re: College Poverty Stories

I would regularly eat at a BBQ place at lunch for free

and by free, I mean I would walk in, get a glass of water and just grab some white bread from the condiment bar and dip the bread in BBQ sauce

I was poor af in college

-ate like a king when we had time to head to NO to fish with dad/brothers. Only set the kitchen on fire once.

-BBQ sauce sandwiches many days.

-once stole a newspaper machine, and spent all night beating it with a hammer to get enough change out of it to pay for gas to get home to NO.

-drank too much stale beer from “nip mart”. Corner of Nicholson and Jennifer Jean.

-never once walked out on a bar tab though!!!!

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socks for wash cloths.

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Good dust rags.

This was back in the mid 90's, when people still wrote checks. Girlfriend, now wife, and I would each take an entrance side of the Walmart, go in and buy a pack of gum and they would let you write the check for $20 over to get cash back...then we'd swap sides and do it again with a different cashier. We'd leave with $80 and go deposit that in the bank to avoid overdraft fees. Sometimes had to do that every day for a week "floating" those checks until payday.

Also had the hacked H-card for DirecTV back before DirecTV cracked down on it. Got free everything for a couple years.

Rice soup with bouillon cubes.

Mustard and ketchup sandwiches.

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College Poverty Stories

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I worked at a popular restaurant. Good food, beer and parties were never lacking. Some of the best days of my life.

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Sometimes had to do that every day for a week "floating" those checks until payday.

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Thats called check-kiting and is very illegal.

wow, i wonder how that tasted...

Ate every other day for a semester (when I couldn’t find free food). Hit up the Catholic and Baptist student union during exams for free food. Snuck into the dining facility several times. Two hotdogs for a dollar at circle K was a staple.

I was a frugal Mofo but I never understood people that could not afford food. I did all the cheap options too just to afford more beer basically.

Bulk hot dog 40 pack or whatever always in the freezer. Usually used some white bread for a bun, throw whatever condiments I had on there and that is a dang fine meal 2 of them for like 80 cents total.

Home made Hamburger helper type of meals, you could make 4-6 meals with a lb of meat, noodles, and sauce/ seasoning for around $1/ meal.

I rarely ate out outside of dates. That's the real budget killer. Ate at least 19 of 21 meals a week at home. My grocery budget was usually $40/ week before booze. That's $2/ meal. Fairly easy to afford a crappy steak on the weekend with that by eating the cheap meals. That's $200 or less a month.

I found that most people that couldn't afford food ate out A LOT. Most of my roomates did this. They'd eat out a lot early in the month then at the end they were scrounging hard. They'd eat lunch out routinely on campus or whatever which was a good $20-30/ week. If you packed PB&J's or ham sandwiches on crappy white bread you could fairly easily cut your lunch budget by 50%.