What’s the most “I can’t believe I’m this broke” moment you have ever had ?

30 comments

  1. When interest rates went up and I was importing stuff and making good money but it was all just going to the bank. Should of just rocked upto the bank and dropped my trousers and bent over and touched my toes and said “Just get it over and done with”.

  2. In 2008 I was sleeping on a ratty comforter on a hardwood floor, living out of liquor boxes with no actual furniture, and subsisting entirely on 10/$10 frozen pizzas because it’s all I could afford.

    I was also selling blood plasma 2x a week to make rent.

    I ain’t going back lol.

  3. Took some leftover steamed rice home from work…pan fried it with some random spices for dinner, was actually pretty good

  4. Skipping out on jury duty because they make you show up in-person to even ask for a financial hardship exception and I couldn’t afford to take an unpaid day off of work to do so.

    Not to mention that what jury duty in my state pays isn’t even enough to compensate for parking at the courthouse.

  6. Pawned some shit to buy Christmas gifts couple years ago my cards were maxed. Was making jack shit in Charleston trying to keep up with my ex-gf who was at 6 figures. I’m sure I looked happy on the outside but never have been that broke.

  8. Stealing as much saltine crackers at the end of my shift at denny’s so that I’d at least have a little something to eat before my next shift.

  9. When I was in high school, before I started working, I would buy five dollars of gas at a time. This is back when it was like 1.50 a gallon.

  10. Once I paid for a McChicken with nothing but nickels and pennies and was still short. They gave it to me anyway.

  11. In college I had a deal with the local coffee shop that i could have the frozen breakfast sandwiches they had to throw out

  12. Getting a call from my bank to tell me I was (insert roughly the amount of my monthly take home salary) overdrawn.

    I explained that I was about to get paid, which would clear the overdraft.

    They told me I had been paid already…

    Oh shit moment.

  16. Out of work during the Covid lockdown and was only able to eat one meal a day and had to decide between buying toilet roll or toothpaste. A truly humbling experience and one I hope to never have to repeat.

  19. After a spine injury that took years to get disability for, I had a maxed out credit card, and was hovering around zero dollars in my chequing account at all times, deciding between a pack of smokes or enough gas to get me through the next couple days, living at home with my parents and still barely keeping my head above water. In a much better place now and don’t ever want to go back

  21. Was stupid with debt in college, got out and had a legit job but paying back everything to rebuild credit had me at zero. Hit a point where I was on the ground at the gas station digging up coins from under the seats to buy gas.

  22. Not counting my time homeless….

    I was between jobs and just got hired. I wanted to celebrate somehow but had literally no money (though with the new job things started working out again)

    But that first day, I literally walked around the parking lot of the grocery store until I had found enough change to but a $3 bottle of wine.

  23. The day I found out that my wife had maxed out every credit card we had and had not paid any of our bills, causing me to pull money out of our cash register to buy a pair of shoes.

  25. When I was in college, I was working 45-50 hours a week at $0.25 over minimum wage. I had no financial assistance. My car was a busted rust-bucket. I would make a Subway sandwich stretch 3-4 meals. If I had $20 to my name at the end of any given week, that was a damn good week.

    One day I was driving home from work and my car ran out of gas. Some butthole had siphoned it out in the parking lot, since I had just put $15 in that morning (which was close to a full tank then). If you’ve ever run out of gas, you know you get an extra mile or so out of it after the first stall. I pulled into a gas station as the engine was huffing and puffing. I didn’t have a debit/credit card yet, so everything I did was cash. And I had none. I started scrounging around under the seat, in the console, on the ground, looking for coins. I found around $0.90 in coins, walked in to the cashier, looked at the take a penny leave a penny and there were a few dimes in there. The cashier made eye contact with me and we had a non-verbal conversation about the ethical implications of taking all those coins. I took ’em and said something like “$1.42 on Pump 4 please.” I got an exhale and an eye roll.

  26. The local Safeway had coupons on the receipts. It was $2 off of a $5 burrito (many years ago) at this new burrito place. My buddy and I would scavenge around the parking lot looking for receipts. It was between college and my 1st job.

  27. Walking around the streets looking for cigarette butts with a little bit of tobacco leftover so I could combine a few of them into one smokable hand rolled cigarette. Also rationing food at the time and mixing 50/50 bottled water with boiled undrinkable tap water.

    Will always remember the cigarette thing the most though, that hit hard.

  28. Being homeless, sitting in a Burger King for the air conditioning, wifi and to charge up electronics, looking at my bank account statement being under $5 with no income coming in and no idea if I was ever going to see another dime in my life. Wasn’t fun.

  29. In high school I had to wait around for my younger brother who had band practice after school. Our cafeteria always closed after lunch and the only place close to get food was Taco Bell. I was scrapping together change out of my car do I could get an .88 cent bean burrito and I could only find like .75 cents. I ended up looking around in the school parking lot to find enough change to get a snack. It was kinda embarrassing to pretend like I wasn’t looking for change when I absolutely was looking for change.

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