How I Felt Very Poor (And Still Survived)
Our readers, at the request of Booknik, share stories about how they coped with financially difficult times, be it an economic crisis or personal financial circumstances. We are always extremely grateful to those who share their personal stories for our oral history project.
But today we are especially grateful to everyone who spoke to us - because this is a difficult topic, and because these are difficult times, and also because we were so supported by your experience, your strength and your frankness. Thank you.
***
In 1998, my ex-husband and I were both working two jobs. And at all these four jobs our wages were delayed. For 3–6 months. At some point, we finally had no money left, well, finally. And it was awkward to borrow from someone, because no one around seemed to have them either. We ate up our last supplies, even learned how to handle beans because we found a bag in the closet)). And then prices jumped terribly. And I knew one shop where sugar was cheaper than everywhere else, almost twice as expensive. I don't remember the exact amounts. Well, let's say it cost 12 rubles everywhere. per kilo, but for some reason it’s 6. I had a cold, I wanted tea with sugar, and we scraped together 15 rubles. I explained to my ex in detail where this cheap sugar was sold, the task was to buy a kilo of sugar and something else. But he mixed everything up and bought sugar in another store, leaving every penny for it. And we had a terrible fight, I even cried. And then we, having caught our breath, laughed just as horribly over this quarrel.
We quarreled over sugar, damn it! Because of a kilo of sugar!)) Then a lot of things happened, but for some reason I remembered this sugar well.
Tanya Ilyukhina
***
Early nineties. Growing organism. Meat? Fish? No, we haven't heard. And for some reason there were no stocks of cereals, etc., as there was in Soviet families. And almost every day - pasta of a cadaverous bluish color. How my mother tried to diversify the meal. Either he will fry the horns with onions, or he will cook them. It was chic if the pasta was accompanied by green canned tomatoes (so disgusting, they were sold in three-liter jars) or sprat in tomato sauce.
Ksenia Green
***
In the mid-90s I lived alone in a private apartment. I fried flatbreads a couple of times using flour, water and salt. Then I ran out of sunflower oil, so I made dumplings from flour, water and salt. The disgusting thing was rare, you can’t eat much. That's why she was slim. When the owner arrived, she ran all over the city to borrow money and give it to her. I remember how she and I brewed one “Anakom” (1) × (1) Russian-made instant noodles, similar to Doshirak in half when she spent the night with me (that is, with herself). The city was small, and there was no need to use public transport. Very convenient, because often there was no money at all.
Tatiana Litvinova
***
In my first year, I found pennies somewhere and asked to weigh 30–50 grams of cookies.
Olga Moskvitina
***
The fun 90s were during the student years. Very convenient: students are always hungry anyway. With the scholarship you buy a bagel with poppy seeds (for the holiday), a bottle of mustard oil (for some reason it was cheaper than sunflower oil), a kilogram of rice and a travel card. And that’s it, the scholarship ended. It was then that a classmate taught me to eat wheat grains fried with salt. Half a glass - and you're full. Tasty like sunflower seeds!
Lisa Zykova
***
Haven't heard of meat and fish. The closest substitute for holidays was beef liver. Since then I haven't been able to eat it. And also the ubiquitous sorrel soup, collected in the summer. Happiness came in the spring, when instead of sorrel soup, young nettle soup appeared on the table!
***
Kefir with bread. About a month and a half somewhere.
Natalia Yusupova
***
In 1998 we had two children: 8 years old and 2 years old. We bought them ONE apple once a week (on weekends!) and divided it in half. My husband got apple skins. For me - seeds.
Dina Utikeeva
***
A bag of buckwheat with bugs from a grandmother from the village and small potatoes, the size of a fingernail, which were not even allowed for starch - fried in their skins, because there was nothing to peel. Then I didn’t want to eat buckwheat for 10 years.
***
I went to Krasnaya Polyana, the money was lost during the transfer, and I lived on buckwheat and kefir for three weeks. There was no money for watermelon, but it was on almost every counter along with persimmons, tangerines, and figs. Then I tasted the most delicious apple of my life, picked from my friend’s garden; and then there was sweet, sweet wine. But it seems to me that poverty is something else.
Olesya Altynbaeva
***
I went to eat with my friends whose parents were richer. I fainted with hunger when my colleagues brewed Doshirak; I still hate it. We had lunch like this: we went to the kiosk to look at the chocolates, and then we ate.
Irina Krendel Gerasimchuk
***
In the early nineties, we had money, but no food. I still hate halva in jars - they sprinkled it on the porridge instead of sugar. And in my student years I asked to weigh three potatoes, a kind uncle gave them to me like this. Well, I’ve been on oatmeal for a couple of months, because I spent all the money on the curriculum.
Marina Semenikhina
***
After school I came to a friend's house for lunch. Her parents, theater actors in the Far Eastern municipal theater, placed a tureen on the table. Bouillon cube in water and an egg crumbled into it. They were always seated at the table. They served and ate slowly. For tea, we sometimes had Snickers at home - from the freezer, so that it could be easily cut into five pieces. And on March 8th, a cool gift - tights that don’t wrinkle on the knees, nylon.
***
Being very poor was a lot of fun. In the 90s, at one time we ate potatoes, beets - and that’s it. And then my brother was given a salary in Nestlé cereals. How delicious it was!
Olga Morozova
***
98th is almost good, this is already the 4th year and a scholarship, and even salaries for parents. But 92–93 was a disaster, because I went to school, my parents worked at the same factory and they didn’t pay me wages for six months. I thought that we had poverty, grief and complete murder, soup for three days and potatoes from the garden. And then after class I went to see my classmate, we had to do something together, and I saw that she and her grandmother lived on the same peas - porridge made from peas and bread from ground peas. And I realized that we were still doing pretty well, in general...
Tatiana Bronnikova
***
In the mid-2000s, when everyone was already in their fat years, we had one tiny salary between us for several months. And I bought all sorts of things for sauerkraut cabbage soup; I knew how to cook them well. I put it on low heat, it was cooked, and I had to leave it until tomorrow. I don’t know how, but we didn’t turn off the fire at night. They closed the door to the kitchen and went to bed. And in the morning - a burnt pan, everything is ruined. I still remember how I cried - both from fear that it could end in a fire, but more from the fact that these cabbage soup - they would have been enough for us for three days for sure, good, tasty food. But buying potatoes, cabbage, even a small piece of meat again was expensive. I never want to cry over soup again. But it will have to, apparently.
Tatiana Wujkowska
***
In 1993, stipends stopped being paid and salaries were also delayed. There was almost nothing left at home, they made bean soup - a glass of humanitarian beans, one onion and one potato. They cooked it on Sunday, ate one plate at a time in the evening, added one plate of boiling water, and stretched it out for five days. Bread in the morning, soup in the evening - that's all. And I decided to steal bread and a carton of milk from the store. I came there and tried on whether it would fit into my jacket pocket or not. Everything fit, but I just couldn’t, I couldn’t get over myself. She left and that was it. And then they somehow managed to get out, I don’t remember, whether they paid the salary somehow, or something else. Then it was also difficult and without money, but not like this.
***
We went to Poland as exchange students. A year before this, the Poles were vacationing with us, in Odessa, and we collected some money for their food and pocket expenses. They did the same thing, but by the time we arrived, the money they had collected as a result of inflation had turned... into pure nonsense. Mrs. Danuta, who received us, brought us all her dishes. Our room (my friend and I) got a kettle. I had five cans of stew, a friend had buckwheat porridge in bags. For the day I got half a can of stew and a pack of buckwheat, boiled in a kettle. It was difficult to eat, the steam hit my face. At the same time, we traveled all over Poland, conducting some experiments in the laboratory. In Pszczyna Park, all the blackberry bushes were eaten. The Korean among us began to look unkindly at the dogs. In Częstochowa, two girls found a piece of paper worth several zlotys on the street and bought themselves one hot dog for two. We were drooling and envious.
***
Oddly enough, never. In 1998 there was a very acute feeling that we were living worse than what was expected - we were eating every day.
Evgenia Rits
***
I grew up in a Russian village in the 1960s and never felt poorer than then. In first grade, the teacher told me to buy an October badge, but I didn’t have one...
***
The same 90s. I was reading a fairy tale about a mouse to my little daughter, and she asked: “Mom, what is cheese?”
Ilona Myers
***
On August 10, 1998, I, very proud and independent, ran away from my husband and rented the first room in my life on the Griboyedov Canal. It was a successful decision, nothing to say. A couple of months later I had to move into a communal apartment on 12th Krasnoarmeiskaya - without a bath, with the eternal smell of sauerkraut. The salary was 960 rubles, 450 of which I paid for the room, the rest somehow dragged on. That works out to 17 rubles a day. One carrot salad then, I remember, cost 13 rubles in the cheapest canteen of the Technological Institute. Chinese plastic noodles with flavored oil in a bag - a ruble and a half. And three-in-one instant coffee bags for one and a half rubles. I lived like that for about six months.
Asya Anistratenko
***
At the beginning of the nineties I was a student at KPI. The parents' $15 plus stipend was enough for a week. Otherwise, what saved us were long trips on a crowded train to the village to see our grandmother; this fed our entire dorm room plus guests. Each food parcel or “transfer” to one of us was a great celebration of the belly, everyone we knew came hungry. The rest of the time on our table there was buckwheat with fried onions, rarely sausages, and the same green tomatoes and seaweed - the only thing that was on the shelves of the nearest grocery store. I remember how I discovered weevils in the buckwheat that I was about to cook. It seems that we finally prepared it, but only those who did not know about the “additive” could eat it. In the dormitory they began to steal food from pots and pans prepared in the common kitchens, and they stopped leaving pots unattended. I remember how my friend and I had a dinner of four sausages eaten by a kind guest. And then we settled into a kiosk and started skipping half of the lectures, but finally ate our fill of Snickers...
Liliya Zakharchenko
***
Paradoxical as it may seem - the end of the two thousandths, normal, to put it mildly, earnings, Moscow. When you spend the entire fall and early winter wearing sneakers because they don’t seem to be deathly cold, but you simply don’t have enough money to buy boots, you don’t have that kind of money. When change in glass vases is very helpful for a significant part of the month, ruble and penny coins were taken out of pockets and wallets at the beginning of the month so as not to jingle. Bread, potatoes, cereals, “that’s all,” these coins really save. When you become a professional of the highest class in preparing large quantities of food for pennies - soups from chicken spines (two spines per soup, after the chicken is ready, the skeletons are cooled and the smallest pieces of meat are carefully removed from them with your fingers), soups with meatballs (from a kilogram of minced meat you can cook five pans 7 liters each), canned fish soup, countless vegetable stews and carrot cutlets. Spices save the day - a properly selected bouquet of seasonings makes any dish a masterpiece; spices are cheap, and you need to add a lot of them. When a child begins a request with the words “It’s a pity that we can’t buy (go, see, go).”
Then I very well felt the meaning of the phrase “I will never go hungry again” that passed by in my youthful reading of Gone with the Wind. It became simply necessary to compensate for that period of helplessness and actual poverty, the absolute absence of one’s permanent things. Now all the furniture and appliances belong to me, they are what I need, and there are no “What if I move in a month?” The rented apartment has air conditioning because it is a comfort, and I will no longer save on it. The only reason the refrigerator is empty is because I'm too busy to buy groceries. We live in a large, excellent apartment, because it is nice and comfortable, the walls are painted in the colors that we like. But I still get panic attacks whenever there is a hint of any, even partial, return to such a situation. I know that I will survive. But I don't want to SURVIVE anymore.
Elena Pepel
***
When I was 10 years old, I really wanted a Cindy doll because she was featured in commercials between DuckTales and Chip 'n' Dale. It was 1991. They couldn't buy me a Cindy doll, so my dad found out which of his friends had this type of doll and asked him to give it to me to play with. So simple plastic Chinese dolls passed through my hands, and a dazzling tanned Barbie with an extensive wardrobe, next to which Cindy from the advertisement seemed rubbery, and a solid American Ken in a three-piece mother-of-pearl suit, who could be stuck in the refrigerator, and he turned from blond brown-haired, and another breathtaking girl, curly-haired, with the most elegant shoes, the straps are like threads.
“We take them for a while, because we are poor,” said dad.
And then I realized that the rich have one doll, which in two weeks will get boring, but I always have new ones, or even two at the same time, all with their own history, and I call them what I want, and I sewed a velvet dress , but if I damage the Slegonets, dad won’t buy them a new one, there’s no money, we’re poor. Nothing to lose. And then it really seemed to me that being poor was absolutely fucking awesome.
***
I am a bourgeois, I had my own, separate boots in the 90s. True, they had seen many species by that time. When the time for one of the boots had already come, and the warmth and money were still on the way, I wrapped the foot in a plastic bag and stuck it in the boot. Well, in general, it didn’t leak. But it rustled and stuck out treacherously, of course. And so I showed up like this for cool negotiations (as a cool editor-in-chief of a cool specialized magazine) and brazenly began to extract a cool advertising budget for the year from cool advertisers. Well, everything is as it should be. Sharp gaze, gestures, intelligent appearance. Terms. Arguments. I sat cross-legged throughout the meeting. The man who was talking to me did not take his eyes off my marvelous legs. I only realized why on the subway - he was looking at the hole in my boot. And the plastic bag that was sticking out of it. By the way, he gave me money. Compassionate.
Marina Stepnova
***
When I was a first-year student in 1999, my family barely had enough money for food, and there was no point in even thinking about buying clothes. I wore some old clothes, altered from my mother’s dresses, and in winter the only outerwear I had at my disposal was an ugly brown faux leather jacket. The jacket was worn out and tattered to the point of disgrace, and I was terribly ashamed of it in front of my classmates, and I was ashamed to even put it in the wardrobe. Therefore, I entered the university building through the neighboring building, so as not to meet friends along the way, I put my jacket in a bag and carried it with me all day, and after classes I went to the library so that I did not have to go out with everyone else.
***
In Sevastopol, in the bright times of the school 90s. Mom didn’t work for health reasons, she was assigned disability, certificates-you-were-there-didn’t-stand-there-for-another-signature and that’s it, benefits weren’t paid for several months. As well as a pension for my mother’s older sister. Dad's ship was arrested somewhere in America, and he was fed for several months by Baptist parishioners. Mom and Aunt collected the leftovers from the state farm vineyards, the soup made from grape leaves had a slightly mushroom taste, and it was completely impossible to eat plantain cutlets. Well, before graduation there was a trip of five people, one dog, four bottles of vodka, two loaves of bread and a pack of condoms. The bread ran out first. Two couples took turns occupying the tent, and the single couples, me and the dog, bought bread from the fishermen on the lake in the rain. It was hopelessness to the third degree.
***
I remember when I was a child, I was given a piece of salty dry cheese, 5x5 cm, I slowly ate it for almost a week, imagining myself as a mouse.
Olga Moskvitina
***
It was in the 1980s, I worked and studied at the institute in the evening. I received a salary, 150 rubles: 45 in advance, the rest in salary. I still lived in the family of my grandparents, we all lived on one grandfather’s salary, 300 rubles, I didn’t give anything from my salary to the farm, it was probably unconscionable, but that’s how everyone decided by default that I was young and I need it, I have needs... I never had any special needs, I was accustomed to the priority of the spiritual over the material since childhood, I was also accustomed to poverty, and I didn’t have time to spend money: full time, studying in the evenings, on weekends - I write tests and term papers in the library... And there was nothing in the stores. I saved up for a year for a tour package: 150 rubles for the trip and 100 with me - and went to the neighboring republics: Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia... But then one day I saw some kind of sweater in the store, and I really wanted to buy it, and I I couldn't. And I remember walking along Peschanaya Street and crying. And then I thought and said to myself: most likely, you will always be poor. So you have a choice: either always suffer about this, or stop right now. And I stopped.
Irina Lugovaya
***
In the early 90s, I stood in line for five hours in the cold to buy fish for my cat.
Andrey Ignatov
***
And I remember a performance at the Palace of Pioneers in 1994, where I played some kind of medieval lady. They gave me a tall hairstyle with long hair. The hairstyle was held on by beer and hairspray - there were no hairpins. With this pyramid on my head, I returned home and discovered that there was no light or hot water. And I sat in the bathroom by the light of the kerosene stove and, with tears in my eyes, soaked my hair, petrified from hairspray, with cold water.
Victoria Kholmanova
***
Also about the early 90s. I somehow don’t want to write about myself; there were no children then, thank God. But the cat even became bald in some places due to the lack of fish. All Moscow and Moscow region relatives and acquaintances gave us fish for the cat if they could buy it. By the way, he died in 2000, three months before he turned 21.
Anastasia Yakovleva
***
In the late 90s, three of us and some friends went “out” to buy a jar of change.
My husband didn’t like change, and he poured it out of his pockets into this jar every day (I told my daughter that, she now uses it too). So, with an 800-gram jar of various-sized change (without 10-ruble coins), the three of us drove to New Jerusalem and ate our fill of pies there. It was a good day.
***
In '98, I fed a family of 4 people for a week on one turkey drumstick. She peeled the meat and made a lot of pilaf, and from the bone she made a pot of soup. And then I learned to feed my child one chicken for a week. From the breast - 8 chops (two pieces per day) and legs in half - another 4 days. And from the back with bones - soup. I only got these parts myself. As a result, when I went to a psychologist a few years later, when asked what you want most, I, without thinking, blurted out - fried chicken! And now, when I really want to eat, and the house is empty, I buy grilled chicken and, shaking with greed, begin to eat it. And I can’t finish it right away. What remains is the unloved white meat... How terribly I don’t want to return to this darkness again.
Elena Prudovskaya
***
There were no problems with food - I dined in the institute canteen for coupons, I sewed clothes myself from everything that came to hand, but there was a problem with shoes. In January 1989, my winter boots tore - I went to classes at the institute in sneakers with two woolen socks, then with a scholarship I bought Vibram-type sports boots for 7.50, in a sports school on Sokolinka. The most painful impression of those times was a fight in a supermarket over bones and scraps of meat, September 1989. Then it became easier, because a friend, leaving for the USA for permanent residence, gave me a sewing machine, there was no longer a need to go to a rental shop, and orders for tailoring began, and money appeared not only for food, but also for vacation trips. Well, 98th - my son is one year old, in our two-room apartment we have my husband and child, and my mother and grandmother. One husband works for a day or two at a factory, and also works part-time for businessmen. There is enough money, but it’s tight. It's time for me to return from maternity leave, but my work is silent. The month is silent. Two is silent. And there are no orders for sewing - people have nothing to pay with. There was horror here, yes. I pushed around for a couple of months doing extra work, and at the end of October I was called back to my office.
***
I walked to Sennaya to buy cheap groceries. And she lived on three glazed cheese curds a day - there they were three for 10 rubles, and in other places a piece cost 4 rubles. And she took laundry from her parents to her place to wash in a washing machine (they didn’t have one, laundries were stolen and became more expensive). I walked from the Frunzensky department store to the Baltic station - taking the train to my parents was cheaper than taking the metro and bus. We had to get up early because there was a break in the trains during the day, and we had to catch the last one before the break. I carried 5 kg of laundry back and forth, and from there also food - they were cheaper in Ligovo than in the center where I lived.
Elena Prudovskaya
***
Two weeks a month I smoked cigarettes without a filter, and the rest of the time - with a filter, because I was just shooting. I walked to the university for the last 3-4 stops and shot at everyone I met. The last one was shot on the porch. One lady once said to me: “First of all, assistant professors don’t shoot cigarettes...” I still think, but why? How is this blind horse in the mine of enlightenment different from the rest of humanity?
***
In the early 90s, I kept saying: “When we get rich, we will then do this, then we will do that...” And I suspected something was wrong when my son asked: “Mom, when we get rich, will you give me thirty kopecks for a bun?”
Eugenia Kanishcheva
***
My daughter told me: “We’re not rich, right, dad? But not poor either! Not the poorest!” If you knew how she supported me with this innocent childish truth!
Alyosha Prokopyev
***
93–94, it seems, mom and dad are state employees, my sister and I are in elementary and high school. Standard food is boiled potatoes with mayonnaise. In the room there is a large flask of hand-bought molasses (white, unbearably sweet slurry, 15 liters!) - for a cheap, sticky loaf, a bite to eat with fake tea - oh :)). Good luck was to buy products given to someone in lieu of wages or written off from stores. I remember “Pikantny” cheese (the smell of week-old soldiers’ socks), at first we ate it while holding our nose, then it was even a pity that it was over. Frequent: there is no money, and there is no one to re-borrow from. I really remember how dad, coming home from work for 24 hours, without looking at any of us, eats a waffle cake layer for dinner (remember, they sold these - they tasted like paper, they had to be coated in layers), because there was nothing else in the house. I remember a cat, always hungry, brought home a snake skin (from where in the center of a large city?!) and was gnawing furiously in the hallway. Back then, no one celebrated birthdays; it was incredible luck to get to the wake and then discuss for another week: “Do you remember the pies? What about goulash?!”
Alexandra Davydova
***
I didn’t go to physical education because I didn’t have a uniform, I didn’t go to school balls in old grandma’s shoes from the 50s (but they had heels), and a bicycle never happened to me.
Alexandra Davydova
***
It was after the war in a distant village. I was about six, and my brother was about two years old. We were sick, apparently, with measles. I remember lying on the mats, very thirsty. There was no food or water at home, and neither were any adults. My brother and I found half a bucket of slop and drank it all with all its contents. I don’t remember how much I was sick, but I just wanted to eat all the time. Survived no matter what.
Tamara Kim
***
Early 90s, I’m 13 years old, my mother and I are on Sakhalin. We had everything from navaga - fried navaga, cutlets from navaga, salad with navaga, soup with navaga, sandwiches with navaga, perhaps the compote was also made from navaga, I don’t remember:))). One day my mother left and asked me to cook caviar if the fishermen would bring “royal” for a bottle of alcohol. They brought me a bucket, and I filled it with boiling brine, and the caviar was cooked. I had cooked it before, but then, apparently, my mind was clouded by the navaga. Out of fear, I fed this entire bucket to my Doberman-Rottweiler cross. She choked, but ate. She was used to navaga and other things - she saw meat for the first time on the mainland when she was three years old. At first I didn’t understand that you could eat it.
Elena Kruglova
***
In the early nineties, I had already been working at a university for five years, then I didn’t always have money for bus passes, and I walked with some kind of nylon school backpack, bought in Italy for pennies. Oh, yes, I also bought a three-room apartment then. I had to borrow money and it took quite a long time to pay it off. The apartment cost two thousand two hundred and fifty American dollars. All the facts presented in this paragraph are completely true, but I can’t draw the moral, I don’t know.
Roman Leibov
***
1981 Let's go to sketches along the Golden Ring, the trip is already ending. September, Pereyaslavl. There is no food in the city. My friend and I walk into the dining room, see pale green “hedgehogs” with bluish rice in a slimy liquid, silently look at each other, turn around and leave. In one of the ruined monasteries with huge holes in the walls we find someone’s plot with young potatoes. We dig up a handful. We collect strong boletus mushrooms on the way to Peter's little boat. We buy natural milk from grandma. In the hostel we simmer it all in a frying pan and... The question is, why, well, why did you add pinkish butter at 3.20 from the local general store? I don’t remember such a bummer with food. They picked it out, shedding tears. It tasted like machine oil. Then they explained to us that buses with foreign tourists stop in Pereslavl for only a short time, and Moscow is close, so they don’t bring food there. But in Yaroslavl, if anything happens, the factories stop. They're on strike! And then they bring sausage to the city...
Anna Gnedovskaya
***
Rome, they just introduced the euro instead of the lira and prices soared two and a half to four times for everything at once. But salaries and scholarships remained the same, according to the state. exchange rate. The first year of university, the whole group is not exactly starving, but somehow it’s very hard for everyone, really hard, because almost 90% of the group are either priests who were sent to study by their own monasteries and communities, or future art historians from Spain, Hungary or even further, roughly speaking, all from very poor families. And I don’t remember who came up with it, but sometimes after lectures we would put on stupid shorts and Hawaiian shirts, hang cameras around our necks and, pretending to be a group of tourists, go to some expensive hotel for a free brunch for guests (there were no magnetic cameras then). keys, strict control, and it seems that only we used this life hack). We were lucky - brunches were becoming fashionable, and there were many hotels. Then somehow they started raising salaries, everything gradually got better, but I still have a scene before my eyes: a quiet boy from a small church parish near Bologna froze over a huge dish of snacks. I have never seen anything stronger than this scene of temptation.
P.S. I also remember 1991, but I don’t even want to remember it out loud.
***
She worked in the city council as a low-ranking official. She worked like hell, organizing municipal concerts on the square with the participation of municipal groups. Every Sunday I spent late at work - first at concert venues, then in the city council building, closing the day. One day I took my five-year-old son with me. During a break, we went with him to a cafe, and he ordered a piece of cake. I paid for everything, but only had money left for the trip home; I didn’t even order coffee for myself. And at night, leading the little one by the hand along the dark corridor of an old large building, realizing that tomorrow, Monday, you need to be here by 9:00, but in these few hours you have time to put this little one to bed, and then take him to kindergarten... I felt like lonely and insignificant. And very, very poor.
But the worst thing happened a year later when working at the Palace of Culture: there they gave me a meager salary with a delay of one and a half months. And our human colleagues were seriously thinking about what to buy today - milk or a bun. By that time, I had become much more cunning and decided not to experience all the horror of working in municipal cultural institutions on myself and my child. She escaped from there.
Tetyana Tarasova Bila
***
Mid-90s, Minsk, my sister and I are students, there is no work, scholarships are enough for a week, potatoes from my grandmother and sauerkraut save us. One friend, while crossing a green light, was hit by a car that did not stop immediately, without injuries, even without falling, for example, her jacket was a little dirty (it was November or something like that). And the driver gave her 50 dollars. 50 dollars! (The scholarship was five dollars, well, maybe seven). And we jokingly (but somewhere in the depths of our souls - seriously), discussed at which intersection it is better to “get hit” by a car in order to improve our financial situation...
***
In the 90s, we had milk twice a year on major holidays. Now for me, having milk on the table is such a comforting symbol of non-poverty. Although I can’t digest it, I’m intolerant.
Olga Moskvitina
***
When I was little, my parents didn’t have money for books, so my mother would negotiate with a book stall, and I would go there, sit on the side of the stall and read as much as I could fit.
***
My mother raised me, working two or three jobs just to at least buy me winter boots. A vegetable garden, sugar and butter only from my payday, clothes were sewn and knitted (since then, purchased clothes have been a symbol of prosperity for me), 20 kg of meat in winter were brought from my mother’s parents from the Kirov region, and in general everything they gave.
***
We simply dug potatoes and picked mushrooms near Aleksandrov. At the same time, in the apartments there was a TV for the room (Rubin plant), also with some homemade remote controls long before such appeared in stores.
***
One bouillon cube could be used to cook the dumplings several times. We also fried a flatbread from flour and water in vegetable oil and sprinkled with sugar. One time I realized that I wanted bread urgently and bought a loaf, and my roommate scolded me for not buying peas; peas would have been more practical. It was very disappointing. Shooting cigarettes from women was practically useless. Men who smoked something simpler were much more willing to give cigarettes than those who smoked Rothmans. When I shot something without a filter, they touchingly asked me: “Girl, do you smoke that?” - and I didn’t say that there were moneyless boys waiting at home who smoke everything. The pipe was also very useful; you could pour tobacco from cigarette butts into it.
***
Being poor in Copenhagen is quite easy. When I was a poor student, I went to dinner with friends two or three times a week. And then I discovered dumpster diving and still actively use it (I haven’t become rich yet in any case). It turned out that clothes, dishes, furniture, etc. can be obtained from garbage dumps in special containers and on websites (FB groups) for distributing unnecessary items. And in general, there is a lot of unnecessary things in this city, and you can safely choose. In a friendly cafe you could get a free lunch for helping in the kitchen or in the hall. If your arms were attached correctly, you could assemble bicycles piece by piece and sell them to Chinese students. I had enough for exactly one bicycle, because I had to hunt quite a lot in containers for spare parts. They smoked hand-rolled cigarettes instead of cigarettes; ultimately, pure tobacco was much better than cigarettes, and the savings were quite good.
***
My parents took me and my two younger sisters to Kuskovo Park, where we collected nettles for soup. It was an adventure, such a family trip, fun. It was only as an adult that I realized that we didn’t collect it from a good life.
***
I remember how I helped my dad with removing garbage from the garbage chute to the dump - he worked part-time in our housing cooperative, and this was a significant help for the family budget.
***
At the age of eight, I put together three facts: a boat with a motor in a toy store, the presence of a glassware collection point not far from home, and a large number of empty three-liter jars under my bed. Three-liter jars were a strategic asset; at the end of summer, lovingly grown cucumbers, tomatoes, jams, compotes were prepared in them, which the family ate throughout the winter; it was the basis of the diet (and the main source of vitamins in the spring). During the season, there were probably about a hundred of these cans that were “closed.” The value of the jar itself, apparently, was noticeably higher than the value of the contents, because the grandmother often treated friends and neighbors with pickles and jam, but with the obligatory condition “Return the jar later.” The scheme of converting cans into cash with an accomplice was carried out flawlessly, they took out and handed over about half of the cans, enough for two boats. I don’t remember the ending of the story well; it seems I only managed to bring this boat home and didn’t even take it out of the box. My mother was quick-tempered and quick to take revenge, I was beaten with a felt boot, and the boat, as a matter of fact, went into the garbage chute in the form of small plastic fragments.
***
When we moved to Moscow, there was nowhere to live, and by some miracle my mother’s students found us a room in the MIPT dispensary. We lived in this room for a month and a half, the four of us in two beds (the fourth was my mother’s student and my friend, who was not given a dorm). The dispensary was, accordingly, in Dolgoprudny, and I was studying at the “University” then. Of course, there was no money at all - my mother was a teacher, worked at a school and by that time had not yet managed to recruit private students. I remember cooking dumplings and dumplings using a boiler. I still treat pie stalls in subway passages with tenderness, because I remember how I bought some monstrous pies and sausages in dough there hot and ate them, rumbling. Then we moved to my uncle’s apartment, a one-room apartment in Kuzminki, but it was not fun to live there, because my uncle suddenly joined us and drank terribly. By some miracle we rented an apartment, I still don’t understand how my mother managed it, alone with two high school daughters. We ate buckwheat and sausages. Then there was a room in a communal apartment on Vykhino, with an alcoholic neighbor and her daughter, who did not clean up after the cats. We were already students, but my mother did not let us work, and in the fourth year, by another miracle, she sent me on an internship in France for 4 months entirely at her own expense. Gradually she recruited students and pulled us out of it all, and when I graduated from university, she sent my sister and me to Paris for two weeks as a gift. Through it all we had a great relationship, all three of us were very close and very supportive of each other. I have no memories of this period as being completely hopeless. Yes, it was not easy, especially that episode when we did not have money to move and we transported things from one apartment to another in bags on a trolleybus and metro on several trips. But somehow that wasn’t the main thing. And my mother is my hero.
***
I remember: I felt sorry for my parents to the point of tears, so I explained to my sister “like an adult” why I couldn’t ask my mother for food.
Alexandra Davydova
***
We left to live in England at the very beginning of the 2008 crisis. As soon as we arrived, the house of cards fell apart and suddenly all the clients stopped paying all their bills. There was no money at all, everything was mixed into a sticky, cold lump of hair, from which laces and scraps of plans stuck out. Should I go back or try to somehow catch on and stay? We decided to stay. At the cost of enormous efforts, persuasion and debts, it was possible to get the missing money and rent an apartment, somehow make ends meet - but in total there were twenty and a little change left, on which it was necessary to live for at least two weeks, or even more. And there’s nothing anywhere, no money, no one I know, empty. Well, we bought liver, bread and something else that was discounted for throwing away and had expired in the store at the end of the day. And so the family lived on something like a pound or two a day. This is not even close, this is at the very edge of what is possible in London, where even homeless people drink coffee from Starbucks. Almost two weeks passed - exhaustingly nervous and somehow helpless, as if from an illness. I moved away from these weeks for a couple of years later. Towards the end, a notification came from the now closed startup dopplr congratulating me on my arrival in Berlin - and for the first time in my life I became hysterical and laughed until I sobbed. A few months before, when everything was still good, I bought a ticket to the Web 2.0 Expo conference and plane tickets, about eight or nine hundred, and entered it into the Doppler, of course. But already in the evening of the next day everything slowly began to improve, a new advance payment arrived, we repaid the debts little by little, the problems went away. And the last thing to go was fear. Although he may not have left.
***
We also collected nettles. Our low point in poverty came in my senior year. I didn’t suffer much - well, I had to wear the same skirt and sweater to school for two years, which didn’t increase my social rank in the class, but it didn’t really bother me either. Unfortunately, I had to give up on university and go to work. They paid mere pennies, of course, but it was enough to get off my parents’ neck, to rent a one-room cell and food for my sister and me. There were a couple of months without work, and it was already scary, because there was no one to go to for pocket money. But they held out. We bought 5 kilos of onions at the market, black bread and a jar of vegetables. They fried, spread, gobbled up and were happy. No gadgets, no clothes, two mattresses, a typewriter, conversations until the night about space, science fiction and boys.
***
I moved in January 2000 from Moscow to California with $500 borrowed for three months. I paid off my debt. Life somehow got better.
***
In the 90s, according to my feelings, I always had a lot of money; in June or July 1998, I received 1200 bucks for working on an educational CD in mathematics and did not notice the crisis. The main thing that happened then and for some time after was a feeling of wealth. Then, in general, money was good - I remember how they laid out stacks of bucks on the sofa and the floor. Since then, I really love counting money and its smell. In 2004, I left my financial job to go free, and so did my husband, and then something in my head gradually began to break down. Somehow in your business you had to work around the clock and fight for pennies. The most terrible feeling I remember is standing in a store and for about 10 minutes painfully choosing between a can of peas for 48 rubles. and for 52 rubles. I then caught such a terrible feeling of poverty that since then I have been diligently catching and expelling it with varying success, as one of the most disgusting experiences. There are so many fears and humiliations mixed in there that nothing could be worse.
***
I didn’t feel poor either in childhood, when my mother’s reference book was “100 potato dishes”, and aerobatics was to make five dishes out of one blue chicken (!!), nor when I lived in a rented one-room apartment and almost my entire salary went to pay for it. The furniture for the apartment was borrowed by friends; the kitchen had a stove and a sink. All. Ah, a can of instant coffee, a boiler and a cup. My boss and friends fed me. But it only lasted six months. A. Soup from fish ridges and green borscht (on water) from sorrel. Something like that.
***
Three years ago, in January 2012, I decided to divorce my husband. It should be noted that in St. Petersburg at that time I had two teaching jobs (for 14 and 4 thousand) and two cats, there was nothing else. For a month I wandered around visiting friends (I lived with friends for two weeks, and for two weeks I lived in a hostel from a technical school, which was “not allowed with cats!”, so I couldn’t stay for long). Then I found a tiny room on Kazanskaya Street - it cost 8 thousand and as much as 10 was left to live on. What saved me was that the housing was close to work and you could walk everywhere. I remember buying a chicken soup set for broth and always cooking porridge. That’s when the affair with A. began - I remember that often the daily allowance of money for food was spent on travel on the subway to him and back (but he fed me!). I found out that a plate of buckwheat in the canteen costs 13 rubles, and soup - 25, and, in general, it’s quite possible to live. Riding minibuses was terribly expensive, so guests could not always afford it.
***
From childhood I remember five dishes from one chicken for the whole week, yeah. And sewing and knitting of almost all clothes. And I myself had to choose between buying a pack of rice (and walking 3 kilometers home in the cold) or paying for a minibus (but not eating). Or leaving home with a guitar (singing around the squares), paying your last money for a minibus, and there would be nothing to return with if you didn’t get it. And another accidental and saving discovery that if you simply mix flour with water, it turns out to be passable cakes. By the way, it was a very fun time, despite the lack of money.
***
In the 90s we lived with our mother. I didn’t have lunch at the university because it was too expensive, I waited until dinner (around 21:00). The (thin) tights were not thrown away, but mended. The clothes are only second-hand, so everything is two sizes too big, like a bag. Since then I don't like loose clothes. Recently the fashion for oversized clothing has started, and I almost feel disgusted.
***
There are a lot of things in childhood memories, but they are very blurry; it still wasn’t my feeling. It was later that I learned about five dishes for a week from one chicken. And the things my mother knitted were perceived not as “out of poverty,” but as cool things. Mine was, for example, when my ex-husband and I moved out from his parents, because I couldn’t take it anymore, we gave the last money for the move, his mother gave us half a chicken to take with us, and I came to the store with the 50 rubles remaining from the scholarship and tried to understand , what can I buy so that we can eat it for a week. Since then, the idea of cooking onion soup at home has not occurred to me. At the same time, poor students eating the cheapest instant noodles (and paying their last fifty dollars for a two-volume Kerouac book in a second-hand bookstore) is not perceived as poverty. And even fresher than this year is to go into a store in Moscow and, standing at the bread shelf, realize that the bread that I am used to buying is very expensive, and I cannot afford it. Not exactly about poverty, but it was invigorating.
***
1995... Teacher at the Palace of Pioneers, two days a week, teacher on courses two days a week, tutor, computer maintenance in a German charity, full-time student, programmer in a web studio... In total, I managed to make about $300 a month , my father wasn’t paid at work, my mother didn’t work, my brother was at school... I gave almost all the money on payday (they paid the most in the Palace of Pioneers then, by the way!). 0.5 beer and a piece of pizza at the “Grill Master” on the corner of Marat and Nevsky, then “Nevsky pocket” near Mayakovskaya and beer at a kiosk on 1st Sovetskaya. Things from second-hand stores, shirts, fleece... But in general it all went by somehow quickly. Even after the 1998 crisis, they quickly got back on their feet. And it’s not the hungry years that I remember, but hodgepodge with sausages in dough in a cafe at the institute, the company’s birthday in “Valhalla” and other joys of life.
***
Having talked “about poverty” in the States with people who, with incredible difficulty, climbed out of systemic poverty to the shining pinnacle of, say, the position of a project manager, I realized that my (and most of my friends’) stories about poverty fit roughly into the following matrix: we ate for six months quinoa (or just sugar, or flour in water) from a bag that stood in the corridor of our apartment in the center of Moscow, while visiting one of the best universities in the country and communicating with its intellectual elite, who at that moment ate approximately the same quinoa. Already at the “swan”, the American interlocutor is overcome by a feeling of the tragedy of my fate, and at the same time I think - how lucky I am with my relatives, my social circle and tyranny. And, in reality, my poverty was the main reason (it is clear that two children and three sick relatives did not weigh on me).
***
Just before perestroika, my parents got deeply into debt and bought a cooperative apartment. Therefore, we had everything quite economically long before the 90s, as long as I can remember. But I perceived my brother and mother to wear clothes as the norm; everyone lived like that. In the 90s it got much worse, my father wasn’t paid, he tried to do business and went broke. In 1992 or 1993 there was a very bad winter, my mother’s salary was delayed, I was 13–14 years old, I was growing actively, I was freezing all the time and wanted to eat all the time. Just that year I was studying on the other side of the city, at a Jewish school. I remember that sometimes I ate two bowls of porridge there for breakfast, because they served it for everyone, and many people in our class did not eat porridge. That winter we were greatly helped by several charity parcels, one from Hesed and a couple more from relatives in America. There was cereal, vegetable oil, peanut butter, which I can't stand since then, and instant potatoes. We ate these potatoes with vegetable oil and sauerkraut all winter. There was somehow very little money, and I couldn’t buy new boots for the winter, I wore my mother’s old ones, they were terribly uncomfortable, but I was embarrassed to tell my mother. One parcel contained things that were quite strange and not at all our size or my mother’s. I remember how we went to take them to a consignment shop, and with the money I raised I bought myself three sweaters at a second-hand store on Pionerskaya. Everything that happened later, during my student years and in 1998, was garbage compared to that winter.
***
The eighties, my mother was very sick, my father was an engineer for 120 rubles, and I, a high school student, spent the whole summer with my grandfather on the Volga, near Kazan. We got up at half past four in the morning, anchored the boat and rowed across the entire river to fish, we had to row 3-4 kilometers. We fished, returned, slept a little, and by four or five in the afternoon we went fishing again. We returned at sunset, when the pike perch stopped biting. Fish was exchanged for vodka, vodka was exchanged for gasoline, gasoline was poured into the boat engine - and, lo and behold, after a good catch there was no need to row! After those years, I had such calluses from oars that I could hold a coal from the fire in my palm. Well, there was always fish in the house, because the alternative was 700 grams of meat per person per month using coupons.
***
One military ration for six people in a tiny apartment. A salary given to one of the parents in bright lilac T-shirts (still left, from 1995). Hot soup in exchange for a Mormon sermon. Organized group theft of potatoes on a collective farm. The whole class was photographed in my uniform jacket on the “graduation” album from the lower grades - there was only one jacket for the whole class (because if I wore it carelessly, I got screwed, and I took care of it - from the second to the sixth grade). He professionally occupied and held the line at the “veteran” store in the morning, so that in the evening parents on the way from work (or to work on the night shift) could buy rice using coupons. Bread that doubled in price every week - that’s how I remember it now, in powers of two! - 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128 rubles - and off we go. Mom learned to sew and started making money from it, because her engineering job stopped paying her money.
***
Students of the commercial department were not provided with hostel accommodation. I rented a room on the edge of the city for 800 rubles, they sent me a small bag of groceries from my family home, they gave me only 1200 in cash a month (including rent). I bought a school pass for 75 rubles and ran away from the inspectors a couple of times. In my second year, the room ran out and there was nowhere to live. I wandered around among friends for two weeks, and finally found shelter in a room for two for 1,000 rubles. For my 18th birthday, I bought several kilos of dumplings and Korean carrots, sang tourist songs, and gave me a used Siemens A35 cell phone. In the 3rd and 4th years, I worked part-time, either coordinating the laying of cables in entrances, or organizing Megafon’s entry into the city. I paid for one of the semesters myself after the phrase “Daughter, there is simply no money for tuition.” I wrote my diploma on someone else’s laptop at night; the chairman of the trade union committee worked on it during the day.
***
There were five children in the family and it was the 90s, a small town, the father had odd jobs, the mother took care of the children. A large vegetable garden in the village (you can travel by train by hare, and then 7 kilometers on foot, since a bus ticket is an unprecedented luxury and pampering), relatives from a distant village periodically helped out with meat, eggs, and milk. Half the winter my father knitted a large fishing net in the kitchen and then caught fish in the village. It was necessary to clean it and chat with dad - what kind of fish is it, and why does this one have red fins, and this one has white ones? Sometimes there were only potatoes, beets, cabbage and onions in the house. Each child has his own food, chicken soup or milk porridge - only for the youngest. Clothes were passed from child to child, new clothes are a terrible holiday, I (the third girl in the family) usually never experienced such happiness. I remember that already in the 8th grade of school, they suddenly bought me a terrible luxury for my birthday - my first jeans (varenki!), I felt like the most fashionable and happiest child on Earth.
***
At a sensible age, in 2006, after working nonstop in Moscow for a year and a half, he left work in the hope of starting his own business. Out of old memory, I decided to start outsourcing, found customers in LA, contractors, and worked for days on end. I received one payment, and then everything somehow went wrong. As a result, I did not leave the house for several months (no further than the kiosk in the yard). Debts for the apartment ($600/month) accumulated, the owner endured. On New Year's Eve, he auctioned off all the things he could for next to nothing. One hundred rubles for food a week was considered very good. It’s good that there was someone to reborrow from in order to pay off debts to other creditors. A hysterical customer (thank you, at least there was one) who took out his soul every day for three months and did not pay. When they finished a huge project for him, the money had already run out for several days from the word “completely”. To get the fee, you had to go to the other end of Moscow: for a metro ticket they collected coins from all the cracks, and they barely got it. We received the fee, bought the cheapest pies, cried, and the very next day I went to get a job. Again I worked almost around the clock, but after a few months I paid off all my debts, then my business got better, and since then I have never borrowed from anyone. I re-read above about the severe discomfort and horror of choosing between two cans of cheap peas as a marker of poverty - yes, that’s right.
***
My mother’s work was closed, and I had a disabled grandmother and a fifth-grader in my arms. Every summer we went to the dacha to plant/weed/hill up/water/collect/dig/clean. I still curse these 12 acres, but I understand that without them there would be no food at all. Having closed the summer season, my mother sold a bag of potatoes, bought a bag of raw seeds, washed them, fried them, and sent me to the “folk trail” to sell large and small glasses. With the proceeds I bought another bag of seeds and food from the store. Then I started going to Almaty to buy Chinese rags to sell them in our Ekibastuz (Northern Kazakhstan). After school, I always went to the market, replaced my mother for lunch and warmed up. I made friends with all the book hawkers and read in batches right there, under the counter.
***
In poverty, I learned to cook vegetable (potato) soup using overcooked carrots and onions with a lot of sunflower oil. The result was a soup with beautiful orange fat, just like the real thing, and it cost about nothing. And, of course, wholesale purchases/seasonal purchases/seasonal procurement.
Sugar, pasta, cereals - only in bags of 50 kilograms, it turned out cheaper. Potatoes - only in season, a ton and a half at a time (then sorted out from morning to night by the whole family, dried in the sun, and put in the cellar). Tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage and apples - all our own, from the garden. From there are raspberries, gooseberries, cherries, sea buckthorn, currants, horseradish, zucchini, etc. In the fall, all this was rolled into jars and salted in barrels (the cabbage was in a two-hundred-liter barrel). During the season, my father went hunting as if he were going to work. Ducks in autumn, wood grouse in winter. Several times we chipped in with the men, took one license for everyone to shoot elk, and then divided the elk meat among everyone.
***
New Year 1992, my future boss, and in the meantime a friend gives me a lift from Leninsky Prospekt (where the future Yandex rented a two-room apartment) to Smolenskaya metro station in his cool white “six”. And he buys my little children three Kinder Surprises as a New Year's gift. I couldn't afford it at all. Damn, but we didn’t feel poor.
Dear readers! Thank you again for your stories, they are very supportive in these difficult times. And please tell us more, we will add more material..
Now, probably, everyone knows about the situation in Ukraine... I live with my stepfather and mother and 8-month-old brother. The financial situation is very difficult, we can’t eat what we want, we can’t talk about other things
no need to.
I work as a copywriter on the Internet. I buy my own clothes and trinkets. And... So often I want to cry. I look at all my classmates and understand that my family is the poorest. What's not
opportunity to buy what I want. I don't want to work as a damn copywriter. periodically, when my friends go for a walk, they invite me with them. but I can’t go because I need to write,
write, write. I cannot devote one evening to a book and not go online - because of one day of rest I will lose all my work.
and my mother is all on edge. Once she screams and I really want to cry. What is my fault? The fact that I don’t ask her for money? Or that I'm studying to be a good student, playing with my little brother and
Is this what I'm working on?
Why should I dress and put on my own shoes at 13? WHY??!! Why do some children get everything and they don’t appreciate it, but I have to write these damn texts? Why can't I do it for myself?
one day off?
I feel bad. Depression about this only gets worse.
I caught a cold. Mom can’t stand this at all, because every time I need money for my treatment. Damn it! I take the cheapest pills that at least somehow help me. I DON'T WANT
SO. I'm JEALOUS of my friend who doesn't have to do this. her parents are not rich, but they provide for her. She records songs. He buys her expensive suits. And they can’t even tell me
allocate 800 hryvnia per month to attend a computer club. Or theatrical.
WHY? Tell me why? I don't want to live. I want to commit suicide. I'm very tired of all this. I DON'T WANT TO WRITE. DON'T WANT. DON'T WANT. I WANT TO DIE.
Parents of some children put all their money into developing their talents. Why don't I have this opportunity? Damn it! I want to play in skits, recite poems beautifully, study
computer technology. And other kids go to McDonald's instead and waste money with friends.
I want to die. Very. I'm so sick of it all. I want to take some pills and just leave. I don't want to think about anyone. I just want to DIE. hang himself. cut your wrists. will drown himself.
Rate:
Simple, age: 13 / 04/27/2015
Responses:Hello! Well done!
Nowadays it’s rare at your age to work so hard!
And in Ukraine it’s hard for many people right now. Just take a closer look!
I can’t “step into your shoes,” I’ve never had such a hard time. I can only imagine a little. And what will I advise you from my high
pedestal?)))
I sincerely support you! I hope you feel better. First of all - on the soul.
Look, there are a lot of links on the site on topics - surviving violence, against suicide, about war. Here is the last link I recommend. There is a selection of articles on how to make money.
Maybe something useful will turn up? In general, look at these sites.
Try to find another job. Something must turn up for you!
And about envy that others live easier... In my class they laughed at unfashionable, old, even new clothes if they were considered unsuccessful. We lived more modestly than many, and I didn't
I could dress as I wanted (but I didn’t work, and you were stronger than me then!!!). I'm still offended. But this is an obsession - classmates evaluated a person by
appearance, but I also wanted to fit in with the team, to be popular and a leader in it. But I could try to be a better person, friend and student. And there was
arrogant, and, probably for other reasons, unpleasant to her classmates. I could solve these problems! And my place in the team would be different.
But you don't complain that you are oppressed for being poor. It just hurts you that she exists. You work - and you are already coping with this disaster!
And your dreams are closer to you than you think! Recite! Master the computer! There is a lot of material on the Internet. Little by little, as opportunities allow! At all kinds of clubs and courses
They don't give as much as they think. The lion's share depends on you.
With God!
Julia, age: 28 / 29.04.2015
I’ll join Yulia, you’re really great, now you know much more about life than your peers, you know what money costs and how hard it is when you don’t have it.
You know what it’s like to feel worse (poorer) than others. The well-known proverb “The well-fed cannot understand the hungry” speaks precisely about this; in order to truly understand something you need
feel it on your own skin. Yes, you didn’t choose this path, it turned out that way, but you are following it with dignity, not everyone at the age of 13 will be able to earn a stable income
money, albeit not very much. You know, if it happened that my daughter was in your place and could, just like you, withstand such a load, I would be
extremely proud, although, of course, he would reproach himself for subjecting her to such tests.
Judging by your letter, you are very tired, here we can advise the following: 1. Try to negotiate with your employer about a short vacation, a person cannot
work without rest. If it doesn't work out, maybe you can find a replacement for a few days.
2. It is important to understand that when fatigue accumulates over a long period of time, performance begins to decline without the person even noticing it.
A person usually becomes irritable, does not feel joy, life seems gloomy, and depression sets in. Therefore, in order to work you need rest, consider it
part of the job. 3. Force yourself to walk (run) a day for at least an hour. Also, be sure to take vitamins (if not in tablets, at least eat apples)
And lastly, remember that the Lord does not give a cross to a person that he could not bear. Don’t be shy to ask Him for help, and it will definitely come!
Everything will definitely get better, the main thing is not to give up! And remember - you are great!
Alexander, age: 30 / 04/29/2015
You shouldn't do rash things. Young people often have thoughts of suicide, but at such moments we need to gather our willpower and understand that we only live alone
once, and we must live this time with dignity. As the Holy Scripture says: “The Lord sends as many trials as we can bear.” Don't give up and soon
In time, you will remember with a grin that the demons wanted to force you to commit suicide. I have been to Ukraine and I can say without irony that this is a wonderful country with
rich history and famous for its people. For a country like Ukraine, all is not lost yet. Moreover, it is you who can make your contribution to the future
his native and great country. I sympathize with you and wish you well. Be strong, and may God help you.
Kostya, age: 14 / 05/02/2015
In fact, child labor is prohibited. It is clear that you are helping your parents due to a difficult situation, but still... at the age of 13, children go to school, their psyche is not ready for such
stress - study plus work, especially so much time at the computer.
This is a very serious load, and it’s not for nothing that it led to depression.
Maybe find another part-time job? Deliver newspapers, at least...
Be sure to talk to your mom about all this, about your thoughts and how tired you are, or with someone you trust.
An abnormal situation for a child, of course. Forget about suicide, everything will pass, believe me, everything will definitely work out.
Natalya, age: 32 / 05/03/2015
I wish you strength. Some people don't have money, some people do - that's life. But if you earn money for yourself now, you have a great future. I sincerely hope that you can
pull yourself together, pray and move on - just work and rest just enough so as not to spoil your health. Take care of your eyes.
I once started working part-time at the age of 14 - I did translations, but I earned pocket money for myself, and did not fully support myself. And that helped. I'll give it to you
practical advice: try to break out and do the work that pays more: at least you can learn to layout websites (or even program), at least design
do - or in the summer, start developing yourself. All manuals can be found on the Internet, and advice can be found on forums. This will replace your computer. circle and will provide an opportunity to master real
profession. Just strain your eyes and head from overexertion - I advise you as a programmer! :)
Alexey, age: 29 / 05/04/2015
Hello!
I think you should take a break from work for a month. After all, this can be arranged, right? Surely you can do without buying clothes and trinkets for a month?
And you know, there won’t always be such tension, so calm yourself down with this. Yes, life can be difficult, but the situation changes quickly. I'll give you an example about my life. Only two years ago
I had a job, my parents could not earn money and get a job somewhere, this lasted more than six months. But nothing. We survived, thank God. Now mom has a salary too
sometimes it becomes much easier.
You’re just tired, it’s all accumulated and you really need to rest - read a book, go out with friends. And then with new strength. If you're tired
copywriting, you can try to work as a courier - delivering letters to organizations, or get a job at the same McDonald's - but I think this can be done from 14
years. When will you turn 14?
And never compare yourself to anyone. Your life is unique. You can’t write it as a carbon copy like your girlfriend or friend. Yes, it’s hard now, but that’s just it
strengthens your character, makes you better, teaches you to care for your neighbors, reduces selfishness. Tell yourself that you are now helping your family - working, that you are real
breadwinner. Yes, you want a lot of things, but you will try to implement it, for example, in the next academic year.
And by the way, writing at 13 for money is definitely a talent!
Masha, age: 25 / 05/05/2015
Hello! I agree, it's hard. I myself have been living like this for 4 years. We have 4 children in our family, I am the eldest. We have a 2-room apartment, a small car. Full of credits. Everyone in my class is cool
original things, phones, and I wear things for my sister (not my own, of course), and not only me, even my parents. I am also an excellent student. Everyone calls me boring. At first
I was very upset... But the sick and poor get a 50 percent discount. Rich kids don’t understand anything, they only care about show-off. But you got a lot more at that age than they did at all
your life. For example, I can recognize lies, flattery, and evil. And I can bypass all this with dignity. Don’t worry, everything has its time, there will be a person who will love you precisely for your character
and life experience. Everything is no coincidence! I'm sure this won't always continue. Everything in the world has an end. And your poverty will end. You will be a friendly family. And not on these friends of mine
Pay attention, they are not your friends, not even people. EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE! Write to me, sister in misfortune, I will be glad...
Lina, age: 17/31/08/2016
A very complex story. When I read it, I didn’t even know what could be done, how to help, or even what advice.
I sympathize, unfortunately we do not choose parents. And if they don’t do something for you, then they can’t.
If the jug is full of water, you will not drink wine from it. This also applies to people, don’t demand from your parents what they don’t have.
It’s unfortunate, your parents are responsible for your life, otherwise if they were not able to make themselves wealthy, why have a child and doom him to torment. But! They gave you life, something that is priceless today. Money can buy everything except life.
And do whatever you want, but taking your own life is not an option!
And telling you about positive thinking is also naive and ridiculous.
It's not your fault that your parents are poor. And that you got the corresponding energy from them.
Of the ways available to me to achieve anything, I know only mudras.
Since you have life, it means you were given it for a reason; in general, everything in the world makes sense. And as a rule, the people who have experienced the most difficult things achieve the most. As said above, you know the value of money. It's worth a lot. Plus, as a rule, people who don’t have
opportunities, they have a desire, and vice versa. Believe me, I know what I mean. I'm 24 and I don't know what I want. Envy is not the norm, but it is justified in your case.
You must understand that what is happening to you was created for you, for your development. Yes, no matter how hard it is. But these tests have a meaning that you will understand later. You came to the site to share this. But we can't make a decision for you. The maximum is
sympathize. Give you a million, do you think your life would be easier? If I gave you other parents, would you be happy? The world is designed in such a way that everyone receives exactly as much as they are willing to accept.
We live, make mistakes, learn, draw conclusions, change, achieve success in some matters and become ready for the next. And it will never end. This process is eternal.
I'm sure you can do anything if you don't give up. You can lose a battle, but don't lose the war. The world is amazingly wise and knows better than us what we need and what we don’t. Trust him and come to terms with the fact that you cannot yet handle it. That's it for now.
We will know more, we will do more, we will be able to do more, we will receive more.
I won’t wish you success, you don’t need it, I know that you will achieve it. I'm confident in you. You're still young. When you are 20 years old, you will be surprised how you could even think about suicide 7 years ago. And laugh indifferently about what you were like before. Believe me, you have
such potential as you have not yet realized.
Passerby 1, age: 24 / 10/27/2016
Don’t, don’t do this, life is such a thing, today you live one way, and tomorrow it’s completely different! As a child, I also envied a lot of people because I didn’t have my own room, sisters or brothers, or even a dad! But there is no need to despair, there was a girl in my life who
didn’t appreciate what she had... She dressed like a doll, lived in an apartment like a doll... Yes, I didn’t have such a bad childhood, they dressed me in expensive stores... But these are just things. You have a rich family, you have a younger brother, mom, dad. You can walk
hear, see... That's what's most important!!! Don’t despair, everything will get better... And when you grow up, you will eat what you want, do what you want, etc.
It’s also like she lived - only three of us on one salary (while I was learning the language and filling out all sorts of permits and confirmations - these are regular, at least 4 times a week, usually daily trips of 25 km on public transport, “killed” hours in institutions - at 7 in the morning the bus leaves for the city, arrives from the city at 16-45, between these buses there is no other transport, I didn’t have a license then - in a rented apartment, 1000 km from my mother and 300 from my mother-in-law.
Meat - only on Sundays, preferably a piece with a bone, exactly 3 servings of meat, i.e. max. 750 g including bone. From the bone you get soup for Monday - Tuesday, if you are very lucky on the day of purchases and manage to carve out another half a kilo of minced meat - then 1 time soup with meatballs, on another day - 1 cutlet per nose. On other days, lunches are vegetarian. Breakfast - child in the garden, my husband and I - muesli with milk and carrots. Dinner - each person has 2 sandwiches with something, sometimes with something like that :-); parents - tea, children - a glass of milk. An apple (or another fruit, whichever is cheaper and larger in size) - one per day for three. Yogurt - 1 (one) child on Sunday. Breakfast on Saturday-Sunday - my son (then 3-4 years old) and I - 1 bun each, my husband - 2, with butter and jam or whatever-there-was-enough-money-on-Saturday-so-there-was-enough-food -until Monday breakfast (nothing is open here on Sunday). Breakfast on Sunday - each person gets an extra soft-boiled egg. No semi-finished products, concentrates, 5-minute meals in “cups” - it turns out much more expensive. From winter boots bought 4 years before the birth of a child - at the same age, pumps until next autumn.
Purchases - once a week at the cheapest store - Aldi.
In the summer - without a garden - preparations for the winter - for example, picking strawberries and paying for strawberries, and eating fresh for 2 weeks of the season, and jam for the whole winter; in free time - forays into nature and collecting free "grazing" food - sorrel, berries, herbs for tea; in the fall - on weekends, again with the whole company - picking up potatoes in the field, after they have been removed and allowed to “lick” - by the way, a 3-year-old child is quite capable of digging up potatoes and proudly carrying them into a bag; picking apples on a plantation either for money, or for apples, or in parts. If all this is done together with the child, you get an effective active holiday in the fresh air :-))) - without shaping, a fitness club and other expensive pleasures, with a lot of impressions and the opportunity, at least on the way there and back, to discuss a lot of different issues.
Close cooperation with neighbors - I give you the apples I picked, you give me the plums or something else, who collected what.
Transfer of children's clothes and shoes along the chain - some things lost all appearance after the 2nd owner, some - after the 6th, but no one refused anything, and I didn’t refuse either.
But she never called herself poor. It happens, by the way, even worse.
Need more ideas?
05.03.2004 21:56:34,
Poverty is not a vice. This is the school of life. If you pass it, then you are “infected”.
Habits imposed by poverty remain with a person forever. Even if he improved his financial situation. They are like leeches, sucking nerves and money.
This article will help you eradicate the poor man's thinking in yourself and, thereby, improve yours. After all, as you know, thought determines actions, and actions determine success.
Not long ago I was poor. For the first 18 years of my life I was a child and could not change anything. For the next 17 years I continued to live “as a child” and no longer wanted to change anything. I don't complain or grumble. I chose my own path.
These are the words of John Cheese. He lived in poverty for 35 years. I went with the flow. Until one day, by chance, I got a good job.
This changed his life. The refrigerator is full, the bills are paid. But John was never able to get rid of the poor man's habits and habits. The “infection” had penetrated too deeply into his brain.
John, based on personal experience, described the habits of poor people.
1. Cheap food
People living on the minimum wage have two criteria when choosing food:
- and expiration date.
The first should be as low as possible, and the second should be as long as possible.
Quality? Taste? Manufacturer? Leave it to the gourmets who shop at the store of the same name.
Groceries are purchased once a week or less. 90% of them are canned. Fresh fruits and vegetables are too expensive. Meat? Maximum offal.
But a person gets used to everything. So much so that when you have the opportunity to buy normal products, you will have to relearn their taste.
Fresh, not canned, tomatoes and apples will seem “wrong” to you. Even if you train yourself to have Danablu cheese tartlets for breakfast, from time to time you will still miss a sandwich with Druzhba and paper-soy boiled sausage.
2. “Extra” money
Large cash in a poor person's wallet is nonsense. A bonus, a gift, a dowry - if you have money, you need to spend it urgently. This is a reflex caused by the “infection” of poverty.
It is impossible to save for a “rainy day” - it is always “black”. Poor thinking forces you to live one day at a time.
A person reflexively goes to the store to the market and, without thinking about how he will pay the utility bills next month.
The habit of immediately spending “extra” money is so strong that the press constantly exaggerates “curious” cases - the mechanic Ivanov won a million and spent it in a week.
Paradox: a person who needs money does not save it, but a wealthy person, on the contrary, knows how to save.
When a person has a consistently high income, he has to learn to manage money rationally. He must understand: there is no such thing as “extra” money; you must always have a financial buffer in case of unforeseen expenses (your car breaks down, a seal falls out...).
3. Gifts
If a person has no money, he... The maximum he can afford for all these Birthdays and March Eighths is “souvenirs” from Fix Price. Adults understand this and do not focus their attention.
But children...
Here are some new sneakers for you, but these are for your birthday.
If you grew up in a low-income family, you're familiar with this phrase. And it’s unlikely that any of you would be upset that in six months you’ll be left without a gift, most importantly – new sneakers!
As a rule, children understand the family’s financial problems and don’t whine – “Paaap, just buy it” – even if they really want to. But adults still have a feeling of guilt. Forever.
Therefore, when a family gets out of a financial hole, parents begin to shower their children with gifts. Not a single trip to the store without a new toy: “For so long I couldn’t afford to spoil my baby.”
The habit of compensating for forced savings with gifts also manifests itself when a child was born in abundance, but his parents grew up in poverty.
I didn’t have it, so at least let the children have everything.
4. Accounting
You know exactly how much money you have on your card and how much is in your wallet (down to kopecks). You automatically add up in your mind the cost of the products in your cart and always check the receipt. You know all housing and communal services tariffs and the formulas for calculating them.
This habit will remain with you, even when the need to constantly “steal” money disappears.
Fear – “Will I have enough money to pay the bill?” – will haunt those who grew up in poverty for a long time.
5. Essentials
If a person can barely make ends meet, then he buys only what he needs at a given time. Only must have.
Example. Summer, sale of winter jackets. The price is almost nothing. The model is cute. A person with a poverty mindset will not buy it, even if he has “extra” money (see point 2). After all, you still have to live until winter - why wear a winter jacket in the summer?
Those who have worn out clothes for older brothers and sisters know that they buy new jeans when the old ones are worn out, and not when they want them.
And this habit remains for a long time. “Why do I need new shoes? These can still be repaired!”
Paradox again: a man with the habits of a poor man. There is money, but it’s a shame to spend it. Especially on yourself.
Being poor is bad simply because it takes up all your time.
Willem de Kooning
Poverty shapes thinking. But to change it, it is enough to change your habits. By getting rid of the habits described, you may soon notice that you have become a more successful and confident person. Because you will develop immunity against the “infection” of poverty.
