I remember that time I was really poor, just like three days ago, and ate some Spaghetti O’s.
When did you find it necessary to use a shank?
See, that’s why you switch around. Two days a week of Beefaroni, two of ravioli, and two of SpaghettiOs. One day a week of Salvation Army.
I have serious problems with the OP’s solutions to being poor. When I was poor, I ate and slept at places like the Salvation Army. I’d sit through a two hour religious service in the hopes of an edible bologna sandwich after. I’d stand outside the post office begging spare change: Can you spare 8 cents for me to mail a letter? After a while, I’d have enough to buy a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter.
Did you find this more effective than asking for money for food? Or less shameful?
More effective. I had no shame.
I remember standing in the grocery store *agonizing *over whether I wanted to get a chicken pot pie or a turkey pot pie. I preferred the turkey version, but it cost twenty cents more than the chicken.
I’ve been thinking about when people actually paid for my food. Bought my food. Gave me money for food.
Nobody, as I recall, ever gave me money for food.
People did buy me food, albeit rarely. The only times I can recall (several times; more than once, less than a dozen) are when I was standing in line at McDonalds or the like, counting my change and looking at the prices on the menu, looking at the prices on the menu and counting my change, and someone would turn around and hand me a bag with a couple of hamburgers and an order of fries. I was, of course, very grateful.
I would go to Burger Chef (now Hardees) order the cheapest burger that came in the fold open cardboard container. I would then take it to the “Works Bar” which had all the fixings to doctor up your burger. I’d set the burger on the tray, fill the container with lettuce, add tomatoes, onions, pickles, etc. then mix ketchup, mayo and relish to make dressing and have a big assed salad and a burger for like a buck-fifty.
Full time employment as Assistant Manager at a fucking Radio Shack. :rolleyes:
Yep.
If it is that easy, why did she have to work up the courage to go to social services?
LUXURY!
The dollar store sells 70% isopropyl alcohol, thats the real budget drunk.
Pretty slanderous, I live in a third world country and social services is way more generous than in the USA, local version of food stamps is way better than the USA version and there is also subsidized housing. If you have the guts to squat on government land you can apply for a certificate of comfort and get the land after a few decades.
In college, I’d cook up pasta or ramen, and then season the hell out of it with cheap spices and spices I’d pilfer from work. That way, hours after I ate, I’d burp up the taste of garlic/chile/basil/pepper/celery seed/etc, and fool my body into thinking I just ate. Beat going to bed with that nasty “hungry taste” in my mouth.
To this day, I’ll still cook up a nice batch of College Pasta every once in a while. No more cheap or pilfered spices though.
I did this for an old woman once, not for food but she was like a buck and change short and was just telling the clerk to overlook it and they wouldn’t. So I offered it to her, she snatched it from me without saying thanks or anything and actually elbowed me when she turned and left. The clerk said god I wish she would start going somewhere else so she apparently did it all the time.
A thanks goes a long way.
I had to stop paying my rent for several months before they finally kicked me out. I was selling off my books and records to live on, about $20 a week for food. One $1.00 frozen meal at night, the big bags of cereal for breakfast, peanut butter sandwiches for lunch.
That’s not homeless… cramped and poor yes, homeless no. Homeless is the guy who lives at the ATM (even though he does have a ceiling, and hey, having a bank owning it isn’t so different from having a mortgage).
In the U.S., if a family is staying with another family in a one-family structure, they are considered homeless.
I was really poor when my youngest child was a baby. I was going to school part-time, and taking him for medical appointments and therapies prevented me from working very much. Where I lived there was a diaper bank and other agencies that also gave out diapers for free. I could get as many diapers as I needed for free. What I couldn’t get for free were pads or tampons. I think you know where I’m going with this. No, I didn’t **wear **the diapers- I cut them into pieces.
For a long, long time, I had nothing.
Joke response first - we were so poor we had to live on Scraps for a month; I still miss that dog.
Serious response - there was a long time or two when I was young that most of what we ate as table meat was what we could catch or kill ourselves. To this day I just can’t stand the thought of eating catfish; just seeing it on a menu can ruin my appetite.
When I was a kid Mom used to cut holes in my pockets on Christmas Day so I’d have something to play with.
mmm