Misery Loves Company

...breaking out in tears because I found $5 in the pocket of a jacket and it meant that I could go buy a bag of potatoes to eat.

...living on potatoes for a month and a half (spuds are cheap in Idaho).

...seriously considering what dishes I might be able to make out of dry dog food and potatoes.

...actually had a large Italian man show up to collect on a past-due notice. I paid up 'cause he was scaaary.

Going to talk with my father, wanting his advice on whether it would be best to sell the house (at a considerable loss) and look for something cheaper to buy or to sell the house and rent. And then breaking down in front of him. (He loaned me some money instead.)

Oh, it's been a broke coupla months here. First I got the note that my student loan went into default and I would have to pay $325/mo. to bail myself out. *snort* (I am giving them $25/mo. cause that's all I can spare!)

A week later I got an eviction notice because I was $100 short on rent. Two weeks later, my car insurance policy was canceled because my payment arrived two weeks late (i made the fucking payment with money that should've gone toward the rent that was short!).

This was more of a moral issue, so it's not as extreme as some peoples', but when I was a freshman in college and living in the dorms, I used to steal food from my roommate when she wasn't there. I didn't have a meal plan because I'd spent all my fin. aid refund money on some jackass boyfriend (damn, I was dumb then).

I'd take a couple of spoonfulls of pasta sauce here, and handfull of spaghetti there and she never noticed. Or maybe she did...a few bras and bracelets of mine came up missing at the end of the year.

As a child when we had our power turned off. We had to run extension cords to building outlets in the apartment building. We ate bread for weeks.

~sleeping in "groups" to keep warm cause we had no heat

~corn. it was dinner. sometimes it was pasta and corn. but corn was cheaper at 10 cans for a $1.00

~boiling water and putting it in the bath tub to bathe.

~living in a small (it may have been 20X30) room with every single item I owned for about a month

Christmas Eve 1988. I had no job, was down to my last 3 top ramen's and had just received a 15 day eviction notice. I went to the ATM and withdrew my last $40 only to turn around and get robbed at gun-point. Merry frickin' Christmas - shoot me... no really. Okay then give me the damn gun and I'll do it! I did the couch tour for the next few months and thanks to the kindness of friends, I made it through.

January 1994. I was evicted from the house I shared with my first husband (and glad to go, as he had become so scary). I put everything I owned, including two cats, into my ancient Dodge car and drove to a nearby shopping center to get money out of the ATM, only to discover the account had been cleaned out by hubby. I bought a paper with spare change and began looking for a place to live. I only had enough money for three pay phone calls...the first place didn't take pets and the second one was rented. The third one said I could come look if I hurried. It was a room in a nice house and the lady didn't mind my cats. She wanted $50 up front, though, so I had to go around to everyone I knew and beg. It took me all day, but I got her the $50. She let me move in that night and I couldn't have been more grateful.

When I found out my now ex hadn't been paying bills and our house was in foreclosure. The money that should have been spent on bills and the mortgage had been pissed away on crap for his lawn service, a down payment on a car, and who knows what else.

I had to close out all of my 401k's to get stuff out of collections - like the HOUSE - then went through a major refinancing/consolidation process to dig us out of debt.

I wish I had journaled then because looking back I have no idea how I did it...emotionally or financially. It seems so impossible to me now.

Sponging off my parents (free rent, food, you name it) for three years while I went through burnout, depression, self-loathing, and the bar exam. Not once did they complain or threaten to boot my ass out, although they should have.

when i first moved out on my own
i lived in crown heights brooklyn
in 1981 way bad time
of crime and race wars
i had not money to pay my gas bill
so had not heat in dead of winter
and survived with an electric blanket and heater
had no phone
and ate nothing but kraft four for a dollar
mac and cheese and tap water
it was way bad honey
but it gave me a real sense of character
and coming up from that
made me feel so much pride
now i never take anything for granted

I was on my way back from the west coast and the girl I was travelling with decided she wanted to call her boyfriend and have him come get her. This meant I was on my own. We were in LaSalle/Peru Illinois and I had about $50. I found a garage sale that day and bought a $10 bicycle.

I rode out to the turnpike and got a job at a 24 hour rest-stop diner. I slept in a culvert in a wooded area between the highway and town for a couple nights until I could try and talk my boss into loaning me money against my paycheck.

It's pretty hard to lose your sense of humor when you've seen the bottom.

...getting an eviction notice and actually handing money to the bailiff when he came to kick me out.

...having to go to a family member and beg them to lend me money so that I wouldn't get evicted.

....having to sell my mother's sapphire ring (she gave it to me) for food (she still doesn't know it's gone)

....having the phone and power cut for non-payment.

my brokest moment is occuring right now. collection notices, no money, eating once a day, etc etc

Having to live with my now inlaws for 4 years because with all of our debt from the "young and stupid" days when we should have been broke but acted like we weren't (we both racked up massive CC bills - we both stopped using CCs before we even met), we couldn't afford to live on our own. If not for my inlaws, I don't know where we'd be. If I hadn't changed jobs, we'd still be living there.

A lot of my brokest moments came as a kid, trying to fake it like my family was fine. Mom and dad did their darndest but I still remember the sherrif knocking on the door to take dad in for hot checks and him asking my baby sis if she'd gotten any money from my grandparents lately. I also remember as a kid having to dump out every piggy bank and go through all the cushions and stuff for change to help pay back a loan. Grew up haggling with creditors about whether my parents were really home or not- which led to developing a "secret ring" (this was obviously pre-caller id).

My personal brokest moments include having just moved out from the rents with my first job. I was stupid and hosted a big house warming party and had to eat off left overs for almost a month because I was too embarassed to tell my parents I didn't have grocery money. I can acknowledge I was fortunate in that some of my personal brokest moments are after actually having paid all the bills and having to stretch $20 for the month. But at least the rent and electricity were paid.

Mine aren't that bad by comparison, but here they are:

1) Living off an 89-cent piece of pizza a day for the majority of Summer 2002 (though that was my own fault).

2) Currently, I think (hope is more like it) I make exactly as much as I have to spend on bills. It's been like this for a while, and when I had a short month, I'd cash advance my rent (I cringe just thinking about it. Cash advance is the devil). But now, my credit cards are pushing their limits, so I'm not quite sure what I will do if I come up short any time soon.

--unemployed one winter, living on my futon in my friends' living room, eating their food and helping take care of their newborn baby in grateful payment

--the folks above took me in after this chain of events: let go from my favorite job ever because my employer couldn't afford me after two years of faithful work... two weeks before Christmas, when I had been counting on the typical $200 bonus... old roommate decides I need to move out even though I was still paying all my bills from my savings because he didn't think I was as fun anymore (presumably since I lost my job, as people are often a delight to be around after such a crushing disappointment)

--using my tax refund and an entire two-week paycheck to bail myself out of a $600+ overdue electric bill with which a different ex-roommate had stuck me

--seriously considering spending my last forty bucks (in change) on an eighth of weed instead of food, just to numb the misery of being so goddamn poor

Being poor sucks. I am more financially stable now than I have ever been, but as noted, there have been some hellishly lean times in my life.

*bouncing a rent check and realising that if i didn't live with someone who loved me, i'd be homeless.

*taking money from my mom and promising not to tell my dad about it.

*cashing a check she meant for me to use for LSAT prep courses and intead went to rent.

*crying in front of the DMV guy when they tacked on a $100 fee for paying a parking ticket one day late. i didn't have $100. and i wouldn't for a long time.

none of this is as bad as most of the world has had it and for that i'm grateful. but if it wasn't for my folks and boyfriend, i'd be in some trouble. I feel wretched about that.