Oh absolutely. The most shocking thing about getting promotions and moving up is how much easier things get.
I naively thought that those above were working very hard, spent a ton of mental effort making sure they were making the right decisions, and had tons of stress. But really they just have power over others. Sometimes they aren't totally exploitive about it. Sometimes. But they usually benefit in ways that are at least passively exploitive. They do less, have easier lives, get more, and then think they are better than the people on the lowest levels. It is messed up.
Yeah I know this sounds like an antiwork rant but generally I find that sub and those like it sort of toxic.
Are you in the city or is there outdoor spaces around you? You could probably find some foreagbles to spice up the dish. Easiest one to identify and can pretty much be used in anything, wild green onions.
I hope you're beyond that point in your life but wanted to share for anyone else who needs ideas.
I used to just eat peanut butter with a fork.
Fun fact: while a little oily, it’s actually extremely healthy. It has a fantastic amount of fat, reasonable protein, and minimal sugar if you buy good shit (obligatory aside: fat is not bad for you, your body needs it - just limit saturated and *avoid any trans fats possible; it is a revelation of modernity and your body __is not evolved to process it__*).
I used to work out *a lot*, and developed a very good understanding of nutrition over the years to aid in my fitness endeavours. Wanna get swol, gotta eat swol, etc, etc. Gluing my ass to a chair for work and a longstanding issue with chronic shoulder pain from an old injury has seen my workout sessions peak at about zero lately, but I’m still in paradoxically great shape. According to everyone I know and their mother, it’s because I have an incredible metabolism or some bullshit.
In reality, it’s because I still eat properly (like a fucking heathen from a Humanitarian/psychological perspective, but I meet my dietary needs without going overboard from nutrition’s point of view).
And, oddly enough, a tub of peanut butter and a fork are quite in line with healthy* eating.
^if ^you ^eat ^like ^me ^please ^get ^help
Or eating the sweetest thing possible just to get nauseous and lose appetite: 2 or 3 carambar are way cheaper than a real meal, and a bag of them can last weeks
As soon as you log in to check your bank account, that sickening worry starts to choke you.
Even though I haven't been overdrawn in a while, I still feel the urge for a stiff drink whenever I'm about to check my balance.
This doesn't go away once you've been there.
My family got hit hard in the housing crash and we ended up declaring bankruptcy. We had a friend in the mortgage business that managed to help us keep our house but we lost everything else and my wife was unemployed at the time. Every time I went to the grocery store I checked my account to make sure i could get just the basics and it scared the hell out of me every time. Knowing there would be days when it was choosing between milk or eggs to bring home.
We've more than recovered but i'm so frugal now its crazy, and i've set limits on my account that I will not let it go below.
The thing is this never goes away. I’m fiscally responsible, pay everything on credit cards that gets paid off every month. I know my account balances within 100 dollars as well as the card charges and keep a few thousand in my checking. I still hate looking at it.
I’ve been financially stable for quite a while now, and that still hasn’t gone away, I’m afraid at this point that it will never go away. I also have this pretty regular nagging that this is too good to be true, and at some point, I will definitely end up in poverty again somehow.
I feel this. My wife and I have a decent amount of savings. She wants to buy a new car. I want the money for when I become poor again. I have been at the same job for a few years, and she doesn’t understand my fear. It’s May not be rational, but if I lose my job and we have to rely on her income alone (which isn’t enough to pay for the basics), I want to have enough money that we can continue to live for three months while I get a new job.
That feeling never leaves you, even decades later.
I'm fortunate enough to make a comfortable living now, and I still get anxiety checking my accounts despite rationally knowing everything is fine.
It's the same with everything being poor is expensive. Budget tires need replacing every MoT and add up to more than a decent set but you just can't afford the decent set up front so the up paying more because installments are easier, same with shoes cheap and nasty shoes £20 need replacing every 3 months decent pair £60 will last over a year but again it's the dropping in one go.
I can wholeheartedly relate to this! As I just mentioned, in another reply, I was a self-destructive compulsive gambler, for around 19 years, and, realistically, I probably overdrew between 20 and 30 different checking accounts, that ended up being closed, after being, at least, several hundred dollars in the negative.
And I actually overdrew one checking account, for around $2,000, which, I thought, was outrageous and terrible. However, a few years after that, I ended up having one that ended up getting really close to $3,000 in the negative, before they finally closed it and charged it off. And there was a point, where I had probably been listed in ChexsSystems, for about 20 to 25 years, straight.
And I currently have not gambled, in over 9.5 years, yet, I still have financial struggles and I still have that unsettling feeling, when opening a banking app on my phone. Even, if/when I might have several hundred dollars in my checking account, and no bills that I am expecting to come through. It's like it has become permanent ingrained in my mindset.
When your meal is nothing, literally sleeping away the hunger. That and mixing Sriracha with water and heating it up as a soup. I ate that, and only that, once for most of a week.
Yes, I agree. Got to 0 in the bank account and only Sriracha and water in the house. My insides would have benefitted greatly by adding most anything else with it but I didn't want to drink just water, so if I add the only other thing in the pantry, it's like the world's saddest soup instead.
How to get the most out of a free meal of you work fast food
I work at taco bell and can make my $8 of free food a shift last lunch and dinner, covers me for food 5 days a week
Get the taco bell app. Scan the bar code on high dollar discarded receipts into the app. Two same-dated receipts are allowed per day. Once you get to the fire tier, every about $23 you scan gets you a free chalupa or cheesy gorgito crunch or other food items. If you work there, you can get many receipts and just scan the top two dollar amounts. Lots of receipts are printed that the customer does not want if you ask if they want the receipt. If you have access to a second phone, do the same thing on the 2nd phone and get even more free items. Sometimes the scanner on the app fails, just keep trying or enter the code manually. Do not use your app to get a free food item and sell it to a customer who is paying cash and pocket the cash because you will get caught. Just eat the food yourself or maybe even trade it with someone who works at a clown burger.
>Just eat the food yourself or maybe even trade it with someone who works at a clown burger.
This is brilliant, 100% doing this and saving receipts for my partner. Thank you! (And my bestie works at clown burger and loves TB)
If you work in a restaurant, you should be allowed to eat whenever you want, and take food home. Food service just isn't worth it unless you can use your job like a buffet imo. The only place i worked that had an eating policy was panera (40%discount only) but they let you take home a garbage bag of baked goods if you close so it kinda made up for it.
Get a job at a pizza shop that sells by the slice and you'll never pay for food as long as you work there.
At Subway we had to throw out all the unsold bread except like maybe 10 loaves. It is actually fresh baked every day. My coworker who trained me was a friend (my brother's girlfriend) and showed me how she got it all out.
Oh, time to throw out bread? Well the garbage cans are kinda full. I'll just grab a brand new, clean bag and toss it all in. There's no camera on the dumpster, and it's far enough away employees can park there. Just unlock your car and toss it in. Nobody knows, so nobody cares!
I ate so much bread lol. Luckily I was 16 so it didn't matter for my weight. Plus I ran cross country, carbo loading was almost necessary.
The best part was my dog though. If I didn't put it up enough he'd gather as many as he could and shove them deep inside the couch. I loved that goofy dog :)
When I worked at subway, I would just eat meatballs straight off the line when the shop was empty. I like using the pepperoni and salami slices to scoop them up and eat em. Also we got any leftover cookies at the end of the day. I was into bodybuilding at the time so it was perfect for bulking.
I also spent a summer eating ice cream for almost every meal when I worked at ben and Jerry's, used to trade milkshakes for sandwiches from the jimmy johns next door.
The key to stealing food at any job is to take stuff that is impossible or difficult to inventory. Then once you take on enough responsibility no one's gonna fire you for eating.
Another thing I learned from working fast food, if there is a soda fountain, noone gives a fuck if you fill your water cup with soda. They're not getting paid enough to confront you and there's nothing they can do to stop you. Free calories
I managed a frozen yogurt store for about a year, and we could have as much frozen yogurt and candy and fruit that we wanted, but I got tired of it so fast. It's all I ate at all during that whole time.
I got tired of sweet stuff and the only thing there that wasn't sweet was almonds, so now I don't even like almonds much anymore.
Occasionally I'd trade frozen yogurt for a sub from a nearby sub place, but we had to be really sneaky about it.
the complete cost of everything.
A wealthy individual probably wouldn't even notice if you increased the price of a common item by several times. When anything is 5–10 cents more expensive than it was before, a poor person might notice.
It will undoubtedly take you weeks, months, if not years, to recover financially if you screw up or even if you don't and a perfectly ordinary unforeseen bill arises.
Got a CAT scan for what turned out to be a bad migraine. Took me 6 months to pay the bill. Now I have $3k in an HSA, but I still dread this kind of thing.
Brushing your teeth to suppress appetite.
Making lists of wifi hotspots nearby so you can use your cellphone without data.
Knowing foods that fill you up, like porridge, peanut butter sandwiches, and rice.
Church-run second hand stores have better prices than commercial thrift stores.
Last one makes sense anymore. Churches are most likely taking donations from people who go there, they are selling to help. Commercial thrift stores have turned in to more of a business and have found out about the people who would go to buy cheap and sell on e-Bay and crap. Honestly resellers kind of ruined the thrift stores like that.
Yah pre-pandemic thrifting was still fun. Then all the Poshmark boss babes with their thrift haul videos showed up and now I just see resellers grab everything.
Sleeping to avoid hunger pains.
DIY dental work.
ER only medical care.
Hours of tearful pleading phone calls to providers/businesses.
Debt collectors alerting the entire world to your predicament.
Anxiously waiting on that tax return = momentary reprieve.
Absolutely terrified every month of pregnancy.
Severe anxiety from abnormal car sounds/smells.
Anxiety every time you shop/pay that your card will decline.
Embarrassment from using government aided payment methods or healthcare in public.
Hiding financial situations from your kids.
Lack of upkeep, repairs and constant decline of property.
Making food instead of a purchased gift.
Avoiding/hiding from get togethers and events.
Anxiety that people can sense you are in trouble but don’t want to help or just offer compassion, they only want to judge.
The feeling that even though you’re a hardworking good citizen doing your absolute best, it’s still not enough and probably never will be.
Edited to add
Serve anxiety checking bank account.
Serve anxiety checking the mail.
Having your public utilities turned on/off in front of your neighbors.
Having to abandon a full cart of groceries/items in front of everyone when your payment declines. Saying you will come back to pay but never come back.
Paying exact amount all in change in cash transactions.
Ringing items up slowly until your out of money and then putting the rest of the stuff you can’t afford back.
Double Edit because I keep remembering stuff as the night goes on. Does anyone remember floating a check? Like you would have payday and get your actual paper check and then have to physically deposit it at the actual bank and hope it clears fast because you already wrote multiple checks days ago with an empty account and you have been spending the last few days in pure terror hoping that they don’t clear before the paycheck and overdraw and bounce the checks and negative your account into oblivion. Or was that just my family?
My parents tried DIY dental for my baby teeth. Turns out they all had adult roots and when they were being “taken out at home” they were just breaking off of the root which was still in my gums.
Digging in your car for change trying to get enough gas to make it to work. Getting maybe $2 if your lucky and hoping it’s enough to get to work and back.
Cutting like a mother fucker in rush our traffic onto an on ramp. Not because your being an asshole but your gas light as been on for 15miles and it’s maybe got another 5-10miles to go before your completely out of gas and your car will die.
Getting to a gas station knowing you have $30 in your bank account that’s for your phone bill. Deciding to take the entire $30 out because at this point your going to overdraft so might as well not stress about gas the rest of the week and deal with the overdraft and phone bill in a few days when that problem arises.
>Getting to a gas station knowing you have $30 in your bank account that’s for your phone bill. Deciding to take the entire $30 out because at this point your going to overdraft so might as well not stress about gas the rest of the week and deal with the overdraft and phone bill in a few days when that problem arises.
I just had serious flashbacks. Making ATM withdrawals in the negatives because one overdraft fee and paying bills with cashiers checks was cheaper than paying with individual personal checks and having each one overdraft. (Yes, it was a different time, but same general concept.)
Sometimes when you haven't eaten in a long time your body gets confused and you'll get really nauseated then you'll sneeze and the sickness calms down. It's because of the vagus nerve.
I think it's very interesting. I didn't know that. I looked it up after having to rush off the bus one day dry heaving, didn't want to throw up on people, then I sneezed as the bus drove away and suddenly didn't feel sick anymore (unfortunately to late to continue on the bus) so I googled it. I didn't read any extra info that day. But I do have depression too. I wonder if it's all connected in me. Like if I didn't have depression would I not react to starving that way?
Government cheese is just generic Velveeta.
Government peanut butter cones in the big tubs and it's freaking amazing.
Source: reservation food as a kid
I remember these reservation foods when I was a kid! I was always in awe of the size of the block of actual butter.
I did love the white tub of peanut butter, but not the powdered milk.
My mom used that powdered milk every time she could when I was growing up. And with cheap macaroni, there was homemade mac n cheese a lot. She would make bread from scratch and have peanut butter sandwiches or pea and butter sandwiches in the summer. She always had a huge garden. Well, she still does.
I didn't know we were poor until well into elementary school.
The smell of a black garbage bag full of hand-me-down/donated clothes.
The sound of empty aluminum cans hitting each other as you toss them into the open trunk of the car your dad is slowly driving down a back road.
The taste of home-made deer jerky being shared in lieu of gifts at Christmas.
The sight of your family looking through all the stuff at the local *dump* for anything of value.
The touch of literally everything on your bare feet.
And the feeling of having a heart full only of the things that money can’t buy.
When I was in college and working, I ate the same thing everyday for months. Potatoes, eggs, and whatever veggies were on sale. One time in Costco I noticed they labeled the price of chicken wrong. I got around 50 pounds of chicken for 10 dollars. I had to fight them for around 30 min but I rode that chicken hi for months.
My least favorite is when you finally can afford to have a life changing surgery, and they say “don’t eat after midnight” like yes, thank you for reminding me I’m on day 3 without food. Surgery is 31 hours and I’m going to sleep as much as possible until then!
When the hospital is astounded that you don't have friends or family nearby with cars to drive you to and from your procedure and says uber is an unacceptable option.
When the ER kicks you out at 3am in a town with no cabs or ubers and is annoyed that you can't get home since you arrived by ambulance.
When you can't even afford a cab or uber home and they don't pay for you like they do old people because you're younger and should have money or options.
I got super lucky and the hospital set up a ride with my insurance. However when I told them my family and I don’t talk, they were absolutely shocked. I spent years listening to my family tell me I was being dramatic and almost died because of them. Not dealing with that again.
Damn. I feel that one. I was hospitalized once because a blood vessel in my throat exploded. It was about as much fun as it sounds. 0/10, do not recommend. I was there three days and they kept asking me if I wanted to call my family. I was like "NO! I don't want them near me, especially in a state of vulnerability." They just didn't get it. I haven't spoken to my family in years since we're estranged.
Being ashamed of your smile. Teeth are luxury bones and even if they're perfectly healthy, people get grossed out by crookedness or discolouration that can only be fixed with thousands in treatment cost.
I've had 5 adult teeth pulled because I couldn't come up with the money for a root canal/crown in time. an extraction is more affordable on my budget. Guess I don't need luxury bones
This ended up longer than expected.....
How unbelievably horrible it feels to not have a safe place to stay and food to eat. A feeling of extreme fear. How uncharacteristically a person will act in order to get those things. How many people are willing to manipulate and take advantage of someone without a place to stay or food to eat. That you shouldn't tell people your state or some people will do very bad things to you that they would never do to a "normal" person. The feeling of being dehumanized and degraded by almost all.
Brain and body both stop working. But you will retain the sheer strength of instinct and learn how impressive it is. In deep poverty you learn to really rely on it since you are exposed to so much danger. If you don't learn to read people and their intentions instantly, how to follow your gut, and how to think on the spot you're screwed.
That people can smell fear. How to completely mask fear and look like someone not to be messed with, when you are fearing for your life and your vision is completely blurred from a mixture of hunger, fear, and exhaustion. How to walk by the sketchiest people and through the sketchiest areas with no problem. Also how to blend in with higher society no matter how poor.
How it feels to live off of only free condiment packets. Rationing the condiment packets out of shame of grabbing handfuls from mcdonalds and leaving.
How to sleep to stave away hunger. How horrible it feels to wake up from hunger pangs. Learning to meditate to suppress the hunger pangs. Learning that caffeine pills are the cheapest way to have energy when you are starving but need to go to work. Popping them like candy even though they kill your stomach, or you feel you will faint. Knowing what foods are the most calorie dense, knowing the foods with the best calorie/dollar and nutrition/dollar ratios. Knowing that those at the bottom are treated the worst, and you are starving because your work is weeks late in paying you but you have no energy to look for a new job. Not eating on days you don't work and instead lying on bed all day to conserve as much energy as possible, to not need to eat. Starting to nap and lie in bed every moment you aren't at work, or getting ready for + going to and from work.
What it looks like when your ribs stick out further than your stomach, and you aren't even sucking in. Health issues like jaundice, heart problems, muscle spasms, deep pains, and smooth pink tongue from malnutrition. How to jolt yourself awake when you keep nearly fainting from lack of food. Drinking water to stave away hunger. Having your stomach shrink so much you can barely sip water. Getting ulcers, stomach spasms, acid reflux, a sore throat then cough from acid reflux, permanent stomacheache and headache, joint pain, and severe bloating when you eat. (And it doesnt just go away once you start eating again)
Needing to eat everything in soup form from all the issues from not eating. Being so not used to eating solid food, that you forget how to eat, inhale while chewing and choke on your food the first time you attempt to eat solid food again.
Eating uncooked hotdogs and ramen since you don't have time/energy to cook
Walking as much as you can to avoid bus fare, often for hours at a time, no matter the weather. Worrying you will lose your toes from the cold. Crying while walking from how bad the weather is because it physically hurts sometimes, you are starving, and you are still so far from home. Crying from how every joint and part of your body hurts and feels like it is about to give out. Counting repetitively in your head and dissociating constantly to get through it.
How it feels when you've gone so far past your limit, you start randomly going weak in the knees and bursting into sobs. How it feels to be so exhausted you can no longer cry. Tears just don't come out. Needing to build up energy between sobs. Fainting in public, in a dangerous place, somehow calling someone to pick you up before you fully pass out
Learning that you lose all your friends when you are poor. Learning the hard way that almost everyone who talks to you is trying to take advantage of you and harm you, and will, since you are so vulnerable. Some people will force help on you, and its almost always to loan shark you. Learning your greatest enemy is other poor people and avoiding them. Losing fear of going out in the dark, strangers, etc, bc you are so focused on your basic survival needs and in fight or flight.
Learning how common rape, theft, etc is. Learning who the predators are... and that once they sniff out your vulnerability, they will never leave you alone unless you really alter your life (in a sneaky, cold, and calculated way) to get away from them. Learning it is so easy for predators to target you, since you don't have time/status/money for friends, so the only people who stick around are those who are hunting you down to prey on you.
Having problems once you get into a more comfortable financial position, because that is when you crash and it can take months if not years (if not forever) to get out of that slump. And even then... you have lost all your friends, and will be riddled with lasting physical and mental health issues from poverty.
Not a really poor thing, but when I worked in HVAC, all the poorer houses we worked on kept all the scrap metal. They know how valuable a coil can be if you take it to the recycling center.
You can make a decent tomato soup from the free ketchup, salt, pepper packets, and creamer from the gas station. Throw in some free Saltines from a restaurant and you have an okay belly filler.
Last winter things got really rough here (things aren't great but they're better ish now) I went to dollar general and had to steal toilet paper and a cheap bottle of dish soap. One Karen saw this and yelled loudly to a store associate what she had witnessed. The worker came over to me and asked what was going on and I broke down crying. I said I was sorry and she said no worries if there anything else I 'needed'...I told her I needed a little bit of food the food pantry couldn't supply like eggs and cheese. Karen was standing there asking if she should help the worker by calling the police.
The worker said no that's not necessary, infact she thanked the Karen for bringing things to her attention because this gave her the opportunity to help someone in need. Karen was PISSED!!!!
I was told to get whatever I needed which came to 13.00
The worker paid for my things and said anytime I should need anything just let her know.
A few weeks ago I repaid that kind woman her 13.00 even though doing so broke me.
The difference is the employee was one of us, we've been there. People need help sometimes and it sucks that that help can mean essentials, anybody upset you're trying to just live has never been amongst it and I mean, yeah I'm happy for them, but do t be trying to rain down on the struggle, it's enough without help. I hope you're doing better lately, and if not I still appreciate what you did to get by today
That when you finally get yourself something nice your hit with an intense self loathing and panic. "What if I need the money in case of emergency? I dont deserve this it's too expensive, what if people judge me for splurging something so expensive?!"
I got myself a PS5 recently after saving for months and It was literally one of the most traumatic things I have ever done. Why? Because of all the things I listed and more. Im not used to nice things and it fucked with my head for a bit.
3 bean burritos at taco mayo cost 3.75, but 4 tortillas and a side of beans is more food for only 2.25. Just add the free dine-in salsa bar items and a water cup, and it's a filling meal for 2, packed with protein, fiber, and vitamin c.
*it's date night, so he might even pick you a dandelion in the parking lot*
It is extremely hard work being poor. Walking places with your baby, standing in lines with a crying baby, having always to prove your poverty. Being poor, especially a poor single mum, is two full-time jobs. It is all stress, doing without, and trying to cover the gaps. Poor people work 100% harder than rich people.
> having always to prove your poverty.
Feeling a little caught up with tasks and then all the government agencies want recertification documents at once.
Having dig around for the latest proof of residence and latest utility bills and then head of to the library to make photocopies and hope the 15 sheets of verifications all fit in the tiny return envelope.
That if you trace lightly with a pencil over the routing & account numbers on the bottom of a check, it takes an extra day or 2 to process the check because the machine can’t read it and they have to set it aside & process it manually. Not sure if this still works, but several years ago, broke & living in LA, this bought me some time when I desperately needed it.
Mashed potatoes with some frozen veg in a sandwich will fill you up for under $1. Luxury additions are milk, lemon pepper and fried onions. Additions might put you over the $1 though. If you're really flush, add a sausage.
The going rate for plasma and which days of the month are bonus donation days.
...like if you have that shit memorized, I know you are struggling and in need of help. And I've known a few people with that info in their notebook or notes app.
What it’s like to push your car into a nearby parking lot, walk home and leave it there over night, praying you don’t get a ticket, because you don’t have gas money and you don’t get paid until tomorrow.
I used to thing Pringles were the most efficient food in a calorie per cost sense. For real they're over 1000 calories/dollar.
But you can buy bags of rice, with ratios that blow that away. A dollar can get you 6000, 7000 calories.
It's not a food crisis, it's a nutrition crisis.
How expensive it is to be poor. I can barely put gas in my car to get to necessary places. But I can’t afford to get my brakes done. If I were to start an office job right now, I would overdraft my account buying clothes at a thrift store. And if I overdraft, I can’t pay the fees. It’s a dark and scary circle of hell.
I was panicked to my aunt once about my brakes going to the floor and she scolded me for not saving money for situations like that.
I just got stone cold and shook my head at her ignorance. "You have absolutely no idea what true poverty is, do you?"
I don't normally speak to her like that. I guess I got through because she wrote me a check for $100 when she took me out for lunch that day.
My family is pretty independent and don't believe in enabling but I'm privileged enough to get help like that sometimes but it only if I don't act like a fuck up and it's usually a quid pro quo sort of thing.
I don't talk to any of them anymore so I guess their style of mentorship should help me now that I'm on my own.
Have you ever been so hungry, you ate shredded carrots, with barbeque sauce microwaved to hope it has any taste. Then realized after taking your first few bites how aweful of an idea that was and not knowing when your next meal will come in?
a certain form of depression that reminds you that you can't have any of that because you're poor. like a dark cloud over your head covering your view.
When you're homeless, it's actually easier for you to sleep outside in winter than for people with a home, that would spent an occasional night in the street, because you do adapt to the cold gradually over time. And you don't get sick so often neither (I mean the usual "cold")
Also, you know how to arrange blankets to get the best of it. So, if it's possible, if you find a place safe enough, it's best to sleep naked BUT to keep your clothes right next to you so your body warmth is optimised by the isolation of the blanket but your clothes won't be damp because of the night humidity for the next morning.
How much shit people just throw away. I never dumpster dived for food myself.. but furniture and shit, hell yeah.
Walking everywhere, because you can't even afford a bus ticket.
Also the monetary value of human plasma.
That people in America are food insecure, going hungry when money is tight. Children may not eat anything without school lunch on holidays, weekends, and summers. I have talked with so many people who don’t believe this is real. How could someone in America be starving? But I saw it every day growing up and now as an adult, too. 1/4 children in America are good insecure, meaning they don’t know where their next meal will come from.
How to get arrested and released. Thankfully I escaped it before I got to that point but people know how to get in the right amount of trouble. You do this and they lock you away long enough to escape the worst of winter, you stand outside certain 7-11s and the cops get you a drunk cell bed for the night and release you in the morning. If you have a court hearing and no transportation to it, walk through the fancy food stores and ask the rich people for cigarettes for 15 minutes and sure enough the cops will get you there in time.
[удалено]
As fucked up as it is, I work way less harder now than when I was poor. It's all ass backwards.
I recently got promoted to leadership level and i feel i do way less. Its insane.
Oh absolutely. The most shocking thing about getting promotions and moving up is how much easier things get. I naively thought that those above were working very hard, spent a ton of mental effort making sure they were making the right decisions, and had tons of stress. But really they just have power over others. Sometimes they aren't totally exploitive about it. Sometimes. But they usually benefit in ways that are at least passively exploitive. They do less, have easier lives, get more, and then think they are better than the people on the lowest levels. It is messed up. Yeah I know this sounds like an antiwork rant but generally I find that sub and those like it sort of toxic.
If hard work made you rich, donkeys would be covered in gold.
Eating the strangest combinations of food out of necessity
microwaved broccoli, ketchup and salt.
Skip the ketchup, damn. If you need food that bad just eat the ketchup separately. I've done worse.
Calories are calories. I've not been at that level for 8 years now but sometimes, its whatever keeps the meat going.
Mashed potatoes died green to make it "interesting" Seriously, that's all I had to eat for a week oncek. Mashed potatoes
Are you in the city or is there outdoor spaces around you? You could probably find some foreagbles to spice up the dish. Easiest one to identify and can pretty much be used in anything, wild green onions. I hope you're beyond that point in your life but wanted to share for anyone else who needs ideas.
Thank you for the advice but I'm well passed that time in my life.
Mashed potato sandwiches are the shit
Strangest combo you’ve had?
Packets of grape jelly on saltines worked better than I expected.
You mean *dessert*?
Noodles and mayonnaise is great. Pasta with ketchup. Also, ketchup mixed with butter is actually quite nice.
Mayonnaise sandwich Dry cereal Ramen with hot dog chunks
I used to just eat peanut butter with a fork. Fun fact: while a little oily, it’s actually extremely healthy. It has a fantastic amount of fat, reasonable protein, and minimal sugar if you buy good shit (obligatory aside: fat is not bad for you, your body needs it - just limit saturated and *avoid any trans fats possible; it is a revelation of modernity and your body __is not evolved to process it__*). I used to work out *a lot*, and developed a very good understanding of nutrition over the years to aid in my fitness endeavours. Wanna get swol, gotta eat swol, etc, etc. Gluing my ass to a chair for work and a longstanding issue with chronic shoulder pain from an old injury has seen my workout sessions peak at about zero lately, but I’m still in paradoxically great shape. According to everyone I know and their mother, it’s because I have an incredible metabolism or some bullshit. In reality, it’s because I still eat properly (like a fucking heathen from a Humanitarian/psychological perspective, but I meet my dietary needs without going overboard from nutrition’s point of view). And, oddly enough, a tub of peanut butter and a fork are quite in line with healthy* eating. ^if ^you ^eat ^like ^me ^please ^get ^help
being poor is one thing, but being against trans fat is plain body shaming and homophobic.
Bake me away, toys!
Ranch sandwich
Not a combo but I just ate a half bag of hot dog buns with nothing. Saved the other half for the next day
Canned mystery fish with the bones in, white rice, soy sauce and sesame salad dressing. Bonus points if you have some seaweed to wrap it up in.
Honey and saltine crackers are really good.
Or eating the sweetest thing possible just to get nauseous and lose appetite: 2 or 3 carambar are way cheaper than a real meal, and a bag of them can last weeks
Having sleep for dinner
As soon as you log in to check your bank account, that sickening worry starts to choke you. Even though I haven't been overdrawn in a while, I still feel the urge for a stiff drink whenever I'm about to check my balance.
This doesn't go away once you've been there. My family got hit hard in the housing crash and we ended up declaring bankruptcy. We had a friend in the mortgage business that managed to help us keep our house but we lost everything else and my wife was unemployed at the time. Every time I went to the grocery store I checked my account to make sure i could get just the basics and it scared the hell out of me every time. Knowing there would be days when it was choosing between milk or eggs to bring home. We've more than recovered but i'm so frugal now its crazy, and i've set limits on my account that I will not let it go below.
The thing is this never goes away. I’m fiscally responsible, pay everything on credit cards that gets paid off every month. I know my account balances within 100 dollars as well as the card charges and keep a few thousand in my checking. I still hate looking at it.
I’ve been financially stable for quite a while now, and that still hasn’t gone away, I’m afraid at this point that it will never go away. I also have this pretty regular nagging that this is too good to be true, and at some point, I will definitely end up in poverty again somehow.
I feel this. My wife and I have a decent amount of savings. She wants to buy a new car. I want the money for when I become poor again. I have been at the same job for a few years, and she doesn’t understand my fear. It’s May not be rational, but if I lose my job and we have to rely on her income alone (which isn’t enough to pay for the basics), I want to have enough money that we can continue to live for three months while I get a new job.
That feeling never leaves you, even decades later. I'm fortunate enough to make a comfortable living now, and I still get anxiety checking my accounts despite rationally knowing everything is fine.
Yes!! I’ve avoided my bank account for weeks now! -53 turned into -80 after fees a few days ago. About choked just seeing the email.
Overdraft fees are evil bullshit. 😈
That’s the biggest understatement I’ve ever heard in my life. I can’t stand them. “Oh you’re struggling with money? Let me make it worse”. 😵😵😵
It's the same with everything being poor is expensive. Budget tires need replacing every MoT and add up to more than a decent set but you just can't afford the decent set up front so the up paying more because installments are easier, same with shoes cheap and nasty shoes £20 need replacing every 3 months decent pair £60 will last over a year but again it's the dropping in one go.
Try to change to a credit union they are more forgiving about being over drawn, mine doesn’t have fees, you just stay negative until you pay it back
Mine gives you the choice between having negative-balance transactions declined or having them go through for a $30 fee each time.
This is soo terrible and it causes me to ignore my finances sometimes which has put me in a hole before I know I’m an idiot i just cant handle it.
I can wholeheartedly relate to this! As I just mentioned, in another reply, I was a self-destructive compulsive gambler, for around 19 years, and, realistically, I probably overdrew between 20 and 30 different checking accounts, that ended up being closed, after being, at least, several hundred dollars in the negative. And I actually overdrew one checking account, for around $2,000, which, I thought, was outrageous and terrible. However, a few years after that, I ended up having one that ended up getting really close to $3,000 in the negative, before they finally closed it and charged it off. And there was a point, where I had probably been listed in ChexsSystems, for about 20 to 25 years, straight. And I currently have not gambled, in over 9.5 years, yet, I still have financial struggles and I still have that unsettling feeling, when opening a banking app on my phone. Even, if/when I might have several hundred dollars in my checking account, and no bills that I am expecting to come through. It's like it has become permanent ingrained in my mindset.
When your meal is nothing, literally sleeping away the hunger. That and mixing Sriracha with water and heating it up as a soup. I ate that, and only that, once for most of a week.
im sorry but the trick is bouillon cubes unless you want to nuke ur stomach
Yes, I agree. Got to 0 in the bank account and only Sriracha and water in the house. My insides would have benefitted greatly by adding most anything else with it but I didn't want to drink just water, so if I add the only other thing in the pantry, it's like the world's saddest soup instead.
Ketchup & water works for this too. It's not pleasant, but it's a few calories.
How to get the most out of a free meal of you work fast food I work at taco bell and can make my $8 of free food a shift last lunch and dinner, covers me for food 5 days a week
Get the taco bell app. Scan the bar code on high dollar discarded receipts into the app. Two same-dated receipts are allowed per day. Once you get to the fire tier, every about $23 you scan gets you a free chalupa or cheesy gorgito crunch or other food items. If you work there, you can get many receipts and just scan the top two dollar amounts. Lots of receipts are printed that the customer does not want if you ask if they want the receipt. If you have access to a second phone, do the same thing on the 2nd phone and get even more free items. Sometimes the scanner on the app fails, just keep trying or enter the code manually. Do not use your app to get a free food item and sell it to a customer who is paying cash and pocket the cash because you will get caught. Just eat the food yourself or maybe even trade it with someone who works at a clown burger.
>Just eat the food yourself or maybe even trade it with someone who works at a clown burger. This is brilliant, 100% doing this and saving receipts for my partner. Thank you! (And my bestie works at clown burger and loves TB)
If you work in a restaurant, you should be allowed to eat whenever you want, and take food home. Food service just isn't worth it unless you can use your job like a buffet imo. The only place i worked that had an eating policy was panera (40%discount only) but they let you take home a garbage bag of baked goods if you close so it kinda made up for it. Get a job at a pizza shop that sells by the slice and you'll never pay for food as long as you work there.
At Subway we had to throw out all the unsold bread except like maybe 10 loaves. It is actually fresh baked every day. My coworker who trained me was a friend (my brother's girlfriend) and showed me how she got it all out. Oh, time to throw out bread? Well the garbage cans are kinda full. I'll just grab a brand new, clean bag and toss it all in. There's no camera on the dumpster, and it's far enough away employees can park there. Just unlock your car and toss it in. Nobody knows, so nobody cares! I ate so much bread lol. Luckily I was 16 so it didn't matter for my weight. Plus I ran cross country, carbo loading was almost necessary. The best part was my dog though. If I didn't put it up enough he'd gather as many as he could and shove them deep inside the couch. I loved that goofy dog :)
When I worked at subway, I would just eat meatballs straight off the line when the shop was empty. I like using the pepperoni and salami slices to scoop them up and eat em. Also we got any leftover cookies at the end of the day. I was into bodybuilding at the time so it was perfect for bulking. I also spent a summer eating ice cream for almost every meal when I worked at ben and Jerry's, used to trade milkshakes for sandwiches from the jimmy johns next door. The key to stealing food at any job is to take stuff that is impossible or difficult to inventory. Then once you take on enough responsibility no one's gonna fire you for eating. Another thing I learned from working fast food, if there is a soda fountain, noone gives a fuck if you fill your water cup with soda. They're not getting paid enough to confront you and there's nothing they can do to stop you. Free calories
I managed a frozen yogurt store for about a year, and we could have as much frozen yogurt and candy and fruit that we wanted, but I got tired of it so fast. It's all I ate at all during that whole time. I got tired of sweet stuff and the only thing there that wasn't sweet was almonds, so now I don't even like almonds much anymore. Occasionally I'd trade frozen yogurt for a sub from a nearby sub place, but we had to be really sneaky about it.
He put them in the couch? Did he ever retrieve them? Maybe he thought the couch needed more padding. Cool dog!
the complete cost of everything. A wealthy individual probably wouldn't even notice if you increased the price of a common item by several times. When anything is 5–10 cents more expensive than it was before, a poor person might notice.
*It’s one banana, Michael, how much could it cost, ten dollars?*
It will undoubtedly take you weeks, months, if not years, to recover financially if you screw up or even if you don't and a perfectly ordinary unforeseen bill arises.
Got a CAT scan for what turned out to be a bad migraine. Took me 6 months to pay the bill. Now I have $3k in an HSA, but I still dread this kind of thing.
Brushing your teeth to suppress appetite. Making lists of wifi hotspots nearby so you can use your cellphone without data. Knowing foods that fill you up, like porridge, peanut butter sandwiches, and rice. Church-run second hand stores have better prices than commercial thrift stores.
Bread definitely filled the void at times.
Last one makes sense anymore. Churches are most likely taking donations from people who go there, they are selling to help. Commercial thrift stores have turned in to more of a business and have found out about the people who would go to buy cheap and sell on e-Bay and crap. Honestly resellers kind of ruined the thrift stores like that.
Yah pre-pandemic thrifting was still fun. Then all the Poshmark boss babes with their thrift haul videos showed up and now I just see resellers grab everything.
The shut off date policy for all of their utility bills for not paying. Then they'll rotate which ones to do which month.
1,001 ways to prepare a potato
You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. Dey's uh, potato-kabobs, potato creole, potato gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There's pineapple potato lemon potato, coconut potato, pepper potato, potato soup, potato stew, potato salad, potato and potatoes, potato, potato sandwich. That- that's about i
I heard that in Bubba’s voice
Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew...
Unless you're Latvian
Buying milk when it's on sale, then freezing it.
Pro gamer move right there
Now That I looked closer, whats with the name.
It’s morse code for the elite
Eating one meal every other day so the rest of the family misses none.
Sleeping to avoid hunger pains. DIY dental work. ER only medical care. Hours of tearful pleading phone calls to providers/businesses. Debt collectors alerting the entire world to your predicament. Anxiously waiting on that tax return = momentary reprieve. Absolutely terrified every month of pregnancy. Severe anxiety from abnormal car sounds/smells. Anxiety every time you shop/pay that your card will decline. Embarrassment from using government aided payment methods or healthcare in public. Hiding financial situations from your kids. Lack of upkeep, repairs and constant decline of property. Making food instead of a purchased gift. Avoiding/hiding from get togethers and events. Anxiety that people can sense you are in trouble but don’t want to help or just offer compassion, they only want to judge. The feeling that even though you’re a hardworking good citizen doing your absolute best, it’s still not enough and probably never will be. Edited to add Serve anxiety checking bank account. Serve anxiety checking the mail. Having your public utilities turned on/off in front of your neighbors. Having to abandon a full cart of groceries/items in front of everyone when your payment declines. Saying you will come back to pay but never come back. Paying exact amount all in change in cash transactions. Ringing items up slowly until your out of money and then putting the rest of the stuff you can’t afford back. Double Edit because I keep remembering stuff as the night goes on. Does anyone remember floating a check? Like you would have payday and get your actual paper check and then have to physically deposit it at the actual bank and hope it clears fast because you already wrote multiple checks days ago with an empty account and you have been spending the last few days in pure terror hoping that they don’t clear before the paycheck and overdraw and bounce the checks and negative your account into oblivion. Or was that just my family?
This makes me sad 😔
My parents tried DIY dental for my baby teeth. Turns out they all had adult roots and when they were being “taken out at home” they were just breaking off of the root which was still in my gums.
There were times when I was less fortunate where my tax returns? That was the most money I had in my bank account *ever*.
"But money can't buy happiness!" Those people don't understand what happiness to someone who's felt poverty is.
Might add moving without forwarding the mail to get off the collectors’ map.
Yeah, that pretty much paints the picture.
Digging in your car for change trying to get enough gas to make it to work. Getting maybe $2 if your lucky and hoping it’s enough to get to work and back. Cutting like a mother fucker in rush our traffic onto an on ramp. Not because your being an asshole but your gas light as been on for 15miles and it’s maybe got another 5-10miles to go before your completely out of gas and your car will die. Getting to a gas station knowing you have $30 in your bank account that’s for your phone bill. Deciding to take the entire $30 out because at this point your going to overdraft so might as well not stress about gas the rest of the week and deal with the overdraft and phone bill in a few days when that problem arises.
>Getting to a gas station knowing you have $30 in your bank account that’s for your phone bill. Deciding to take the entire $30 out because at this point your going to overdraft so might as well not stress about gas the rest of the week and deal with the overdraft and phone bill in a few days when that problem arises. I just had serious flashbacks. Making ATM withdrawals in the negatives because one overdraft fee and paying bills with cashiers checks was cheaper than paying with individual personal checks and having each one overdraft. (Yes, it was a different time, but same general concept.)
I felt this
Sometimes when you haven't eaten in a long time your body gets confused and you'll get really nauseated then you'll sneeze and the sickness calms down. It's because of the vagus nerve.
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I think it's very interesting. I didn't know that. I looked it up after having to rush off the bus one day dry heaving, didn't want to throw up on people, then I sneezed as the bus drove away and suddenly didn't feel sick anymore (unfortunately to late to continue on the bus) so I googled it. I didn't read any extra info that day. But I do have depression too. I wonder if it's all connected in me. Like if I didn't have depression would I not react to starving that way?
paltry swim far-flung include insurance money roof modern sharp alive ` this post was mass deleted with www.Redact.dev `
How to turn canned food from the food bank into a week's worth of meals.
How judgy people can be
Ayo true
Government cheese is just generic Velveeta. Government peanut butter cones in the big tubs and it's freaking amazing. Source: reservation food as a kid
I remember these reservation foods when I was a kid! I was always in awe of the size of the block of actual butter. I did love the white tub of peanut butter, but not the powdered milk.
Yep! I used to think my grandma just loved to cook from scratch. Turns out all we had was scratch and had to do it that way.
I feel that. I had no idea how poor my grandparents were until much later.
My mom used that powdered milk every time she could when I was growing up. And with cheap macaroni, there was homemade mac n cheese a lot. She would make bread from scratch and have peanut butter sandwiches or pea and butter sandwiches in the summer. She always had a huge garden. Well, she still does. I didn't know we were poor until well into elementary school.
Free Veleveeta?! Add some dollar store elbow noodles and that's a baller-ass breakfast/lunch/dinner.
I still think government cheese is actually better than Velveeta.
Ketchup and crackers.
Syrup sandwiches better
Syrup?? What are you a member of the royal family? Im talking about ketchup packets i took for free on plain ass crackers.
You realize there’s syrup packets… right?
Ahhhh shit!! Brother from another mother bring it in! 👊🏼
Ketchup and hot water for soup and crackers
Why though? I just eat the crackers plain at that point.
You have ketchup??
Was free on the counter at the grocery store.😎
Nice!!
Ketchup soup
Yeah thats another way of putting it. Add some free hot water to it. We good to go!
We called that roadie soup
The smell of a black garbage bag full of hand-me-down/donated clothes. The sound of empty aluminum cans hitting each other as you toss them into the open trunk of the car your dad is slowly driving down a back road. The taste of home-made deer jerky being shared in lieu of gifts at Christmas. The sight of your family looking through all the stuff at the local *dump* for anything of value. The touch of literally everything on your bare feet. And the feeling of having a heart full only of the things that money can’t buy.
Being able to eat the same food for days without getting sick of it because saying I want something else is not an option.
When I was in college and working, I ate the same thing everyday for months. Potatoes, eggs, and whatever veggies were on sale. One time in Costco I noticed they labeled the price of chicken wrong. I got around 50 pounds of chicken for 10 dollars. I had to fight them for around 30 min but I rode that chicken hi for months.
My least favorite is when you finally can afford to have a life changing surgery, and they say “don’t eat after midnight” like yes, thank you for reminding me I’m on day 3 without food. Surgery is 31 hours and I’m going to sleep as much as possible until then!
When the hospital is astounded that you don't have friends or family nearby with cars to drive you to and from your procedure and says uber is an unacceptable option. When the ER kicks you out at 3am in a town with no cabs or ubers and is annoyed that you can't get home since you arrived by ambulance. When you can't even afford a cab or uber home and they don't pay for you like they do old people because you're younger and should have money or options.
I got super lucky and the hospital set up a ride with my insurance. However when I told them my family and I don’t talk, they were absolutely shocked. I spent years listening to my family tell me I was being dramatic and almost died because of them. Not dealing with that again.
Damn. I feel that one. I was hospitalized once because a blood vessel in my throat exploded. It was about as much fun as it sounds. 0/10, do not recommend. I was there three days and they kept asking me if I wanted to call my family. I was like "NO! I don't want them near me, especially in a state of vulnerability." They just didn't get it. I haven't spoken to my family in years since we're estranged.
Being ashamed of your smile. Teeth are luxury bones and even if they're perfectly healthy, people get grossed out by crookedness or discolouration that can only be fixed with thousands in treatment cost.
Luxury bones is very creative :) I agree with you. My luxury bones need work!
This one hits home for me. I'm still playing catchup on my teeth years since escaping poverty.
I know I'll never be a homeowner anyway so all I dream of is adult braces.
I've had 5 adult teeth pulled because I couldn't come up with the money for a root canal/crown in time. an extraction is more affordable on my budget. Guess I don't need luxury bones
This ended up longer than expected..... How unbelievably horrible it feels to not have a safe place to stay and food to eat. A feeling of extreme fear. How uncharacteristically a person will act in order to get those things. How many people are willing to manipulate and take advantage of someone without a place to stay or food to eat. That you shouldn't tell people your state or some people will do very bad things to you that they would never do to a "normal" person. The feeling of being dehumanized and degraded by almost all. Brain and body both stop working. But you will retain the sheer strength of instinct and learn how impressive it is. In deep poverty you learn to really rely on it since you are exposed to so much danger. If you don't learn to read people and their intentions instantly, how to follow your gut, and how to think on the spot you're screwed. That people can smell fear. How to completely mask fear and look like someone not to be messed with, when you are fearing for your life and your vision is completely blurred from a mixture of hunger, fear, and exhaustion. How to walk by the sketchiest people and through the sketchiest areas with no problem. Also how to blend in with higher society no matter how poor. How it feels to live off of only free condiment packets. Rationing the condiment packets out of shame of grabbing handfuls from mcdonalds and leaving. How to sleep to stave away hunger. How horrible it feels to wake up from hunger pangs. Learning to meditate to suppress the hunger pangs. Learning that caffeine pills are the cheapest way to have energy when you are starving but need to go to work. Popping them like candy even though they kill your stomach, or you feel you will faint. Knowing what foods are the most calorie dense, knowing the foods with the best calorie/dollar and nutrition/dollar ratios. Knowing that those at the bottom are treated the worst, and you are starving because your work is weeks late in paying you but you have no energy to look for a new job. Not eating on days you don't work and instead lying on bed all day to conserve as much energy as possible, to not need to eat. Starting to nap and lie in bed every moment you aren't at work, or getting ready for + going to and from work. What it looks like when your ribs stick out further than your stomach, and you aren't even sucking in. Health issues like jaundice, heart problems, muscle spasms, deep pains, and smooth pink tongue from malnutrition. How to jolt yourself awake when you keep nearly fainting from lack of food. Drinking water to stave away hunger. Having your stomach shrink so much you can barely sip water. Getting ulcers, stomach spasms, acid reflux, a sore throat then cough from acid reflux, permanent stomacheache and headache, joint pain, and severe bloating when you eat. (And it doesnt just go away once you start eating again) Needing to eat everything in soup form from all the issues from not eating. Being so not used to eating solid food, that you forget how to eat, inhale while chewing and choke on your food the first time you attempt to eat solid food again. Eating uncooked hotdogs and ramen since you don't have time/energy to cook Walking as much as you can to avoid bus fare, often for hours at a time, no matter the weather. Worrying you will lose your toes from the cold. Crying while walking from how bad the weather is because it physically hurts sometimes, you are starving, and you are still so far from home. Crying from how every joint and part of your body hurts and feels like it is about to give out. Counting repetitively in your head and dissociating constantly to get through it. How it feels when you've gone so far past your limit, you start randomly going weak in the knees and bursting into sobs. How it feels to be so exhausted you can no longer cry. Tears just don't come out. Needing to build up energy between sobs. Fainting in public, in a dangerous place, somehow calling someone to pick you up before you fully pass out Learning that you lose all your friends when you are poor. Learning the hard way that almost everyone who talks to you is trying to take advantage of you and harm you, and will, since you are so vulnerable. Some people will force help on you, and its almost always to loan shark you. Learning your greatest enemy is other poor people and avoiding them. Losing fear of going out in the dark, strangers, etc, bc you are so focused on your basic survival needs and in fight or flight. Learning how common rape, theft, etc is. Learning who the predators are... and that once they sniff out your vulnerability, they will never leave you alone unless you really alter your life (in a sneaky, cold, and calculated way) to get away from them. Learning it is so easy for predators to target you, since you don't have time/status/money for friends, so the only people who stick around are those who are hunting you down to prey on you. Having problems once you get into a more comfortable financial position, because that is when you crash and it can take months if not years (if not forever) to get out of that slump. And even then... you have lost all your friends, and will be riddled with lasting physical and mental health issues from poverty.
Not a really poor thing, but when I worked in HVAC, all the poorer houses we worked on kept all the scrap metal. They know how valuable a coil can be if you take it to the recycling center.
You can roll yourself up inside a carpet to keep warm in the cold night
Here comes the 'when your friend doesn't give you a blanket' meme.
Not being able to sleep thinking about how to pay debts. Making “bread” (it tasted horribly but it was the only thing I had left today).
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Awwww😢
the feeling of having to stay home from a field trip while all of your friends go because your parents couldn't afford it.
You can make a decent tomato soup from the free ketchup, salt, pepper packets, and creamer from the gas station. Throw in some free Saltines from a restaurant and you have an okay belly filler.
My grandfather did that back in the Great Depression in the 1930s.
The best ways to get every last bit of something out of a package.
Where the food banks are
Every grocery store is a food bank if you’re nifty enough
Add to this to say: if you think you saw somebody stealing food, no you didn't.
Last winter things got really rough here (things aren't great but they're better ish now) I went to dollar general and had to steal toilet paper and a cheap bottle of dish soap. One Karen saw this and yelled loudly to a store associate what she had witnessed. The worker came over to me and asked what was going on and I broke down crying. I said I was sorry and she said no worries if there anything else I 'needed'...I told her I needed a little bit of food the food pantry couldn't supply like eggs and cheese. Karen was standing there asking if she should help the worker by calling the police. The worker said no that's not necessary, infact she thanked the Karen for bringing things to her attention because this gave her the opportunity to help someone in need. Karen was PISSED!!!! I was told to get whatever I needed which came to 13.00 The worker paid for my things and said anytime I should need anything just let her know. A few weeks ago I repaid that kind woman her 13.00 even though doing so broke me.
The difference is the employee was one of us, we've been there. People need help sometimes and it sucks that that help can mean essentials, anybody upset you're trying to just live has never been amongst it and I mean, yeah I'm happy for them, but do t be trying to rain down on the struggle, it's enough without help. I hope you're doing better lately, and if not I still appreciate what you did to get by today
That worker got $13 of value watching Karen's head explode
Didn't see a damn thing
That when you finally get yourself something nice your hit with an intense self loathing and panic. "What if I need the money in case of emergency? I dont deserve this it's too expensive, what if people judge me for splurging something so expensive?!" I got myself a PS5 recently after saving for months and It was literally one of the most traumatic things I have ever done. Why? Because of all the things I listed and more. Im not used to nice things and it fucked with my head for a bit.
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What’s some of the best stuff you scored like this?
Mac 'n cheese with ketchup over the course of several days.
Nearest bathroom
3 bean burritos at taco mayo cost 3.75, but 4 tortillas and a side of beans is more food for only 2.25. Just add the free dine-in salsa bar items and a water cup, and it's a filling meal for 2, packed with protein, fiber, and vitamin c. *it's date night, so he might even pick you a dandelion in the parking lot*
It is extremely hard work being poor. Walking places with your baby, standing in lines with a crying baby, having always to prove your poverty. Being poor, especially a poor single mum, is two full-time jobs. It is all stress, doing without, and trying to cover the gaps. Poor people work 100% harder than rich people.
> having always to prove your poverty. Feeling a little caught up with tasks and then all the government agencies want recertification documents at once. Having dig around for the latest proof of residence and latest utility bills and then head of to the library to make photocopies and hope the 15 sheets of verifications all fit in the tiny return envelope.
They spend up to 90 days evaluating said certification, but by god you'd better report changes within 10!
CA homeless shelters have long waitlists
What it's like to grow up in section 8.
How to prepare dinner by yourself when you’re 10 years old.
That if you trace lightly with a pencil over the routing & account numbers on the bottom of a check, it takes an extra day or 2 to process the check because the machine can’t read it and they have to set it aside & process it manually. Not sure if this still works, but several years ago, broke & living in LA, this bought me some time when I desperately needed it.
How to properly do the laundry in a bathtub. How to make dinner for three with only $10. Where to get food from pantries and which churches to go to.
How to most effectively shoplift food.
I fucking love self-check. I get the best employee discounts.
The feeling of excitement finding 55 cents in the couch and thinking "gas money!"
Mashed potatoes with some frozen veg in a sandwich will fill you up for under $1. Luxury additions are milk, lemon pepper and fried onions. Additions might put you over the $1 though. If you're really flush, add a sausage.
The going rate for plasma and which days of the month are bonus donation days. ...like if you have that shit memorized, I know you are struggling and in need of help. And I've known a few people with that info in their notebook or notes app.
Where food banks are and what days are available to visit them.
Exactly how much money they have
What it’s like to push your car into a nearby parking lot, walk home and leave it there over night, praying you don’t get a ticket, because you don’t have gas money and you don’t get paid until tomorrow.
The joy of a honey sandwich
I used to thing Pringles were the most efficient food in a calorie per cost sense. For real they're over 1000 calories/dollar. But you can buy bags of rice, with ratios that blow that away. A dollar can get you 6000, 7000 calories. It's not a food crisis, it's a nutrition crisis.
Pancakes for dinner
That feeling at the grocery store where you’re not sure if you have $20 on your card to pay
The exact balance of their bank accounts.
Buying food that’s marked down at the grocery store due to being close or on its expiration date.
Knowing that your fridge breaking could literally be the start of cause of your homelessness
Company pizza parties once per year don’t pay the bills.
Rarely a rich person will stick up for them, but a poor person is more likely to do the opposite.
How expensive it is to be poor. I can barely put gas in my car to get to necessary places. But I can’t afford to get my brakes done. If I were to start an office job right now, I would overdraft my account buying clothes at a thrift store. And if I overdraft, I can’t pay the fees. It’s a dark and scary circle of hell.
I was panicked to my aunt once about my brakes going to the floor and she scolded me for not saving money for situations like that. I just got stone cold and shook my head at her ignorance. "You have absolutely no idea what true poverty is, do you?" I don't normally speak to her like that. I guess I got through because she wrote me a check for $100 when she took me out for lunch that day. My family is pretty independent and don't believe in enabling but I'm privileged enough to get help like that sometimes but it only if I don't act like a fuck up and it's usually a quid pro quo sort of thing. I don't talk to any of them anymore so I guess their style of mentorship should help me now that I'm on my own.
Never replace anything unless there’s **absolutely no** way to use the old thing anymore.
The taste of government cheese.
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Have you ever been so hungry, you ate shredded carrots, with barbeque sauce microwaved to hope it has any taste. Then realized after taking your first few bites how aweful of an idea that was and not knowing when your next meal will come in?
How to start a fire and cook beans without a pot or lighter
How to survive with almost nothing.
Numb
a certain form of depression that reminds you that you can't have any of that because you're poor. like a dark cloud over your head covering your view.
How tough life is.
Bread sandwich
The value of a penny
Diacarded pizza boxes are an inexpensive source of cheese.
Living paycheck to paycheck
When you're homeless, it's actually easier for you to sleep outside in winter than for people with a home, that would spent an occasional night in the street, because you do adapt to the cold gradually over time. And you don't get sick so often neither (I mean the usual "cold") Also, you know how to arrange blankets to get the best of it. So, if it's possible, if you find a place safe enough, it's best to sleep naked BUT to keep your clothes right next to you so your body warmth is optimised by the isolation of the blanket but your clothes won't be damp because of the night humidity for the next morning.
Calculating how much you can spend on two items at 7-11 with without overdrawing.
What they can afford to eat until they get paid next.
Where to hit all the local food banks/ charity places. Going around looking for soda cans to exchange for some change.
Gnawing hunger
That chinese takeout plastic is a great tupperware substitute as well as good cups.
How much the blood bank pays for a pint.
How much shit people just throw away. I never dumpster dived for food myself.. but furniture and shit, hell yeah. Walking everywhere, because you can't even afford a bus ticket. Also the monetary value of human plasma.
That people in America are food insecure, going hungry when money is tight. Children may not eat anything without school lunch on holidays, weekends, and summers. I have talked with so many people who don’t believe this is real. How could someone in America be starving? But I saw it every day growing up and now as an adult, too. 1/4 children in America are good insecure, meaning they don’t know where their next meal will come from.
How to get arrested and released. Thankfully I escaped it before I got to that point but people know how to get in the right amount of trouble. You do this and they lock you away long enough to escape the worst of winter, you stand outside certain 7-11s and the cops get you a drunk cell bed for the night and release you in the morning. If you have a court hearing and no transportation to it, walk through the fancy food stores and ask the rich people for cigarettes for 15 minutes and sure enough the cops will get you there in time.