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View Full Version : What's the poorest you've ever been?


ZepSinger
12-13-2004, 12:25 PM
For me, 1983.
My band went on the road for most of that year, making basically nuthin' after expenses. We were able to dole out a whopping $49/week salary to each guy. I remember for one stretch, I ate nothing but macaroni & cheese(the generic kind, not even Kraft) and rice for 3 solid weeks. Wasn't even above lifting the occasional steak from a grocery store. BAD times.

Fortunately, these times are a distant memory now. I'm curious to see if any of you fine folks have had similar hard times...

Z

BigMeatballDave
12-13-2004, 12:29 PM
Right now. Just finished Christmas shopping. Just spent 90 at the dentist for my son for a nerve treatment, and he'll have to go back in 2 weeks for a stainless steel cap. Another 110. Happy happy joy joy...

David.
12-13-2004, 12:30 PM
Right now I have like....49 dollars to my name. But....I always have student charge so... :)

Eleazar
12-13-2004, 12:33 PM
At the end of my freshman year of college I was flat broke. I mean, I had no money in the world. I was worth less than a dollar. No cash in the wallet, no cash in the bank, didn't own a thing in the world. My car (actually my parents' car) had a cracked head and I didn't have a dime to fix it. Even my meal card at school was completely out. It felt pretty weird to have nothing to my name other than my clothes, no transportation, no nothing.

Bob Dole
12-13-2004, 12:34 PM
Ah, the memories...

Nothing like waking up 90 minutes early so you can stop by the McDonald's on your walk to work and pick up the trash in the lot in exhange for an Egg McMuffin and a cup of coffee (which will be your only food all day unless someone buys you something else).

Dishwashing liquid is the great all-purpose soap-type substance.

BigMeatballDave
12-13-2004, 12:36 PM
To add insult to injury, I think he had to walk uphill to school, too.Both ways, in 2 feet of snow?

Demonpenz
12-13-2004, 12:36 PM
i had to use the insurance money when my car was wrecked for tuition

MichaelH
12-13-2004, 12:39 PM
I just graduated from college in 1991 and got a job. Fortunately, my Mom let me stay with her rent free as long as I wanted. I worked from July to October and got laid off due to cut-backs. I was paying off my student loans, a car loan and car insurance and was only making around $280 a week. My unemployment only amounted to $55 bucks a week. I spent from October to March on unemployment until I found a good paying job. If it wasn't for my Mom, I would have been real bad off.

Bob Dole
12-13-2004, 12:39 PM
Both ways, in 2 feet of snow?

At least he had his cello and a dream.

Demonpenz
12-13-2004, 12:43 PM
I just graduated from college in 1991 and got a job. Fortunately, my Mom let me stay with her rent free as long as I wanted. I worked from July to October and got laid off due to cut-backs. I was paying off my student loans, a car loan and car insurance and was only making around $280 a week. My unemployment only amounted to $55 bucks a week. I spent from October to March on unemployment until I found a good paying job. If it wasn't for my Mom, I would have been real bad off.

pretty much in the same position like that now. I might be selling my weight bench pretty soon

ptlyon
12-13-2004, 12:46 PM
Once I was so poor I couldn't pay attention

MichaelH
12-13-2004, 12:47 PM
Once I was so poor I couldn't pay attention

Oh yeah? Once I was so poor, I couldn't even spend the night.

ROFL

Demonpenz
12-13-2004, 12:49 PM
i was so poor i had a glass leg and it had cool aid in it

David.
12-13-2004, 12:49 PM
Oh yeah? Once I was so poor, I couldn't even spend the night.

ROFL

pft, I was so poor I couldn't buy time.



http://forums.breakthetrend.com/images/smilies/uhh.gif

Fairplay
12-13-2004, 12:50 PM
When i was born i had nothing but my birthday suit.

Bob Dole
12-13-2004, 12:51 PM
Oh yeah? Once I was so poor, I couldn't even spend the night.

ROFL

That's not what she said.

It wasn't finances, it was the smell.

MichaelH
12-13-2004, 12:55 PM
That's not what she said.

It wasn't finances, it was the smell.


:LOL: :#

Skip Towne
12-13-2004, 12:56 PM
Both ways, in 2 feet of snow?
Yep, and 110° heat.

bobbything
12-13-2004, 12:59 PM
When I got laid off from Sprint I had absolutley no money. I lived in "midtown" Kansas City (just another word for "ghetto"). I had a $290 car payment, rent, insurance, etc. and never knew where my next check was coming from. Accepted unemployment for a short while but couldn't justify living off of it for very long.

I lucked out when I was hired by the KCK School District as a subsititute teacher. It was the worst job I've ever had but it paid the bills. That district has problems when they will pay a guy with an Advertising degree and no teaching experience to teach 1st grade.

I knew things would have to turn around at some point, and they did. But, man, it sucked being dirt poor.

Braincase
12-13-2004, 01:27 PM
I once bummed a meal off a mentally ill neighbor on welfare. He made a crack about the hotshot white boy having to beg off a meal - I almost walked out, but his quick apology and my hunger overruled my pride.

2 weeks later I dropped off half a dozen steaks for him. He freaked out nd told me he didn't need anything from me... except a ride to the grocery store so he could buy is own damn steaks with food stamps. Strange.

PunkinDrublic
12-13-2004, 01:32 PM
I've never really been poor. When moneys a little tight I'm not above selling plasma for beer money.

Eleazar
12-13-2004, 01:33 PM
I've never really been poor. When moneys a little tight I'm not above selling plasma for beer money.

I employed that one myself several times in college.

Braincase
12-13-2004, 01:49 PM
I've never really been poor. When moneys a little tight I'm not above selling plasma for beer money.

Yeah, it would've been nice to fall back on that, but I was still in recovery mode from Teratoma and Embryonal Carcinoma.

MOhillbilly
12-13-2004, 01:55 PM
After my parents were divorced my mom didnt have a job for 15 years.
pretty fvcking poor till i moved in w/ dad.

BigMeatballDave
12-13-2004, 01:55 PM
I once knew the woman who was so poor, I saw her walking down the street, kicking a can. I asked her what she was doing, she said, 'Moving'...

Rain Man
12-13-2004, 01:59 PM
Two instances spring to mind.


1. When I was a junior in high school, my parents' business went bankrupt. I'd never received an allowance or anything, but saved like a banshee from my restaurant job, which I had started at 12. In a short story that shall remain untold, my life savings disappeared without my knowledge. I was hand to mouth my whole junior and senior year, and had no backup at all since my parents were in the same boat. Even so, there were only a couple of months where it was really bad, since I usually got enough hours at the restaurant to live decently. It was just a real bummer to lose everything I had with no warning.

2. When I was in graduate school, I got an opportunity to go to South Korea for the summer on an internship. The school paid for airfare and housing, and I got paid $400 a month. It wasn't a poverty of despair, because I could've had my wife send some money if I was desperate, but since we were poor graduate students I was determined not to do that. I was dirt poor that whole summer, squeezing every won until their version of Lincoln screamed, but that first month was really treacherous.

Rain Man
12-13-2004, 02:01 PM
Yeah, it would've been nice to fall back on that, but I was still in recovery mode from Teratoma and Embryonal Carcinoma.

Excuses, excuses.

PunkinDrublic
12-13-2004, 02:01 PM
I never have been poor but I'l bet I whined the most when I didn't have enough money. That's one of the worst feelings in the world in the world to me to be out with some buddies and try to withdraw 20 bucks only to get the insufficient funds notice.

MOhillbilly
12-13-2004, 02:04 PM
I never have been poor but I'l bet I whined the most when I didn't have enough money. That's one of the worst feelings in the world in the world to me to be out with some buddies and try to withdraw 20 bucks only to get the insufficient funds notice.

My mom bought me Pumas once in Jr. high.

Iowanian
12-13-2004, 02:05 PM
Mid 1980s.Farm.Poorest county in Iowania. Spent a couple of years with taped together glasses and shoes.

My family did its time and worked our way out of it, including all the kids putting ourselves through college. Its why I have very little sympathy for those that don't do anything to work theirselves out of the hole.

Rain Man
12-13-2004, 02:06 PM
After my parents were divorced my mom didnt have a job for 15 years.
pretty fvcking poor till i moved in w/ dad.


I have to ask. How do you even do that? Welfare? Money from relatives?

MOhillbilly
12-13-2004, 02:13 PM
I have to ask. How do you even do that? Welfare? Money from relatives?


College loans, money from relatives, stealing & lies.

MOhillbilly
12-13-2004, 02:15 PM
oh and me begging my dad not to forclose cause she was 6 months behind.
Which he eventually did.

mcan
12-13-2004, 02:17 PM
I'm not just poor, i'm in the red! The life of a college student is the life of a poor man...

Braincase
12-13-2004, 03:22 PM
Boozer was telling me about the time things were so rough he actually had to eat his caviar off of a Ritz. The shame...

Iowanian
12-13-2004, 03:24 PM
the thing that saved us from really Knowing how tight things were as kids was our situation.....huge garden, chickens(for eggs and butcher), raised some pigs, some of which we ate, and cattle.

Even poor.......I was eating fresh vegies, fresh pork and fresh steaks. It wasn't so bad on that end.

Donger
12-13-2004, 03:28 PM
Every time the reserves get a little low, I just breed again.

"Price. A fair price. That's not what you say it is, and it's not what I say it is... It's what the market will bear. Now there's people - and I know 'em - who'll pay a lot more than $25,000 for a healthy baby. Why, I myself fetched $30,000 on the black market. And that was in 1954 dollars."

Dr. Johnny Fever
12-13-2004, 03:49 PM
I lived out of vending machines for a week between finishing high school and starting college. I was living on campus already, taking classes and working in the theatre's scene shop. While waiting for the last paycheck of the summer I would go to the vending machine once per day and get the biggest thing in it just to fill myself up as much as possible. Usually a big sweet roll of some type which I didn't even like. I had like $3 to get me through the week.

Things are better now.

:thumb:

Lightning Rod
12-13-2004, 04:04 PM
The year I made the most money I have ever made, I had to feed the family on my Texaco Credit car for a week several times. Got calls at work that the heat wan H2o was gonna go bye bye often.
The X never could figure out why Harrahs never had any light bulbs burned out or that if she tokk 500 out of the bank and hit a $200 Jackpot later that night that she was "actually" not winning.

Oh and after I divorced the Biotch I remember a week that I had nothing to eat but shitty crackers and Hy-Vee mac-n-cheese. Same week "someone" clipped a dear Abby article and mailed it to me about some Dad that was living the good life while his kids were eating dirt.
FWIW I was paying her more than what my child support was...

I am making about 1/2 what I was, still sending her money and have enough left over to go to the Bar and Watch the Chiefs tonight.

Got a gal that loves to drink beer and watch sports but doesn't piss all the money away. Living well is the best revenge.

Taco John
12-13-2004, 05:04 PM
In college, It got so bad one semester that I was eating Ramen noodles and the occassional 39 cent cheeseburger for protein if I was lucky and found enough change. My dad wouldn't send me a nickle when I swallowed enough pride to call and beg him for *something*. My brother was pissed off that Dad wouldn't help, and sent me a twenty to help keep the cheese burgers coming for another couple of weeks.

It was the second semester of living in an apartment at school. Being poor in the fraternity was no big deal because you had already paid for a food bill so getting fed wasn't a problem. Moving out with some friends was another issue altogether.

But it's what I wanted... I remember in high school, me and a buddy talking about how we couldn't wait to be poor college students. We just wanted OUT of our dinky little town. But even now, I sure wouldn't mind going back. I might have been poor in the pocket book, but the college experience is rich. More than once, I remember walking across the bueatiful campus, breathing the free Idaho air, and feeling like the luckiest guy in America. I have those moments still, but during college, it was quite frequent.

kc rush
12-13-2004, 05:04 PM
I would say 1993-1997 was the poorest period for me. It took me a few months to find a job after I graduated from college in 1993 so I had to make things work by working at a grocery store, using credit cards (bad move) and living with 4 other people in a townhouse. The good thing about working at the grocery store was that I could buy food that was expiring (but was good for another week or so) for almost nothing. I remember praying for a Christmas bonus that year ($30) so I would have gas money to get me by for a couple of weeks (forget presents).

Of course my car crapped out around this time so I bought a ’79 Toyota Corolla for $100. It got me to work and back, but it sucked as a car.

I finally got a job in newspaper sales and things turned around for a bit, but money was always tight. After a couple of years I ended up unemployed for 6-months. My wife and I lived on unemployment, her crummy salary and credit cards (bad move). I also sold a bunch of old CD’s to get by and my wife and I sold some of our hand-me-down furniture and non-sentimental wedding gifts.

I finally got a job in ’96 and was able to move back to KC where it took a couple of months for my wife to find a job. We lived on my slightly-above-crummy salary and creative financing/juggling during that time.

It wasn’t until 1997 that things started to turn around for us, but I feel like we are still paying for our credit misdeeds.

stumppy
12-13-2004, 05:40 PM
For me it was when I was around 4 to 5 yrs old. I still remember bits and pieces of the way things were.
My dad had died when I was 6 mnths. old and left mom at home with 5 kids and no idea at all about how to run the family business. A tree service that my dad had started on his own several years before. Mom ended up losing the business to a "trusted" relative ( a guy that had married my cousin).
Anyways, mom was dating this guy for awhile and he talked her into selling everything and moving to California with him. It seems there was a pot of gold out there and he knew just where it was.:rolleyes:
When we all moved out there mom had put in a change of address for all of our Social Security Checks. Which was the only income we had. It took 7 months for her to get a check out there.
Her idiot boyfriend couldn't get a job. My oldest brother (16 at the time) worked 3 jobs and gave mom every bit of his pay. All we could afford was a little 1 bedroom shack to live in. Every time it rained mom would get out all the pots and pans to set all around the house to catch it as it dripped down on the dirt floor. ( only the living room had a dirt floor).
I can remember my brothers pulling me down to a local train depot where a lot of produce was shipped out. When we would get there we would look wround for stuff that had fallen out of boxes. If we couldn't find much that way my brothers would start throwing rocks at the guys loading the trains. The guys loading the train would get fed up and start throwing anything they could get there hands on back at us. Usually it would be whatever they were loading at the time. After a little while we would run around and pick up he tomatoes, potatoes, onions, etc. that they had been throwing at us and load them in my wagon and head back home with the food. I remember eating potatoe soup a lot.
When mom finally got her checks we packed up and moved back home.
There is a lot more things that we did to eat but you get the idea.

Rausch
12-13-2004, 05:41 PM
I'm not just poor, i'm in the red! The life of a college student is the life of a poor man...

Ditto...

MadProphetMargin
12-13-2004, 05:48 PM
My first apartment was so small, the front and back door were on the same hinge.

gblowfish
12-13-2004, 05:52 PM
Christmas 1984. I had an old Pontiac LeMans with about 300,000 miles on it. Burned oil, had hole rusted in the floorboard where you could stick your feet out and stop like Fred Flintstone. Didn't have any money to buy Christmas presents for anybody, but my family begged me to come home anyway. Drove to KC from Columbia, car would only go about 45 MPH on I-70. Got home, had Christmas, that night I had to be back to my radio station gig for a Midnight to 6AM shift . So I'm leaving KC about 5pm, get about five miles from my house...the engine in the car catches fire, spreads to the dashboard in about 30 secs, and burns the car basically to the ground with all my Christmas presents in it.

Not only did I lose all my Christmas stuff, but the cash people gave was in my suitcase...in the trunk, which also burned.

Ended up riding the Greyhound to Columbia that night to get to work with about 5 minutes to spare. No money, no car, no clothes. Nothing more depressing than riding a Greyhound on Christmas night with all the other down and outs. Man...

Logical
12-13-2004, 06:02 PM
Yeah, it would've been nice to fall back on that, but I was still in recovery mode from Teratoma and Embryonal Carcinoma.

LOL you got me to look up teratoma.

Boozer
12-13-2004, 07:02 PM
Boozer was telling me about the time things were so rough he actually had to eat his caviar off of a Ritz. The shame...

I'll have you know it was a saltine. :harumph: While I'm fortunate enough not to have stories of my own, my dad's college experience was sub-bohemian.

Frazod
12-13-2004, 08:05 PM
That's easy - when I first got married to my ex-wife when I was an E-nothing in the Navy. There was just enough money to pay the bills, and perhaps go to the movies and eat out at McDonald's once or twice a month (that was with both of us working). Towards the end of my pay period, we generally couldn't even afford to use the coin-operated laundry machines. We had to wash our clothes in the f#cking bathtub. And this was with us counting every penny.

Of course, if we'd had children, it would have been worse. We would have needed foodstamps to get by. Active duty servicemembers needing to be on the dole just to feed their families is pathetic. I doubt if that's changed, either.

I've been in tight spots since, but those were generally because of my own stupidity and/or financial irresponsibility. Working 12 hours a day and being responsible yet having nearly nothing to show for it sucked ass.