Wake up early at 11am sharp to call in sick to your part time job (your start time was 9am) at Burger King. Off to AMPM you go to get your swisher sweet and scratch off tickets you paid for with change found around your apartment. Then a short trip to Money Tree to get a 353% interest rate payday loan you will use to make your 32% interest car payment inside the trailer of the shitty car lot you got cocksuckered at. Afterwards you leave the world class car dealership, you head on over to the nearest pawn store to sell the Apple Watch your girlfriend gave you for $30 so you can put $10 worth of fuel in your tank and get a few cans of 4Loko at AMPM. After a long day of “hustling” you decide to wind down at home and play some 2K on your newly acquired PS5 and get “faded”. As you pull into the parking lot of your run-down apartment complex you head for the door of your apartment just to find out Rent a Center kicked your door in to repo your couch and PS5 while you were gone and then you see the Aarons rent to own van pull in to tactically acquire your TV you haven’t paid on in months. Only this time there isn’t a door to hide behind.

I constantly have ppl asking me how I need help lol or why don't I get more help miss.maam there is none. Food banks are over run and half empty. St Vincent is once every two months! I'm not begging my kids school that I'd not a good idea. Food banks r not open on weekends or daily. Only twice a week it's usually expired food. Nowhere near enough st all I work two jobs. I'm off work with a broken wrist I had surgery . My twin autistic boys are my only joy. I'm sick of people stating the obvious like yes Karen I obviously have applied to what I can. It just blows my mind how easy sheltered pplthink it is. My husband died four years ago we lost everything. Just sick and tired of ppl being cold.

I had gone to the food bank and when I got home, I noticed some of the perishable meats they had given me were over a week expired and looked slimy. I vented about this in another social media outlet and some woman responded to me "beggars can't be choosers" and basically told me it was my own fault for being so poor I have to resort to using the food bank. I told her "me getting sick w food poisoning is only going to make my bad situation worse" and she said "starve then".

I just can't fathom how cruel ppl are to the poor and those down on luck. I got temporarily laid off from my job and unemployment is taking forever, luckily I return to work this Monday but it'll take a couple weeks to get paid again and I work as a job coach part time but it's not enough money . I applied for food stamps and it's a waiting game now. I have an adolescent daughter and am a woman.

Ppl are so mean

Getting food poisoning would NOT help me especially since I'm supposed to go back to my regular job tomorrow. And I've had food poisoning it's not fun. I'm not risking salmonella or ecoli or staph or anything ever again and I'm already underweight .

I hate how ppl really expect ppl to eat rotting food if we're poor

So my roommate owes me a hundred dollars I told him get it to me when he could, 2weeks ago. My tire is fucked up and needed to fix it over the weekend to get to work on Monday. He knew about this Friday. He gets a check in the mail Saturday. Does all kinds of shit for his girlfriend and her mom and runs around all Sunday. I could fix my tire and get to work for like 65 bucks. He refused to go to Walmart over the 5 dollar charge I’d pay when my bank opens monday. I was paid by my new employer with a hand written check and it needed to clear. All while saying he’s just as broke all weekend. Checks been on the counter.

First of all, thanks for being here, I just found this sub, and I feel all of your stories in my soul.

My current and most pressing issue is a car repair. I bought a cheap car that I knew needed some repairs, becausecmy old one broke and I didn't want more debt, with the stimulus money I could do this. I budgeted for additional repairs.

Well it turns out I fucked it up again, a combo of needing some of my repair budget for other needs and additional undisclosed issues with the car, I am not ready for more costs. But I have them.

I just found out the repairs (that he already completed) are going to cost me 60 hours of work (before taxes) to pay for. 60 hours! That's a week and a half of my life spent paying for car repairs! Needless to say, I do not have 3/4's of a paycheck laying around. I have applied for a second job and asked a friend of he has any side jobs I can do......I'll probably try to fit in a little sex work if I can, christmas is coming, it just never ends.

Thank you for reading.

The lady at Starbucks was upset that I payed with cash. My account is negative and I wanted a latte to cheer me up at work. It’s truly my fault and I realized how dirty money is with germs. I did leave them my change so they wouldn’t have to touch my poor hand.

They stick their machines to scan your smart phone- I can’t afford to be a Gold member. I’m shocked I even have a smart phone at this point. If you say I don’t have the app they’ll pull out the card and ask to tap it or insert.

Yesterday was awful. My manager at my new job was micromanaging me so much yesterday. It’s a minimum wage job, understaffed, they have weird rules, always get out 30+ minutes past when our shifts were supposed to end. Like one of the managers there loves to stay on people. Other people I know had these issues there. Like she told me to make some ranch but I have missed heard her and heard her say make some bread but I don’t know the kitchen is kind of loud and stuff so I missed heard her and I dropped some bread to get toasted. keep in mind it is like my not even second week on this job. With all the equipment back there running and stuff it’s hard for me to make out what they’re saying sometimes. Like this manager literally took two more employees into the cooler just to talk about what I did and it’s just like damn I only dropped one bun to get toasted. And whenever I would step over there or something like whenever I put some in the microwave to take a few sips of my drink she’s like you got to stay moving or something like that and it’s just like We are so packed can I at least get a few sips of coffee. I talked to one of my other friends about it and asked if it was like this for them and he said it’s basically one of those if you have time to lean you have time to clean places. I work part time there locally because I genuinely do not think I could stay in to work full-time there. I get free food from there and the food is good in the hours that it is open are good but I really do not like being micromanaged so much. Plus this manager tends to be a bit slow getting food out anyways so I was like wow worry about that. One of the big reasons I am working there is because of the free food. Despite it being a minimum wage job they do have good food there and I do get free food like after I clock out since I work first shift I can eat food for free after I clock out. Plus I think they pay weekly. I am staying with my mom right now when I’m out of college semester but I really do need to keep this job. I just got it so my first paycheck will be at the end of this week but I really need to keep it because it’s my first job (circumstances). Also last week because we have no money until late today when the check came in for my mom like I was working closing shift and I was bringing home a bunch of food and that’s probably what got us through that week because my mom did not have grocery money and we hardly had any food. So I guess I’m gonna put up with it because the free food help save my mom grocery money in last week when I was working closing shift the leftovers I was in home with those leftovers actually fed me, my sister, and mom for a few days. Like that’s honestly a big part of why I got a job there. Plus I live in a small town where there’s not a lot of employment options and we not having had a job previously it made it harder to even get a minimum wage job because there’s not that many employment options here or even minimum-wage jobs.Especially if it is your first job. A big part of why I was able to get this job is because my dad went to school with the owner of the place and he called up there and got me an interview with her the same day.

I don’t care. Honest I won’t lose sleep but I need to vent...obvious judgement...it creates a thicker callus of discomfort and regret for interacting with the world again.

I know it seems like a controversial idea to spend “free” money on a limited number of foods but this is what works for me.

I could explain that this is the closest location to my home and I don’t own a car... I could explain that my time is very limited between multiple jobs.... I could explain that I truly believe eating well helps my health... I don’t because I get it; they don’t get it.

Thanks for listening. Why can’t food stamps be used for online ordering (grocery shopping is a big time and money suck IRL!)??

The first day of school I was in I think my English class. The teacher asked what destinations we went to over the summer. I have never been out of the country and only ever out of the state to see family. So I decided to say I had visited narnia. My teacher didn't like that response and my mom was called. Other people were talking about Thailand and Mexico and stuff. I only stayed there 3 weeks before my mom had to pull us out so she could get surgery that November, that was postponed to the next year.

"We’ve seen this supposedly hilarious stories for years on our social media feeds and wacky listicle. Florida-themed crime stories, we are told, are uniquely bizarre and worthy of derision. But what are we really mocking when we mock 'Florida Man'?"

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https://soundcloud.com/citationsneeded/episode-75-florida-man

I'm currently a graduate student at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and working on my research project dealing with lunch shaming. This is a term given to students that are given an alternative lunch (such as a cheese sandwich), no lunch at all, or even stamps that say "I need lunch money" - all because a student owes a certain amount to the school. I'm looking for people to interview as part of my project to show the impact of this practice. While lunch shaming was done away with in my state, Illinois, it is still happening in other places. My goal is to shed light on this and hopefully bring an end to it. I'm looking for students over the age of 18 to interview and no identifying information will be used in my report. Any help would be appreciated!

Think about it! I am homeless. I live in my car with my wife after being accused of a serious crime that I did not commit. While I await my jury trial; employers turn me away and most friends pretend we don’t know each other.

During my 6 months of homelessness I have learned to save, scrap, reuse items and recycle anything that can still be useful. I know that I should never buy bottled water because I can get filtered water for free at most restaurants. Drive through McDonald’s and ask for a water. They’ll let you skip paying customers at the drive-up’s pay window to hand off that sparkling life-juice. Jack-in-the-Box; not so much. The people at Jack-in-the-crack denied me water after I refused paying $1.19 for something they poured up for two pennies. Oh, don’t forget about ketchup and sauce packets. Condiments are free for me. I grab a handful and use what I need. The rest of my condiment haul goes into my “kitchen-bag.” It’s just a bag that I store all my grocery items in. I have a bag for bathroom goodies and toiletries, one for pharmaceuticals, a computer bag for my computer (duh) and paperwork. I have two bags for clothing and another for tools and miscellaneous items. I’ve learned how to use only what I need and have sharpened my abilities to remain sustainable even when I have nothing to sustain.

If the filthy, dirty rich people who squander our children’s and future generation’s resources has the first hand knowledge and life-experiences that myself and thousands of others have faced, then there would be no homeless. There would be no poverty and hunger would be something from the past we only read about, like slavery or sea-monsters!

Watch me squeeze the last drop out of life like I do my tube of toothpaste and you’ll realize the wasteful ways of the rich and understand that society’s enemy is a common enemy of our Mother Earth. Wasteful, greedy rich people.

(Not all rich people are bad. Just the poor-shaming losers who wouldn’t be able to hack it living like me, and waste resources that an army wouldn’t exhaust)

Calling you rich bitches out! You’ve been in control so far, and looking around, I see you irresponsible bitches have only fucked our planet up, creating humanitarian crisis after humanitarian crisis along the way!

Campaign against the wasteful-wealthy starts now!

Hello,

I am seeking information from individuals who have dealt with poverty and hunger directly and indirectly (friends, family members affected). I am also seeking input from individuals who are apart of organizations or charities that help those who are impoverished.

Questions I have:

How would u describe efforts that have been implemented by your government in addressing poverty?

What do you think is the root cause of the poverty you've experienced or witnessed?

Do you believe that poverty can be eradicated through government intervention? If so, why? If not, why?

These questions are just an opener to a, hopefully, more engaging and informative discourse. Thank you