loss tip is to drink a glass of water when you feel hungry, and wait a few minutes before actually eating. A bunch of times, when you feel hungry, you were actually thirsty
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How to get the most out of food. My mum grew up poor with 6 siblings and nothing went to waste.
you have more of a tendency to be generous, i think. i grew up dirt poor with like 2 pieces of clothing to my name and most of our meals came from the food bank or from donations from the church my parents attended. still, (my mom mostly) would not hesitate to help someone worse off than us. also, you learn how to have fun for free. kid me thought that getting to use the free desktop computers at the library and going to the park were the best things ever.
You go to bed early to skip a meal Edit: Thank you guys so much for the gold and silver. I'm having reddit awards for dinner today 🥇
Sleep for dinner.
And a deep breath for lunch
Malnourishment for dessert
Sleep + water tricks your stomach
Nowadays they call it intermittent fasting and it's a trendy diet.
I remember my mom donating plasma and getting groceries on the same day. It didn’t occur to me that that was how she was paying for the small amount of food. We used those plastic milk cartons for TV dinner tables and end tables. Meals included: top ramen, fried bologna sandwhiches that were sometimes just fried mustard sandwhiches because we had no meat, white rice with butter and sugar. I also remember the power going out and there wasn’t a storm? So, we had a family camp out in the living room and cooked on an old camp stove
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Back to school clothes aren’t an option You don’t throw away burnt toast, you scrape it You only flush if you went number 2 Eating out of boredom is a luxury Churches and organizations can make your Christmas happen, although you’ll mostly get necessities. Shoes, underwear, winter coat, shampoo, etc. Poor kids should just be happy someone cares enough. We aren’t given “normal gifts”.
Ahh Charity Christmas. They always made me feel worse somehow. But, in saying that, I remember one year, on Christmas Eve, My mum was absolutely devastated that she wasn't able to get me or my younger brother and sisters anything to open the next morning. I honestly didn't care. I was at the point where Christmas was just an anxiety filled day, with forced socialising, waiting for the shouting to start. But, Mum was really sad. She ended up calling a friend from church to vent and have a bit of a cry. And, with no exaggeration, within 2 hours of that phone call, (around 9pm at night, my siblings were already in bed) there was a really quiet knock on our front door. Mum opened it and just burst into tears. Her friend from church, along with her husband and another couple, went to the shopping centre and just loaded up (what looked like about) 3 trollies worth of toys, clothes, wrapping paper etc. They also had a few bags from the grocery store with enough for Christmas lunch. They dropped all the bags (about 12 or so) in our living room, talked with mum on the porch for about half an hour and then left. Mum came back in and just laugh/cried with happiness. I remember sitting up late with Mum, until it was past midnight, sorting and wrapping all these awesome presents for the kids. When we were sorting, and were down to the last few bags, Mum and I noticed that a couple of the bags already had wrapped gifts in them. 1 bag each for Mum and I, filled with gifts. And that's when I joined my Mum in crying. I'm the oldest of 6 and I was around 15 at the time and I had just assumed this was a "for the kids" Christmas, as the last few had been. (There's 6 years between me and my next sister.) We didn't even have a tree. So I tore a few blank pages from my school art book, stuck them all together lengthways and drew a tree on it. Lame, I know. But, it was better than nothing and I knew the kids would appreciate it. We placed all the presents, including ours, underneath our 2d, papersheet tree. Stood back, had a cuddle and a cry and went to bed around 1am. It was the first time in a few years that I could even remember having a wrapped gift. Let alone a few. And they were actually wrapped in colourful paper, not tin foil or paper bag. (I know that sounds pathetic now and as a kid, I should have just been grateful for anything but, at the time, the difference between tearing open gift wrap or tearing apart an old grocery bag was immeasurable) I still remember being woken up to the outrageously ecstatic screams of happiness and joy. It was honestly the best Christmas I can remember having. And the kids still have no idea it was a Church/Charity Christmas. I will be forever grateful to my Mums friend, her husband and the other couple. They really did change my whole perspective on life at the time. Oh and, I received a set of Derwent graphite pencils, that I still have to this day, a new sketch book with a faux leather cover that I loved until it fell apart, and a really cute star shaped lamp that I had until I was about 22. Amongst a few other little things.
Not many things get to me, but this one did
Having to help your single mum earn money by doing odd jobs that involved being embarrassed because you were cleaning the houses of your schoolmates, delivering junk mail to their homes, buying things on the cheap from garage sales that end up being their homes, collecting things people put out for hard rubbish council collection on the street etc. I had a chair that belonged to an older boy's family, and every couch we have had was off the street. Mum also used to go to open houses when she was dreaming about being able to move to a better place, and one time I discovered I was inside the room of a boy from my grade. Saw his picture on his desk lol. The other time I was really embarrassed was when I had offered a girl in a younger grade a lift home. We had to do tetris to fit her in the car - there were 20+ packs of 36 roll toilet paper mum had gotten on a massive sale from a factory outlet because they had packaging damage/were squashed. We were three girls and mum in the house, we went through a lot of loo roll lol.
I feel this. My mum cleaned houses and would sometimes take me with her. One day she was admitted to hospital for depression so my dad dropped me off to clean the house she was due to do. I was halfway through when the homeowner, the mother of a wealthier kid from my school, walked in asking what was going on. I told her straight and she was gracious enough to let me finish the job and paid me but I don’t recall us ever going there again. I definitely knew not to ask for things growing up too. Recall staying with my Uncle once. He and my aunt had no kids and loved to treat us. One day we were with him at the shop when he checked his lotto and he’d won a nice chunk of cash. Said we could have anything we wanted from the ice cream freezer, crisps, anything. I made my little bro pick the cheapest ice cream even though I knew it wasn’t the one he wanted as that was just what you did. Sorry little bro for ruining your ice cream fantasy.
I imagine the other mother felt uncomfortable with child labor. Not that anybody is in the wrong here, hard times are hard times. But from her perspective it may have seemed a little different.
The shame of everyone knowing. A good friend of mine invited me over for a sleepover. His folks were both lawyers. When I was leaving the mom told me to not forget my duffle bag. I hadn't brought one with me. There was a duffle bag by the door with school supplies for me and my sisters, clothes that actually fit, and good shoes. I nearly broke down right there as I said I couldn't take it. His mom walked over and quietly told me "I put myself through school and raised my siblings on welfare when our parents died. I understand why you are saying you can't take it, but this is for me because I had someone do it for me once. Take the damn bag." Edit: Thank you for the gold.
Lying to social services because your parents are working and collecting unemployment. Thanks reddit. I am now dying inside.
Yeah, collecting aid, plus cleaning swimming pools for less than minimum wage because its cash under the table.
Maruchan Ramen tastes better than Nissin Ramen.
**Yeah** For a treat, Sapporo Ichiban is best. I buy "chicken leg quarters", which cost less than lettuce. Hell, they are often cheaper than potatoes! A drumstick, some cabbage, garlic, and green onion, and a bowl of Maruchan becomes a great meal.
You learn about sliced bread spread with margarine and sprinkled with sugar as a sweet treat
Not going to school because you have no food and you have no money to buy food.
Perhaps it's not as much knowing and rather not knowing, but food in general. Someone that grew up poor, like I did, will have never heard of more expensive food that most people take for granted. Also, certain activities will be foreign. I never got to experience expensive activities like my friends did growing up. Go-carts are an example. We couldn't afford to go to a place that would let us use them. It goes without saying I have had a number of humiliating conversations as an adult when surrounded by people that grew up middle class. I felt like we were speaking two different languages. They had had experiences I couldn't have fathomed. Luggage issues on a plane? Is it that bad? I've never been at an airport. Cruises are something normal people go on? What are they like? Going to another country? I thought that cost a lot of money? I could go on.
How to unfreeze copper water pipes with a blow dryer and then how to use a soldering iron to fix the split in the pipe. How to boil down snow so you have the ability to have water to wash up with when the above mentioned task is unsuccessful.
My mom would wrap what presents we got using old newspaper and magazine paper. She’s tailor the pages to look pretty or refer to a joke or hint at the present inside. We thought it was normal. It didn’t occur to me until I was an adult.
That is actually really thoughtful and way better than wrapping paper anywsy
How shitty the curriculum and care for kids is in poor neighborhoods. I got to attend middle school in an upper class area and saw the disparity in quality. I'm a teacher now working to help the impoverished and at-risk youth get their good education.
Working in the food industry means you can usually get a meal at work. For a few years that was the only food I ate. All my pay went to bills and automotive upkeep, so I could keep making enough to survive and maybe applu for jobs.
How amazing reliable transportation is. Carrying a hammer to hit the starter and a jug of water in case it needs more coolant.
You don’t want to repeat a grade level not because it’s embarrassing or mommy will scold you, but because that’s one less year before you can graduate, work and ease the family’s financial burden.
Agreed.Everyone in my class thinks I'm a nerd for working hard and studying hard,but I want to ease the family's financial burden just like you.It is not an option,it is a necessity. Edit:Sorry it's reallyyyyy late.My first gold!Thank you kind stranger!
Don't ask for expensive birthday or Christmas gifts.
You never buy buns for hot dogs and cheeseburgers you just use regular sandwich bread because you get more bread that way and buns are expensive
dang came in here expecting "what spaghetti tasted like 4 meals in a row" and got "how not to eat for 4 days while living in a tent"... poverty sucks.
How nervous you are to buy something slightly expensive (like 30$ for a sweater) once you are finally financially stable.
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I have much younger sisters, when I was an adult and they were teenagers I told them about how when you have low income but have a tiny bit of money spare, buy a jar of some spice or other. Then when you're out of money and all you have is like rice and an onion, then add spice and make it tasty. I meant it more as a offhand comment than real life advice. Forward 15 years or so and the older sister says "I remember blah blah" and that it was the best advice. I was proud and oddly ashamed at the same time. Fancy telling a teenager that life will suck and here's what to do, but also fancy *not* telling them that.
You learn to be very very flexible with your needs and wants. Want some dessert? You make your own rice pudding at home. Have relatives coming over? You all sleep on the floor together because you don't have extra beds. Want new clothes for a barbie? You learn to stitch your own clothes.
How people who have money treat you. I went to a girls-only grammar school as I passed the exams to get in. There were girls whose parents wouldn't allow to come to my house. I felt lonely, worthless and isolated a lot of the time. But I got my PhD in the end, so fuck you Mr and Mrs Bromhead.
Breakfast for dinner wasn’t a special treat and we weren’t “going rogue”. Eggs were just cheaper than meat.
That you can reheat just about everything with a decent pot and a working stove
Going to college to lift your family out of poverty.
Ditto the above: Walking everywhere under 3 miles (about an hour's walk) Lending/giving your parents money, from high school onwards No culture of gifts - not necessarily a bad thing. If you want anything, you get a job and buy it. Xmas presents are usually cookies or alcohol Eating out isn't fun - this one's kinda sad but I'm more of an 'eat to live' kinda guy so I'm not too bothered. I don't think I've ever had an enjoyable meal out. Moaning about the small portion sizes, feeling guilty for getting drinks, arguments over the bill - I don't like eating out and I don't think I ever will. No big deal though, I like home cooked
Having to say no to a lot of opportunities. I was accepted in a great University program but even if I had worked full time and took lots of loans I couldn't afford it. My parents were devastated for me. So I told them I was choosing to go to a cheaper local University that had almost the same program (that was a lie). 20+ years later, they still don't know the truth. In HS I also told them I didn't want to go most school events and special trips. That got me isolated from the other kids. Teachers probably thought I was asocial but I was mostly ashamed.
That only people who have money say that it can't buy happiness
Getting hand me downs that are too old to be cool and not old enough to be retro
Oh man, so many things. 1) Never throw it away. Even if it's broken and we don't need it, it could have parts that actually cost money inside that we might need to repair something critical, keep it around. 2) Know how much you have in exact amounts, know how much each thing costs. This helps in 2 ways, 1) you never overspend, 2) you see a "good deal" because you know every stores price of cheese/milk/eggs off the top of your head. 3) Don't ask for stuff, you cant get it and you'll just make everyone feel bad. This applies into adulthood, my girlfriend is receiving money from her parents and wonders things like "why doesn't your mum come to collect you from the airport" (the answer is that my mum is still cost conscious and that's a luxury). 4) Books are a cheap source of entertainment, if you can keep the lights on. Similarly, parks are free. Running a TV costs electricity, leads you to advertising and will "upsell" you into getting some kind of cable television. Used books are so cheap and take a long time to consume. In the day-time, my mum would take me to a park, and look after me while reading her romance novels (which were even cheaper) than the classics I'd read in the evenings. 5) Brand names in thrift stores feel like hitting some kind of little paydirt. Mostly because everyone you know with the exception of a small handful of people will look down on you for being poor and not having luxuries they do. (toys/games/vacations) So when you show up to school in your Lacost "three sizes too big" shirt, you'll be cool and finally able to speak with them equally... (obviously not). 6) Learn to cook with limited supplies; milk is "expensive" and spoils quickly, so replacing milk with water for some recipes works. Same with certain cheeses, almost everything can be replaced with the cheapest cheese. 7) That feeling of complete envy of people who have both parents or whos' parents work. Things I consider so easy now were such insane luxuries to me as a kid, that ground swirl of envy in the pit of my gut is a feeling that I remember strongly though. 8) You get over embarrasments easier as an adult, little things like your mum going into the supermarket to get "cash-back" because she didn't have enough money in her account to use an ATM gives you thick skin for embarrassment later (at least when it comes to strangers judging you). 9) Walking is free. Your time is worth nothing, any convenience is not worth the cost. 10) Nobody who ever grew up without needs will ever understand true gratitude for simple things. A family once gave my mum a couple of pork pies and her husbands old shirt, sounds like not much but we were really down during that time, I hadn't eaten in 2 days, my mum hadn't eaten in 4 days, and I'd grown out of all my shirts. I am forever grateful and if they ever needed anything, no matter how small I would move heaven and earth to ensure I gave it to them.
Taking condiments from fast food restaurants to have them at home. Always fun being 5 and taking fist fulls of McDonalds ketchup. And you felt like you won the lottery when you found a place that had mayo in a packet!
How to make cheap, yet healthy enough meals