We forsake a mid-week evening and attend a thoroughly informative night of people trying to sell us a mattress and they give us a free meal. Ordinarily this would be an impressively simple choice: I would not attend in a million years even if you gave me a pony called Stefan. Not going to happen. But my arm was twisted by my and my friends’ abysmal financial circumstances.
We were skint. I’m talking raided-every-festy-crevice-in-the-couch-for-spare-change skint. We couldn’t have bought two minutes on a parking meter between us, so the offer of a free meal in exchange for a blisteringly exciting three-hour bedding seminar was too good to pass up. Plus, it was held at a golf course, so it had to be good!
Our vision for a resplendent dinner in the Oak Room was dashed. The mattress seminar was held – I am serious – in the golf course mower shed on rickety tables. And the dinner? An insipid lasagne which consisted almost exclusively of sweet potato as thick as a redwood. Undercooked? Understatement.
Being poor might have been character building, but it wasn’t necessarily fun. It forced me to be far more creative and ingenious just to feed myself than would normally be required. Necessity might be the mother of invention, but it’s bloody exhausting. I’m pretty sure this is why my ancestors gave up hunting.
On another day I was stone broke counting out the last three-dollars-something my friends and I had between us. My wealthy friend was staying at a hotel and we were, err, boarding there too. On the floor. While we house hunted. We had enough for a loaf of bread which would go nicely with the bowl of hotel jam packets. They cease to be decorative when you’re starved.
But my friend had bigger ideas. She wanted something more … grand. And in a fit of fiscal conservatism she marched into the hotel corridor and began to steal the leftover food from outside other people’s doors.
I’m talking a whole tray with a half-eaten chicken carcass.
I am not proud of what I did next.
Do you know those cartoons where the starving ‘toons see their friends turn into a chicken drumstick? Well I saw the chicken turn into a, you know, more complete chicken. I dove in. I piled my sandwich high with chicken, leftover vegetables and two chips. We split them evenly. We might have been desperate, but this hadn’t become Lord of the Flies just yet.
I was rotund and I wore glasses, it was in my best interests not to emulate the life of Piggy.
I shopped for clothes rarely. I ran into a wall (don’t ask) and broke my glasses clean in half at the nose. I couldn’t afford a new pair so I taped them together with black tape and carried on my merry way for the next seven months.
Seven. Months.
The destitute cousin of Harry Potter.
My problem in the early days was I had no Plan B for lack of funds. I couldn’t borrow any off the parents, nor my friends. We were all in the same boat. A dodgy, leaky, poorly-maintained boat.
And the problem with being broke is that it consumes more of your resources than anything else. They call it the poverty cycle for a reason. You spend so much time just trying to survive that you have no time left to do any living.
Or to take yourself out of that vicious loop.
Some people never do.
Have you ever been caught absolutely short? Tell us your story.
Top Comments
I am this poor now too.
My partner earns sweet foxtrot alpha because he is an itinerant teacher with no holiday pay over the Christmas period. I was made redundant whilst on maternity leave last year and haven't been able to get so much as an interview, let alone work despite post grad qualifications. I have a personal loan and credit card debt totally $21K, with no possibility of paying it off any time soon. ALL my money from family allowance goes towards paying debt (minimum payment only). Anyone who says "oh we were poor when our kids were little too but we were so happy" needs to be pushed in front of a fast moving bus. It sucks to be poor. As for getting a low interest credit card - can't get a new credit card because I haven't got any work so no bank will give me a new credit card.
My relationship is now so fragile it's barely hanging in there. The only light in my life is my child. That is the ONLY reason I haven't swallowed a bottle of pills and said "see ya later".
It honestly is the worse experience of my life being this poor and so in debt with no light at the end of the tunnel.
Yep. Life is hard.
I have to agree with those who've said poverty is lonely. My family is one of the hidden poor amongst middle class friends- we are " too busy" to go out to dinner, crawl all through the car desperately searching for coins so the kids have gold coins for yet another charity day at school, and sadly the kids are becoming used to "crazy dinner" nights where I make the weirdest combinations of what I can scratch together from the fridge & freezer. The kick in the guts is that we both work long, hard hours in the media, yet the companies we work for don't feel the need to pay us. We're just freelancers. As freelancers, banks ignore us, centrelink won't deal with us as we have no money for tax so we are actually paying back family payments until we can prove we are not earning anything. The main company my husband worked for kept calling him in to work, even though they hadn't paid him for 5 months. We had no money for fuel so he eventually had up refuse to work for them. On a weekly basis we have no food or the worst...medicine. Every time my kids were sick during winter I'd go to the bulk bill doc but could never afford the medicine for them. I cry in the shower every night, then go off to work another job I may not be paid for, for months. Who do we go to, not the media, we'd never work in TV again...not centrelink...not the bank...not the school-where we are constantly asked to donate money...where?
Have you tried reaching out to the Salvation Army or Lifeline? There's charities like these for a reason & I'm sure if you pay it back by donating your time there sometime you'll reap the rewards. Centrelink is the worst government body for 'assistance' when you genuinely need it. Good luck