How poor were you?

**shengmei** · 08-04-2005, 09:25 PM

Re: How poor were you?

There had been times when I had to subsist on $100 a month.

**Bluezy** · 08-05-2005, 12:41 AM

Re: How poor were you?

I remember in my early undergrad years at uni in Florida, making a small order of chicken nuggets last for two days.

What a skinny student I was.

**PrincessPerky** · 08-05-2005, 04:03 AM

Re: How poor were you?

As a kid we were broke, and we did the unheard of we played outside

.

We were never hungry though my Dad did try peanut butter soup, which is gross and I love peanut butter. Not sure if it was cause peanut butter was cheap or just wanted to test it, but either way it resides as a memory for me

.

Course as a teen after I left home I lived in my car for months, but I don't think those were fond memories! (niether was the odd things I did for a night in bed)

**singinjeannie** · 08-05-2005, 04:03 AM

Re: How poor were you?

In college. One Thanksgiving weekend I was completely broke. (I had an out of state boyfriend and had spent all my money on phone bills. What a dunce!)

Anyway, I stayed at school to work the Thanksgiving weekend and the College emptied out. I had one can of soup and a few crackers to get me through 4 days. It was frustrating to know feasts were occuring in most houses around me and I was starving.

-Jean

**mccartygirl** · 08-05-2005, 06:07 AM

Re: How poor were you?

I grew up incredibly poor. There are too many stories. It was my mom, brother and I. My mom was a waitress until I was 14. There were years she made $5000-6000. The worst time was when my stepfather threatened the 3 of us so my dad came and got us, when we got back to the duplex (1 bedroom, about 500 sq feet) all of our stuff was sold - EVERYTHING! Mom didn't have enough money to buy us anything and she refused to go on welfare, she did it for one month for food stamps and said we'd find a way without going it. Well, everynight my mom would wash out our underwear in the sink and we'd share the 1 towel we had. My dad bought us a few extra outfits. Eventually my mom would buy a towel every week or 2 and some unders. My mom did a good job finding fun things for us to do. Ate a lot of Spam - Ugh, makes me gag thinking about it. But we went to the beach a lot, it was $2 for the carload. My grandpa bought us bikes for X-mas one year and we'd bike there. My mom work 6 days a week, 10 hours/day. It was rough times and I hated it, the welfare kids picked on me a lot because my mom waited on them. But we did a lot of fun things. It wasn't funny at the time but I can look back now at my brother running around at 3 or 4 bare butted while mom washed his underwear. Needless to say, 20 yrs later, he doesn't mind being nekkid in front of anyone.

I can't imagine raising a family on that nowadays. Not to mention Spam is gross! Ragu also makes me gag to this day. Ugh.

**akaivyleaf** · 08-05-2005, 07:27 AM

Re: How poor were you?

Potted meat and I were friends... although I don't think we were poor. My mom made all my clothes aside from my school uniforms. I don't recall ever going without what I needed and as I scan with my minds eye, don't recall my grandparents ever rationalizing one thing over another. They are both deceased now, so I can't go back and ask them, but if we were struggling, I never knew.

**Jorge** · 08-05-2005, 09:28 AM

Re: How poor were you?

I would LOVE to be able to place all of my worldly possessions in my car! I honestly don't think that has ever happened to me. Even when the only food left in the house was a cup of yogurt (I was pregnant and trying to support myself on my own with very little money) that I didn't eat for dinner because I was saving it for breakfast, I had too much stuff. Tons of furniture and too many clothes. Boy did I have my priorities messed up (I'm ashamed to say). Please don't be too hard on me - I was taking my prenatal vitamins... and the pregnancy went fine.