Being broke is tough, but a person still has to eat. When these people got down to the bottom of the barrel, they still managed to scrape enough together to make ends meet, but it was touch and go for so many of them.
Sometimes You Just Have To Make Do
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“I was cooking rice and broke a wine glass next to the bowl. There were shards of glass throughout the bowl of rice, but I ate it anyway, picking them out as I went.”
“It Was Either Laugh About It Or Cry”
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“During college, I was so broke that I lived on crackers for a week. Found enough change to buy a jar of jam to go with the crackers. Took it home, so excited to crack it open. Dropped it on my kitchen floor, shattering the glass into the jam. It was either laugh about it or cry.”
His Day Was Pretty Rough, Then The Cops Showed Up
“One time in college, I was so broke that I walked around the campus parking lot one night looking for change so I could go to Krystal’s for a single slider (around $1.00). I guess I looked suspicious walking around the parking lot with a flashlight because a cop pulled up and asked me what I was doing. When I told him, he laughed, then drove me to the restaurant and bought me an entire combo meal. Ever since then, I will randomly show up at least twice a year with dinner for the night shift officers.”
When The Hunter Becomes The Hunted
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“My dad had a great ‘we were so broke’ story.
He was a young child during WW2, the youngest out of 9 kids. His family was a poor fisherman family so when their town, Rotterdam, was invaded, they were so badly hit that they started cooking potato peels that they stole out of the Germans trash just to survive.
So one day my grandmother, who was a real tough lady, went out and stole, killed and cooked the neighbors’ cat. First meat they’d seen in months.
The adults told the kids it was okay because the cat was a Nazi sympathizer. His dad even fashioned a tag with a Swastika on to prove it.
Luckily, my dad was picked when Red Cross came round. They had a summer program where they took the most starved out kids and sent them to Denmark to get fattened up.
And that’s basically how he ended up meeting my mother.”
Dumpster Diving Isn’t Very Glamorous
“In college, I used to wait out back behind a bakery at the end of the day for them to come out with a garbage bag of all the unsold baked goods. They’d toss it right in the dumpster and I’d fetch it immediately and it would feed me and my small group of broke friends. One day I was waiting from a modest distance and the lady taking out the trash saw me, smiled, and set the bag down next to the dumpster instead of tossing it in. She knew.
I was incredibly grateful, but at the same time it was like, ‘Oh, this is a thing now. I’ve done this enough that she recognizes me.’ After that, I could tell if she was working the closing shift because the bag would always be next to the dumpster instead of inside it.
Zero chance she’s going to read this but on the slight possibility it gets around, you were my rockstar, Miriam, thank you.”
You Gotta Eat However You Can
“When I was younger, I worked at McDonald’s and I’d steal cooked food, and frequently that would be my only meal of the day. When they got stricter about keeping track of food, I had to start paying if I wanted to eat. I’d wander the drive thru before work and on my break, picking up dropped change. With my discount, at the time I could get a McDouble for $.53, and that’d be my meal for the day.”
“From That Point Forward, I Can’t Eat Noodles Or Even Stand The Smell Of Them”
“Last year of graduate school I ran out of money when my research grant got canceled due to the administration change. My advisors felt sorry for me and they paid me $6/hr for 3 hours per week to run computer cables and fix/clean and fill printers until I could finish my thesis. My mother had just died and my father had been laid off, so there was no help coming from him halfway across the country. 1994 was a dark year – I will never forget how dark that was.
My memories: 10 for $1 ramen noodles sales fed me for 90+ days. I added 4 cans of corn and 4 cans of tuna for another $5 each month to the ramen noodles. My treat was I splurged on 1 grapefruit and 1 can of Cambell’s soup per week! I remember looking in the snow by the parking meters on campus for loose change to pay for them. When people drop change in the snow they don’t hunt for it – thank god. Rode my bike in 20-degree weather and snow to campus during this time and left my crappy Ford Escort sitting in the driveway because I couldn’t buy gas for it or even think about paying for a parking meter on campus.
Happy ending – I wrote one heck of a final thesis to graduate.
Thank god for the job offer I landed through the career placement center on campus! Sold my furniture and bike for about $100, maxed out my Sears credit and Mobil credit cards buying clothes for work and getting myself three states over to start the job.
I sublet an apartment and the guy took a risk on me and my story that once I got my first paycheck he would be the 1st one paid. Slept on my futon and used a cardboard box I found at the curb as a table and would sit on the floor. But, DANG, I had my own place with a refrigerator and a stove! From which I ate more ramen noodles…
That 1st paycheck, OMG. This has brought back the memories of how I went shopping after cashing the check at the bank and brought everything home and just kept looking at all the food in the refrigerator and shelves over and over again. At that point, I actually started to pack a lunch for work and would have a sandwich instead of a glass of water for lunch.
From that point forward – I can’t eat noodles or even stand the smell of them cooking, such humbling times.”
What Use Is An Empty Fridge?
“I had a period where I had no income for about six months. In that time, I ate everything that was in my cupboard, from plain rice to expired jam on stale bread, to a packet of powdered sauce made into a soup. By the end of it, all I had left was salt and had unplugged my fridge because there was nothing in it and no point paying to keep it on.”
Meals Were Stretched As Thinly As Possible
“For close to a year, I would live of off one McDonald’s burger called a little big burger per day. It was a meat patty smaller than a quarter pounder, but bigger than the regular single burger for 99 cents. It had lettuce and tomato stacked in good portions on it.
I would eat the burger and bun, and later eat the lettuce, onions and tomato adding to it anything I could find in the condiment basket at work for a salad. It was rough and embarrassing times, back then I thought finding a bacon bits pack to add to my salad was a godsend.
I was not on any assistance and was too proud to look at my options. I paid my bills, gassed my car and literally some weeks had four bucks left to live on.”
Soup Of The Day
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“During uni, I failed to budget properly, so I ate ‘stock soup’ for about 2 weeks. It was basically a cheap stock cube, plus whatever I could find. At first, I had some pasta, but after that, it was a clove of garlic, and then some chili flakes, and then just stock. Looking back, I should have gone trashbin raiding behind supermarkets, I could have eaten like a king, but I didn’t know it was a thing.”
The Journey For A Little Caesars Hot-N-Ready Pizza
“I’m a paramedic. Once, my partner and I were working a 14-hour shift on a Thursday, right before payday. We both forgot our lunch (We had a system where one would bring lunch for both, but this day we got confused and both thought the other was bringing lunch), and we were both absolutely broke. Like, $0.42 in the bank account broke.
So we grabbed all the change from our respective cars and began pooling our money together for a $5 Little Caesars Hot-N-Ready pizza. We scrounged outside hospitals, and I even made a humorous Facebook post about donating to the cause. After 9 or 10 hours, it seemed we wouldn’t have enough. We were cranky, hungry, and tired. There was only a dollar between us and glorious, mouthwatering pizza, but with each call, it seemed further and further away. We thought it was over, until our truck broke down. We went back to base to switch out trucks, and while doing a rig check, we found 95 cents stuffed between the cushions of the passenger seat.
We requested the post closest to the only Little Caesars in the city. It was across the city from base, and it seemed like every call that went out was JUST far enough away that another crew was closer.
I had been doing this job for years at this point. I’ve seen some crap in my career, but I can honestly say nothing was ever more nerve-racking than that drive. As we made the final turn, I could see the building come into view, and it was all worth it. 100 yards and food would be ours. It was the most amazing feeling I had felt.
Until we heard our rig get called over the radio.
We ignored it, once. Hoping to just get close enough to the parking lot to ‘use it to turn around.’ They called again, and we saw a fire truck lighting up down the road, heading towards us. Hope was lost, as we answered the radio. Begrudgingly, it was my duty to key up the mic.
’49 on.’
’49, stand by.’
We had a chance. Holy crap, we had a chance to run in, get the pizza, and hop back in the truck before they called us again. And that is exactly what we did.
I’ve never cut in line before. I view it as one of the penultimate jerk moves. But this day, I didn’t care.
There was a line of three people. The two in the back were talking to each other, and the person in front had just finished their order. They turned, and the cashier looked towards the two that were talking to each other, and called, ‘Next.’
There was a pause. They didn’t hear the cashier beckon them. I did it and I took the moment to take a step forward, and proclaim my order to the small, dark lobby. The cashier turns around, grabs one of the pieces out of the heater, and turns around again, to find me throwing $5.40 in loose change on the counter. I felt so bad. I think I actually threw some of the money across the counter at her, because as I grabbed the pizza, I heard the sound of coins falling, which was only interrupted by the squawk of the radio, keying up again.
I didn’t care. I had pizza.
’49?’
Glorious pizza.
’49, on.’
My glorious pizza. Nothing could make me happier than I was in that moment.
’49, disregard the job I sent you. Enjoy your pizza.’
Except that.”
Their Friendship Was Jeopardized Over Nectarines
“I legitimately got mad at my friend who ate the three nectarines from a tree I had shown her a week prior. That was going to be my food for a day and she came from money and didn’t even live in the area, so that meant she drove her BMW to my neighborhood to snatch those nectarines. I was pissed and hungry. That’s when I knew I was poor.”
Table Scraps Make A Filling Meal
“I went inside a fast-food restaurant, pretending to be in line and deciding on what to order, I was secretly looking at people’s tables and checking their leftovers. Just when my target was about to leave, I ran to their table and politely asked if I could sit there and somewhat reserve it. They obliged. I made it seem to the waitstaff/employees of the restaurant that I knew who was sitting there, ‘Thank you. Take care, I’ll see you around.’ Then I took the leftovers. Half eaten rice, some chicken, spaghetti, soda. I refilled my water bottle there. Also took the bones from the other tables and requested a waiter to put them in a doggy bag. It was for my dog. I plugged and charged my phone while I was eating. When I left, they even thanked me for dining.
Forward to present, I came by that restaurant to order the same meal I ate, left a big tip, and I gave the food the next homeless person I saw on the streets.”
It Was A Sweet, But Seriously Unhealthy, Diet
“At one point, I was so broke that my main source of food was a donut shop that would leave it’s daily leftovers outside for a local pig farmer to take. I would walk down there after midnight and take the garbage bag left on their back step. It would be full of donuts and other pastries.
I literally had one dollar to my name. When I got down to that last dollar, that’s when I started living like that.
At that time, I was living inside my car in a storage facility. I paid for the storage space for one year ($100) before I went broke. I was living with a friend who also went broke at the same time and his house got foreclosed on. He moved in with his parents, and I, having no family in the area, moved to the storage facility.
With my donuts, I would drink water that I would gather using old milk jugs and soda bottles. I collected water from hoses at houses where people were not home.
I sold blood/plasma at two separate locations (not a healthy thing to do, I do not recommend it), sold my car, and sold pretty much everything else I owned so I could buy a plane ticket.
With that ticket, I was able to get back to where my family was. I moved in with my mother for a couple months while I got a job. Since then, I have had a good job, made good money, bought a couple cars, a house, and stocked a bank account. And, I still have that dollar as a reminder of what I can do with next to nothing.”
He Bought The One Thing He Could Afford
“I remember when I was first out of high school and going to college. I had a part-time job, but I did not have particularly good money management skills. Basically, every pay period played out about the same way: on payday, I was invariably broke, driving around on an oh-god-please-just-five-more-miles empty tank. I’d go to my morning classes, and by afternoon I was hungry as heck because I had no money to get lunch. Then I’d run to the restaurant, pick up my paycheck, tank up the car, and go somewhere and buy the biggest freaking combo meal they had and chowed down like an animal.
Anyway, on one of these paydays, I was hanging out in the student lounge between classes. I was hungry, like really hungry. I think I hadn’t even had breakfast. But as usual, I had no money to my name, except for some loose change. That’s when I saw it: the bubble gum machine in the corner. A quarter would get me a Big Handful of Chiclets (of course, we all know that a Big Handful in this context means like eight pieces of gum).
So yeah, I did it. I dropped a quarter on a handful of Chiclets, and that was my ‘lunch.’
I think I also remember buying like fifty cents worth of gas on one of these days…”
Sometimes You Just Have To Lay It All Out
“When a rich friend found like 60 cents that were mine and wanted to keep them. I shouted at him to give it back and when he kept nagging me as to why I wanted them so bad, I broke and said, ‘Because I need that for lunch!’
I didn’t even care at that point.”
Who’s Really In Need?
“A couple guys came to my door to collect food for the needy around the holidays. My roommate and I invited them in while we searched the cabinets for something to give. We came up with little. The guys ended up leaving food behind for us. They said we were the needy…”
It Felt So Good To Have Hope…
“I had less than $10 for food for like two weeks when I was in college. In my area you can buy tubes of Mexican chorizo for a dollar or less. So I got a tube of chorizo, a dozen eggs and tortillas from the mark down bread section for breakfasts and a pound of dry beans for dinners.
Actually ate pretty good, but I was sick of chorizo and egg tacos and beans at the end of two weeks.
Around the same time I found a $5 bill on the ground and was sooooo freaking excited to go to the fast food place on the corner. I was going to have a value menu burger, value fries and a value drink and walk out with enough change to get a 2 liter of Coke for the rest of the week.
As I was walking up there, I reached into my pocket and discovered that my found money had disappeared. I panicked a little, searched the quarter mile I had walked and then cried in my bed for my lost burger.”
There’s Always A Way To Make It Stretch
“I had to pay for fixing my car and didn’t want to borrow any money or use credit.
So, I paid for fixing the car, which included wiping out my emergency fund, and spent the rest of the month living on PB&J sandwiches, using bread from the Wonder Bread Outlet up the street, the manufacturer’s place where they sell stuff that’s a few days away from expiring. Let me tell you, put that bread in the freezer and thaw it a couple of slices at a time, and you can stretch that ‘2 days’ into a week, easy.
I think I spent about $20 on groceries that month. But I totally made it.
Obviously not long-term poverty here, but I didn’t have a PB&J sandwich for years after that month.”
Living Rent Free Didn’t Mean He Could Afford Groceries
“I moved back into a second floor apartment without telling the landlady. She lived out of state and the downstairs people had been renting there for years, so nobody really came to check in. So I moved my stuff in, just told the downstairs people, ‘I’m back,’ and lived there rent free. It only worked because the house was converted to apartments without splitting the power and water meters, so the arrangement was always to split it between tenants. So the downstairs lady just split the bill with me. I lived there and only paid utilities for a couple months until I paid off a few outstanding debts and saved up for a deposit on a decent place. I didn’t buy food, I’d hang out at the dumpster of a Little Caesar’s where a couple friends worked. At the end of the day, they’d take the leftovers to the dumpster to pitch. They would get in trouble for giving it to me, so I’d hide inside the dumpster below the edge, and they’d gently drop the boxes to me in case their manager was looking. I lived on leftover pizza for months. I gained about 20 pounds.”
He’d Do Anything For His Lady, Even That
“When I worked at Tim Hortons, I would volunteer to change the garbages outside, a job no one wanted. I did this so I could dig through them to see if anyone had thrown out McDonald’s cups with the stickers for free coffee. After six stickers, you get a free coffee.
My wife and I, at the time, couldn’t afford luxuries like coffee, so I dumpster dove for her multiple times daily so she could get something.”
Time To Break Out The Emergency Rations
“Completely out of money, completely out of food. Too naive to know about going to a food pantry for some assistance, and too proud to ask anyone for help.
I broke into my ’emergency evacuation kit’ and ate MRE’s for my one meal of the day for 10 days until I could get any more money to buy groceries for the next week or so (which were only rice, beans, ramen, and eggs).”
