The Poverty Thread

The Sweeper · 02-11-2006 02:01PM

Being a student at DCU. I had literally no money for a week, so I remember walking from the city centre out to the university campus every day, for five days, and then walking back in the evening. Every single day I scanned that pavement for change. People would ask me had I lost something because I was studying the ground so hard. I think the busfare back to Dublin from DCU was 80p. In five days of pavement mooching I couldn't raise more than 45p.

I'm trying to go back to student-style life a bit at the moment in terms of spending less money. I can't believe I used to be able to make £40 last through food and drink three times a day for five days.

seamus · 02-11-2006 02:24PM

With the exception of about 6 months before my leaving, I've worked pretty much solidly since I was 16, and during college I was pulling in around €200 a week. So I've gotten pretty damn good at making my money last. Don't think I've ever been *completely* broke, though I can remember a couple of times withdrawing my last tenner to buy more beer (which wouldn't matter because I'd be paid again in a day or two). That said, my measly rent was paid for me, I rarely drank during college hours (unless there was something on), and was cooked dinner by my girlfriend's Mum at least five nights a week.

Pighead · 02-11-2006 02:32PM

And the heroin was way cheaper back then as well Seamus wasn't it?

Pighead remembers spending his last 3 pound to buy a chick a drink in the Warwick Hotel in Galway.

I said to myself "Fcuk it Pighead, you'll have no money left, but if you buy her a drink its 90% guaranteed she'll take you back to her deluxe apartment and the two of you can make sweet sweet love until payday arrives" Turns out I was wrong, bitch took the drink, thanked me with a sassy smile and walked off into the dry ice to find another sucker.

Making sweet love to a beautiful girl in a beautiful apartment turned into knocking one off in my dank dirty bedroom.

fish-head · 02-11-2006 02:37PM

Pint robbing is best at Debseses I find.. Me and my friend found so many pints we started to conduct physics experiments with them (i.e. slam them on the table and laugh like hyenas as the drink flew out like magic). I don't think I've ever been completely broke. Lucky me I guess.

02-11-2006 02:57PM

This post has been deleted.

Pighead · 02-11-2006 03:12PM

The Scientist wrote:

6 dutchies + free club pass + somebody else's drink = successfull night.

T.Sc.

Not quite buddy, you've got your maths wrong there, perhaps you forgot to carry the 1.

6 dutchies + free club pass + somebody else's drink = Moderate Night.
6 dutchies + free club pass + somebody else's drink + drunken tart + free bag of chips from Lennox's = succesful night

jester77 · 02-11-2006 03:18PM

Would also be the college days as well.

Last year in college in Limerick, went out on a Thurs night and got drunk on my last £5 (those were the days)
Wander into college on the Friday to find out that I have an interview for a job that afternoon in Shannon but don't have any money left and everyone had fecked off for the day. Head down to the student bank and ask for a £5 loan to cover a bus trip to the interview... b***tards refused me. Had to ring my dad who had to leave work in the middle of the day to tranfer £5 for me. Sound man transferred £10 so had an additional bonus night out. Didn't even get the job

Pighead · 02-11-2006 03:27PM

There was this phase in Galway when the nightclubs would stop at midnight for half an hour and Chicken Curry would be served to everybody. It was designed to stop the kids getting drunk I think.

Anyway one of the lads in Pigheads class used to get free passes for Icon/Cuba (whatever the fcuk its called now) and turn up especially at 12 every night to get his Chicken Curry. He'd often take peoples leftovers home in doggy bags. The cnut used to constantly stink of the stuff.

Never got hungry though.

Tazz T · 02-11-2006 03:35PM

I went to work in Denmark picking strawberries one summer. We got paid by the weight we picked. We started at 6am but the local villagers would get up at 4am and pick them all, so we never earned any money. it was in the middle of nowhere and in the end, we resorted to digging up unripe spuds out of fields to eat. Lasted all of three weeks before spending time skint in Germany, Holland and London too.

padi89 · 02-11-2006 03:41PM

Pighead wrote:

There was this phase in Galway when the nightclubs would stop at midnight for half an hour and Chicken Curry would be served to everybody. It was designed to stop the kids getting drunk I think.

Fvckin hell i had forgotten all about that.......strange time! The feckin lights would come on too.They used to serve Chilli in one of the other clubs, smart move,you'd be dyin of the thirst afterwards.

Ruu_Old · 02-11-2006 03:43PM

I had to live on the students specialty dinner/tea aka Pot Noodle for a week when I lived in London before my first paycheck came in.:)

petes · 02-11-2006 03:49PM

Tazz T wrote:

I went to work in Denmark picking strawberries one summer. We got paid by the weight we picked. We started at 6am but the local villagers would get up at 4am and pick them all, so we never earned any money. it was in the middle of nowhere and in the end, we resorted to digging up unripe spuds out of fields to eat. Lasted all of three weeks before spending time skint in Germany, Holland and London too.

Should have got up at 3am then.

Pighead · 02-11-2006 03:51PM

padi89 wrote:

Fvckin hell i had forgotten all about that.......strange time! The feckin lights would come on too

Yeah thats right, the ugly chicks hated it when the lights came on.

"Nooooooooooo", they cried, as the fella they'd been snogging in the dark corner for the past 20 mins suddenly snapped out of his drunken haze, realised he was slobbering all over an Ugg and quickly made his excuses

02-11-2006 04:12PM

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godtabh · 02-11-2006 05:50PM

Was just alking to a friend about this.

He was telling me that he was planning to spend the summer in Canada.

Got there and had a few quid to live off before he got the job.

2 weeks later all his money was spent (he had about €5k) and no job. His last bit of money was spent changing his flights. But the gob****e never asked when they were (he just asked for the next available one home) was 10days away.

He spent 10 days stelling carrots and rice from china town, eggs from the local market and the odd packet of noddels.

He lost a stone

connundrum · 02-11-2006 06:01PM

padi89 wrote:

Fvckin hell i had forgotten all about that.......strange time! The feckin lights would come on too.They used to serve Chilli in one of the other clubs, smart move,you'd be dyin of the thirst afterwards.

It was a requirement for the old niteclub licences, only changed back in 1998/1999 direction

I thought it was great, in the Harriers in Tullamore they'd give out plates of stew. One night we even got sausage rolls :eek: Ya can be sure that I shoved a sausage roll into every available pocket.. thereby eliminating the need for the 3am trip to Abrakebabra

Good times Good times!

petes · 02-11-2006 06:05PM

I've never heard of this food being given out. Did it happen everywhere?

Thrill · 02-11-2006 06:10PM

I went through a scarey spell a couple of years ago. I remember i was
down to my last 15 million euro and was gettin kinda worried.
But thankfully oil went through the roof again so things are back to normal.
No more of that humiliating buisness class for me. Private jet's are the
only way to travel.

connundrum · 02-11-2006 06:12PM

petes wrote:

I've never heard of this food being given out. Did it happen everywhere?

The Intoxicating Liquor Bill, 2000 changed that law...

Section 5 is an important one for night club and disco operators. It changes the law as it applies to special exemptions. These are granted by the District Court and permit the sale of intoxicating liquor on special occasions in licensed premises after normal closing time. The section abolishes the need to provide a meal as a condition of an exemption in the case of a special occasion, which is a dance held in a ballroom licensed under the Public Dance Halls Act, 1935, as well as the requirement that a premises be a hotel or restaurant.

Thrill · 02-11-2006 06:38PM

petes wrote:

I've never heard of this food being given out. Did it happen everywhere?

I dont ever remember getting one down here (cork) stingy b******ds.:mad:

jester77 · 02-11-2006 07:55PM

thrill wrote:

I dont ever remember getting one down here (cork) stingy b******ds.:mad:

They did it in Limerick, although I wouldn't touch it no matter how hungry I was. Used to worked the crew for our Student Union (one of the great sources of free drink in college) in one of the clubs in Limerick, can't remember the name but it was in a hotel on the main street. Used to serve chilli con carne on paper plates out through the cloak room and there was always a limited amount of forks... you'd have the rough heads eating and slurping it with their fingers... was some sight... as were the footpaths outside afterwards!

seamus · 02-11-2006 08:10PM

The food at midnight thing was common everywhere. They didn't have to buy a late licence if they served "a meal" during the night. Fibber's on Parnell Street used to continue serving, but stick up about 20 beef curries on the counter at midnight. That was great

Gandhi · 02-11-2006 08:22PM

thrill wrote:

I dont ever remember getting one down here (cork) stingy b******ds.:mad:

They had them in Cork alright. I remember the bouncers coming around pointing over at some young-fella handing people curry and rice on a paper plate through a hole in the wall, and saying "Curry dinners are ready lads". I presume they were horrible but when you were plastered they tasted like heaven.

Can't remember which nightclub it was, as it was that long ago.

exCrumlinBoyo · 02-11-2006 08:40PM

Great Thread brought back a lot of memories. I have had some poor days and lived on 40 quid a week to feed and entertain myself during the college days. I managed more when I was in college on the little I got than when I got my first Job as a web developer right out of college, I did not know myself on a Monthly Salary, which at the time was a fair amount of money. So I moved out of my parents house into my own place with a few mates as so on. Pay day came paid bills looked at what I would have left and put some money away for food. 1 week into the month I would be broke due to the fact I would be on a bender thinking I was loaded after getting paid. It was a vicious circle I tell you. Get paid, pay bills and lends, feed your self go drinking until the ATM wont give you any money and wait until the end of the month to get paid again. 2 or 3 weeks are a long bleeding time when you don’t have a penny to your name. When I had no money I would live on Corn Beef Sambos. I ate them so much I was ****ting like a constipated cow.. It was messed up. I would eat a lot of cheap sausages and cheap everything.

One particular bad month, it was one week till pay day and for two weeks up to that point I was living of a 20 pound note. I had not a bean to my name. All avenues had been explored, the back of the chair, all my sources for lends were broke also or credit limits had been breached. I had no money to get myself to work, let alone survive for the day. I am sitting on my bed, thinking, what the bleeding hell am I going to do? Something happened, a Devine intervention some may call it. The sun broke the clouds and shone through my bedroom window and light up my wardrobe. I am thinking poxy sun, feck off. As I looked up at the light up wardrobe something brought me closer. I got on my tippy toes looked up towards the back and there was 40 pound looking right at me. I said, fcuk me, I grabbed it, could not believe my eyes and started dancing around the house like a mad man, I was rich I tell you. It was the best bus journey out to City West I had in years, the best breakfast roll and the best pint I had that night and still had some change.

I have done the gone out with a fiver in my pocket thing and got pissed just picking up drinks and knocking them down, some of the best nights I have ever had.

Sh it like that build character I tell you. Now that I am married with a family I am very careful with money a tight fisted fecker me wife calls me, but you have to. Looking back though, it brings a smile to my face..

scojones · 02-11-2006 08:43PM

Ruu wrote:

I had to live on the students specialty dinner/tea aka Pot Noodle for a week when I lived in London before my first paycheck came in.:)

I did that for five years.

rainbow kirby · 03-11-2006 12:15AM

There was a week when work screwed up my pay while my parents were away, and I had €30 in my bank a/c to last a week... thankfully my parents had stocked up the freezers before going away!

Pighead · 03-11-2006 01:45AM

rainbow kirby wrote:

There was a week when work screwed up my pay while my parents were away, and I had €30 in my bank a/c to last a week... thankfully my parents had stocked up the freezers before going away!

30 quid? A freezer full of food? Get the fcuk out of here Lord Kirby of Rainbow Manor. Pigheads talking about poverty here, not extravagance.

Ruu_Old · 03-11-2006 01:50AM

sjones wrote:

I did that for five years.

Ooo impressive strength.

DublinEvents · 11-12-2006 06:42AM

Thank God I've never been without money so far. But the prospect of that is quite terrifying nonetheless.

11-12-2006 07:38AM

Out on my own in a foreign land pinching pennies and saving for my own little place someday.

The Poverty Thread

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