re: What''s the poorest you've been?

Probably the time In 1978 I bounced a $3.50 check paying for a bottle of cheap whiskey.

Internship for a minor league baseball team right after college. I think we made like $25 per game and those were 18 hour days. I had to wash dishes at a local hotel sports bar in order to afford to stay. After it was over, I had about $35 to my name.

I grew up so poor that my daddy would cut holes in our pockets so that we had something to play with on Christmas morning.

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Internship for a minor league baseball team right after college. 

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First two jobs out of college were in minor league sports, and I made under 23k at both of them (mid-2000s). So broke I desperately needed a part time job, but couldn't get one that would work with my 70+ hour week schedule.

During the recession, parked cars during the day, worked at an ice rink at night, and picked up side work from a lady whose grass I cut in high school. Lived in my parents' basement in my mid-20s while the economy slowly turned around, and spent many an afternoon getting a 45-minute nap in my car between my jobs. Worked from 7 am until 1 am most every day, with Saturdays and Sundays only having one job.

Misery, self-hatred, and depression during those days. But it let me be grateful for the life that I have now.

I worked/paid my way through college. Usually worked 3 summer jobs to save spare money to last the schoolyear.
One spring after rent, 6 month car insurance, car payment, and helped my girlfriend fix her car, the bank account was below $10.

Salted rice was the cheapest meal. Macaroni was a close 2nd. Dropping an egg in ramen for protein was a treat.

Luckily, I worked restaurants through the school year... so getting quick cash wasn't too difficult. During school, getting enough to pay the bills for the next few months to get me to summer break was the challenge.

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I was thinking the same thing. It's amusing looking back on it when you decide not to reenlist. You have people who never spent a day in the private sector as an adult try to convince you that you're gonna be poor if you get out of the Army.

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Getting the G.I. Bill and being able to to start college as an engineering major was a major motivator to get out. I was able to have the discipline to finish my engineering degree in under 4 years by going to summers and to learn the material and not simply “memorize” it, in order to get out.

Being an older student in my late twenties at LSU was an interesting experience, to say the least. I was blown away by the excessive whining I saw.

In college. Came back from an internship in Florida with no money or anywhere to live, and parents were dealing with their own shite. Figured it out though.

I graduated high school at 17. Paid a friend $30 and got his ID. I moved to Texas and got a job as a laborer on a shopping dock. I was chasing a dream of being a professional bull rider. Times got real hard. My rent was $250 a month that I shared with another guy. I figured out that a pack of the cheap hotdogs was cheaper than any other meat in a store. I’d ration that pack and eat 1 for breakfast, 2 for lunch and 2 for supper. Did that for 2 months straight. Had almost everything I owned stolen, cake down with strep then pneumonia then broke my leg at a rodeo.

Crawled back to La broken and bruised with not much more than a pair of Umbro shorts, boots and a cowboy hat

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Except for those with savings, health insurance and disability insurance

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I had all of those things. My cobra payments are almost 700 dollars. I went from bringing home 2500 dollars a week to a fraction of that. Our ordeal started last June and we've exhausted savings and are basically financially ruined. Plenty of people have helped us, it also seems when things are at their darkest somebody comes through out of the blue. We're making it and keeping the bills paid but that's it. I'm just happy to be alive right now.