What is the craziest thing you've done when your broke?

Raided a supermarket’s dumpster at sunday midnight.

I used a milky way wrapper as a condom when I was drunk the night before my wedding.

I can’t even come close to those.

I know people who go to financial seminars to get the free lunch. I’ve recycled aluminum for extra money, eaten Ramen Noodles for longer than I care to remember, not flushed the toilet after every use (If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down.), taken in clothing and gotten paid to do alterations in addition to my full-time job, searched for change in the couch and throughout the car….

I don’t know you, but I’d like to say I’m proud of you for saving to get a house. (I was going to Sam’s Club today to get a few things and was cleaning out my refrigerator. I had a box of wine that felt like it was empty, but I know there is a glass left in the plastic container. I shoved it back into the fridge with the intention of cutting the plastic to get the last drop instead of wasting the wine.)

Old habits die hard.

I was thinking about your question and laughed at a memory. I didn’t have a washer and dryer and went to the laundry mat. I would shove so may clothes into the washer it is a wonder anything got clean. I would fanatically check every dryer for one with time left on it and/or look for the hottest dryer to save money drying. I hung what clothes I could inside my house on clothes lines strung up in the bedroom and bathroom.

Dumpster diving of all sorts.
I took a job catering events in my department because it meant that I would get to take some of the leftovers home.
I still routinely go through the leftover lunch boxes that result from catered luncheons in my department. The people who attend lunchtime talks haven’t lived on $1200 a month in decades, and they often throw away wrapped sandwiches and unopened bags of chips.

Moved to Australia. My reasoning was I can be broke in the sunshine or broke in the cold.

When I lived in San Francisco, I was really broke the first couple of months. I got one meal a day from various soup kitchens. The best one around was the Church of St. John Coltrane that always served delicious beans and cabbage that I STILL sometimes crave. I also went to the Hare Krishna temple and had to beat a tambourine and/or sing about Krishna for what seemed like hours before we could eat. Their food tasted kinda funky. I also lined up to eat from Food Not Bombs—which basically means I allowed other people to do the dumpster diving for me.

Wow, you guys are real troopers. Thanks for making me feel so much better about being broke. I was so embarassed today when I went to the optical place to make a payment on my glasses ($20) and the lady said to me “Your balance is only $480 now. You should be good to go by the end of the summer!” If only I didn’t need to SEE! @ragingloli and @bookish1 I’m going to try that dumpster diving, every little bit helps. I have a change jar I’m going to raid soon, it should be a good $30 bucks in coins in there. @bkcunningham I’d love some Ramen Noodles right about now, that’s how sick of PB&J and oatmeal I am.

Ahh oatmeal. I lived on oatmeal for a few weeks one time. Strangely I still like it @Akua. It did take a while before I could face it again. Oatmeal or what I call porridge and powdered custard were all I had in the house.

To the lady in the optical place, I hope she wasn’t trying to make you feel bad. If she was, ignore her. It says more about her than you.

Things will improve. Might take time, but they will.

@Akua, just be careful about the dumpster diving. Beware of expired meat and dairy products, and watch out for the cops. They’re there to make sure that the store doesn’t have to deal with legal problems if you hurt yourself while rescuing perfectly good food from their dumpster. :-/

This isn’t too crazy but once I was so broke that I bought the cheapest thing I knew in the grocery store, chicken livers, and I made a meal out of it. It was disgusting!

I love fried chicken livers.

I know this doesn’t go with the intent of the question, @Akua, but maybe this can help. It might be too late this time, but it is worth a phone call.

@Earthgirl I like chicken liver.

@Bellatrix I did think the optical lady was trying to be funny but I just let it roll off my back. Ultimately when I have my own house and I’m no longer renting, I’ll have the last laugh. By the end of this summer all this sacrifice will be a near-distant memory and I’ll be able to relax. @bookish1 thanks for the advice, I don’t eat meat but if I find some cheese and baked goods I’ll make sure to look out for the expiration date and the po-po, lol. Some fruit would be nice too. @Earthgirl chicken livers? I’ll never be THAT hungry, I’d rather do what @keobooks did and stand in line at every soup kitchen in the city. @bkcunningham that you for that link. I wish I could use it but they only help people who are unemployed and/or don’t have insurance. My problem is I have a job and I have insurance, it just doesn’t cover the special bi-focals that I require. Blasted doctor gave me a prescription that cost $600! My insurance will only pay $100 of it because it’s a complicated vision issue. Astigmatism in one eye, farsighted in one eye, near sighted in both, light sensitivity, UGH!!! Right now I’m wearing some over-the-counter glasses from Walgreens and they barely allow me to see words on paper to read.

@XOIIO I’m sorry for prying but how in the HELL do you use a candy bar wrapper as a condom?!?!? you know what, don’t tell me, I don’t think I should know…

I wonder if the Lion’s Club would be willing to help you get the glasses now and pay them back? I hate that you don’t have your glasses, @Akua. It breaks my heart to think of someone not being able to see properly and their glasses are there waiting. The working poor. It is tough.

@Akua Lol it’s from family guy XD

I imagine you could use gum though, although I’d need a king sized mr big to try.

@XOIIO it figures Peter Griffin is behind that answer. smh. lol, @bkcunningham I don’t know who the Lion’s Club is but I wouldn’t take their money. I’m sure there are others’ who are in worse shape than me who don’t even have a job. Despite what the optic lady said, I’ll have those glasses out by the end of this month. Hubby has been doing loads of overtime to get me those glasses. I just have to be patient and increase the size of my font on my laptop and Kindle lol. And when you say the working poor you said it all. Thanks for your concern though, I really appreciate it.

You make me want to cry. Damn this hormonal menopause. You sure are blessed to have such a wonderful husband. You are both inspirational. Best wishes and cheers.

Couch surfed for seven months with my husband and son.

In December I had surgery. I couldn’t pay, so I had the hospital bill both the insurance company I didn’t yet qualify for, and Medicaid I was getting cut off of because I dared to get a job. Neither one actually wanted to pay for it, but at least I’m not sick any more. What’s a little more medical debt?

I’m not telling its to embarrassing.
One I will admit, we went into the woods and got mistletoe and packaged it up and had our kids sell it in front of the grocery store. When asked what it was for they said “So our parents can afford Christmas presents.”
It was true.

@Seek_Kolinahr Yeah, when you die from not having money for a key procedure, they’ll have to pay for it. Thattil show em!

Oh.. I was too embarrassed to mention, but why not? I don’t mind admitting that I went to soup kitchens, but I am mortified that I lived in a “Piss in the Sink” hotel. This is usually known as a “share bath”—and you get a tiny room about 10×10 and your bathroom is down the hall. And there are lots of really skanky neighbors you live with and use the toilet with. I NEVER showered there. I went to friends house. I don’t remember using the toilet ever—but umm.. I quickly learned why they called them “piss in the sinks”. And one of my neighbors couldn’t bring himself to poop in the shared bath so he used bread bags.

I could tell some stories—NEVER live in a share bath. They are so sucky. I’d rather be a couch surfer or a squatter.

Edited to add the sole review of it I found. I see it hasn’t changed in 15 – 20 years.

If you would have asked, “What have you done for a cigarette” I still wouldn’t answer. :-z
glad I no longer smoke.

This just happened last week, and it makes me feel so shady. Our checking account was overdrawn, no money would be coming in for at least another week. We needed food, gas for the car, and I desperately needed to get 3 prescriptions refilled (lost my health insurance because I could no longer afford it). Not having the medicine would have sent my health into a downward spiral (I’d have been unable to work at all), and after a week or so, I could have gone into a coma and died without one of them, so that part was pretty urgent. One of the medications is super expensive, too.

Knowing that using my debit card for each transaction would put me further in the hole ($40 bucks a pop for overdrawing my account even more), I went to the ATM and withdrew $300.00 (one transaction for a $40 fee versus 3 or more transactions for $120 or more in fees) and used the cash to pay for everything else we needed. So now my account is really overdrawn, but at least it’s not all due to overdraft fees. Hope to get it paid off by next week.

Thank goodness Mr. Augustlan finally found a job today, and he starts next week. Whew!

Needs must @augustlan. Very glad things are looking up for you.

@augustlan yea my friend taught me a trick like that back in college. She would write a $200 check to herself and deposit it in her own (empty) account, The bank would give her an immediate available balance of $100 and then she would withdraw the $100 and would have money to get thru the week. I thought she was crazy to do that but then again this girl could care less about about a credit score let alone an over draft fee.

@augustlan, that’s really not shady compared to what some people do, and it was for life-saving medicine… I despise that it has to be this way in our country. Myself, I would be quite ready to do all manner of shady things if I could not buy insulin. Do what you have to, and I’m so glad to hear that there will be more money coming in soon.

@Judi: I’ve walked across campus to pilfer butts from the most “bountiful” ashtray at 2 am. But that wasn’t as bad as letting lecherous men flirt with me so I could bum smokes from them…

Nothing too crazy, but I did have to sell a bunch of my video games at one time, and I was not happy to do it. And I barely got fuckall for them, but dammit I was hungry.

@augustlan Come over to Canada, free healthcare FTW!

@Symbeline : Aw that sucks, I’ve had to do that too. I still miss Jet Moto and SaGa Frontier and tons of other old PS1 games…

Saga Frontier, that rocked, although I never got all that far in it…but man was it pretty. Yeah, lost a couple good ones myself. Ones I figured I wouldn’t play much anymore, but I still wanted to keep them. :/

Fish were not biting so I ate the bait.

@WestRiverrat Really?

@XOIIO I wish!

Whilst traveling in Europe I hitch hiked, drank out of the bathrooms at Maccas, scrounged through ashtrays for butts (I haven’t smoked for 20 years) I’ve drunk casked wine dregs down to the last drop (actually sucked the dregs out of the little tap), couch surfed and crashed parties for food and drink. We used to buy this really disgusting apple cider in the UK in 2 litre bottles it was so cheap it was insane (I have never been able to stomach cider since).
At Monte Carlo casino I found a coin cup and used that to get a drink of water from the bathroom and some nice American boys gave me 10 Francs to play the one armed bandits with.

Lucky for me I got away with all of that without any trouble.

In Australia we have a universal health care so no one should have to go without their meds.

Very sad to hear you have to rack up gigantic debts for necessary health care and life saving medication in the US. Our Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme heavily subsidises certain meds in particular Insulin and so it should. Anything required to stay alive in my opinion should be on the free list.

One time when I was a kid i’d spent my pocket money all in one go, imprudent, but strawberry flavoured Hubba Bubba bubble-gum can be highly addictive…ish.
Anyway, I was skint so this mate of mine suggested I help on his paper round for a couple of quid.
This was truly the round from hell, we’d split up & house number 58 would have number 82 as its neighbour, this random shit went on for 4 fucking hours!!
I was almost bitten by a dog & my bike had a puncture, all that crap for 2 fucking pound…crazy.

Keep using my credit card and paying minimum balances.

@Arewethereyet That’s insane. I want to party with you.

It breaks my heart, too, to hear about our Yankee Fluther friends and lack of affordable healthcare. :(... very very sad.

One of my early hardship memories here in Norway was having my step son with me while his father was out of the country for work. As he often did, he forgot to leave any grocery money for me. I remember standing in the store, near tears, trying to decide between toilet paper and peanut butter. I bought the peanut butter and I found a public toilet that had loose rolls just sitting in a pile. I helped myself to a few of the toilet rolls and stuck them in my back pack. There have been times, off and on, where I have regularly had to just feed the kids and not myself, or I would just eat the left overs from my son’s lunch box and some rice or oatmeal. The first winter here was horrible. I was on my own a lot and the flat I was in was really really cold and we had a nasty cold snap and no wood. I had no money and no idea how to even get some delivered or read the ads in the paper. I filled up a hot water bottle and layed under a duvet on the sofa. I still ended up with a bladder infection, and I remember I stilled owed money on my credit card from New Zealand and they would phone up in the middle of the night. I would just start sobbing…. ugggh.

The wine bag box trick is something we always do here in Norway. Here, alcohol is waaaaay to expensive to waste like that. I clip the corner and pour out the last drops.

@augustlan That’s not the least bit shady. We have a $750 ODP. Our banker told us that people use their ODP just like low interest loans. It’s the smart thing to do IMO.

Gosh. So many, many things. Couldn’t afford a Christmas tree one year, so I hung lights on my house plants. Kids LOVED it. Plants HATED it!

My son gave me a wedding present that he’d dug out of a dumpster. I loved it! Still have it. It’s a tri-fold divider thing.

I’ve pulled brand new mattresses, still in the plastic cover, out of dumpsters and used them.

I pawned my wedding rings 3 or 4 times.

I drove a mini van that didn’t have heat for two years. Those Kansas winters were tough, tough, tough.

I never bought trash bags. I only used the plastic bags the food, or whatever, was packed in from the store.

At Christmas my kids got new socks in their stockings (and a lot of candy cuz we were on food stamps.)

Wow @cazzie and @Dutchess III tough times. I hope things are now a bit easier for you. My challenges were all at a time I was backpacking for a year. My life is comfortable and I just juggle the orthodontic payments with the school fees we have to pay which probs takes 70% of my current income, I consider myself very privileged and my juggling of these service costs a first world problem.

We took the Christmas tree thing to a different level one year and went out to the forest and harvested a free range tree, as pine trees here are environmental weeds we felt like green warriors as well, we loved our tree so such we never but a cultivated tree anymore.

@cazzie Your story reminds me of when I became newly poor and newly single mom’d. I had never heard of food stamps at that point. I had $2.00. I went to the store and spent it on 4 really big potatoes. Got home, started cutting them up….and they were rotten on the inside. I sat down and cried.