How broke have you been?

Rob Williams said:
In my uni days, my flatmate and I would order a pizza delivery to a mates place.
The guy would complain to the delivery dude that he didn't order pizza, but would be overwhelmed by the aroma and pay for it anyway.
Then my flatmate and I would rock round there and say "Hey, what's up? Wow, can I smell pizza?". Then we'd tuck in.
Of course we never offered to chip in. Didn't have enough cash :)
Who says you don't learn much at uni!
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haha love it, will have to try this!!
 
I was so poor I use to go to kfc just to lick other peoples fingers. Boom.

But honestly I achieve my true poor potential all through my early teens. Single parent family (when she was around) no money for food cloths. I still remember my mum asking what year I was in at school. Hassled for having no money and bashed at home. Great times........

But I got through it. I'm now happily married. Great career and heading down the investment road. I also still love my family after everything. Respect everyone and I'm a good person. It didn't send me the wrong way . But it nearly did.
 
Many many moons ago, when I was a poor starving student, on Austudy with the loser bf on newstart, we never had enough money to get anything. We were getting weird random food parcels from the Salvos to get by and occasional help from charity for the bills.

And you know what? Turns out said bf was going out at night to buy food from the servo to eat (did explain why he was ever expanding) so there went the money. He dialled into BBSs on the internet and racked up hundreds of dollars of bills at night, all while I was asleep.

When I eventually plucked up the courage to leave, I managed to save $12,000 in 6 months and promptly bought a house and all the furniture to put in it (cos he kept most of the furniture, cutlery, car, appliances etc when I left).

Sometimes it is just the company you keep that keeps you down. He wasn't the best bf - didn't let me go anywhere, or have friends over, or wear clothes that exposed more than a postage stamp of skin when I went to uni, called me fat (I'm actually a very small, skinny person) and he was prone to reading the logs of my telnet sessions into uni so I developed a habit of editing those if I was emailing friends through my uni account. The things you go through when you are very young and don't know any better ...
 
vincenzo said:
I think it's that way it is for many if not most people. We all like to be lazy, and need a serious motivator kicking us up the butt to get things going... or is it just me?

picture.php

I can't post about motivation without a motivational poster.
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He looks dangerous !

I bet he does a 'Caboolture' instead...... a bit rough around the edges and bare in the middle !!:D:eek:

*Apologies to anyone from Caboolture - I'm only joking !!:D
 
Pa1nter said:
My first boss and mentor told me, it's hard to climb the ladder of success when someone is pulling on your leg,

Its a lot easier when someone is helping you up the ladder.:p
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Unless you get a push from below when you're on the top rung.... :eek:

Cheers,

The Y-man
 
My story probably isn't as bad as some on here but I thought I would tell mine anyway.

Back in the early 90's our family was doing things pretty tough. My parents had split up and my father ended up with medical issues after that, leaving my Mother with us 3 children and 1 german shepard! This left her by herself trying to get enough money together to pay all the bills, mortgage and etc. On a single wage, cleaning houses for a living, made it quite tight.

I can't remember how many nights we ate vegemite on toast, bakebeans on toast or strawberry jam on weetbix! Many nights mum wouldn't eat anything because she couldn't afford to feed herself and us!

One funny story though, one night mum decided to buy a Charcoal Chicken for dinner. Now this was exciting, because takeaway food was quite rare in our household...! Anyway, it was on the kitchen bench ready to serve up and then our Nan turned up. Of course we all went out to see her...only to come back inside to find our german shepard quite happily chewing on our dinner! Needless to say, we had 2-minute noodles that night lol.

It was a tough time and I don't know how my mum did it. Amazing women, I think.
 
HandyAndy888 said:
Sad but true....
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Unfortunately you are right. It has soooo much potential - hospital, shops, positioned btwn brissie and the Sunshine Coast, beautiful rural areas - but the demographic sucks! The bogans are out breeding the normal people.( oh , that's right it's their major source of income isn't it??).

We are out of Caboolture on a farm but when I say Wamuran, no one knows where the heck it is!:rolleyes:
 
May 1999. Not to long divorced from the wife and split up from the girlfriend I was living with (met her after splitting up with the wife). In my mid to late 30's living with my pensioner mother I went broke trading futures as a local on the Sydney Futures Exchange.

I had nada.. not a cent, no assets at all, not even a car. No job, no prospects, couldn't face valuing, didn't think I could get a job.

I had lost everything I came out of the marriage with what would have bought me a do-up terrace house in Kensington Melbourne at that time with negligble mortgage.

I hit my lowest point in life and felt a complete failure, depressed.. all the arrogance had been knocked out of me, I thought I would end up a homeless bum. I nearly topped myself .. but two quotes kept me going .. "I've been on the other side son and ther ain't nothing f..king there" and .. "You're a long time dead".

I friend gave me a lifeline to develop some properties in Tassie. I ended up living on the smell of an oily rag and building up sweat equity in the projects.

After that in 2001 I was on my way to the USA to work as a tour guide at chicken feed pay again .. but at least it was a job, fun and nomadic like I had been in the past. However on my way there I called up about a valuing job in Melbourne .. three days later I started.

By 2002, I started taking 3 overseas holidays a year (to cheap asian destinations - something I continue to do to this day) .. I needed them as I worked 10-14 hours a day 6 days a week. I earned good money, invested but also was paying back a lot of debt .. and spending a fair bit - I like good wine.

I planned to be retired by 2009 - I wanted an inflation indexed income of $700pw to live on as a single guy.

If I hadn't recently got married and had my first kid I would be retiring soon .. a year behind my goal. That goal is now a thing of the past!

I am now selling an IP and will be debt free .. until I buy another IP to develop.

Hard work and property investing, but mostly hard work has been responsible for going from broke to my current comfortable situation in just over 10 years. I also don't work nearly as hard.. and of course don't earn as much, but I enjoy sppending time with my wife and daughter instead.

I actually should have a lot more but life is for living .. and I was only ever planning to be single - and I do enjoy the jobs I have had since 2001.

cheers

RightValue
 
We had to raid the coin collection too

Propertunity said:
I have a similar story. Many, many years ago I started a new job after being between contracts for a couple of months. Credit cards all maxed out and got to the end of the first week's work and NO pay cheque. Was advised they pay monthly

I used to collect all sorts of 50 cent coins. I raided my beautiful collection just to pay for petrol to get to work the next week. Got paid at the end of that week too - mid month. Was informed that although they pay monthly, they pay 2 weeks behind and 2 weeks in advance....what a relief

I can't bring myself to collect 50 c coins anymore(too many memories) :p
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Snap!
That was me 2 years ago. Hubbie and I had been in our current PPOR for 6 months, daughter was 18 months old, I had gone back to uni to do the second degree needed for Architecture, but discovered I couldnt commit the time needed for such a demanding degree with a small child (and hubbie thinks uni is not a job and therefore could still do everything at home, and finish all uni work from 9-5 M to Friday - NO CHANCE WITH THAT DEGREE), so I defered and had to then get a job as we had thousands of dollars of bills coming in and no money to pay with.

I managed to get a reasonable job (still here:confused:) in the industry I left to go to uni :mad: albeit in a lesser role (so over qualified for this job, but dont have the civilian qualifications to go higher).

We had gotten down to raiding the money tin and the first day of work I managed to scrape together $7 for petrol, and then was told we get paid monthly.:eek:

Hubbie DID have a nice little collection of Australian coins he had started collecting when he emigrated here in 2003. If there was a coin with a different face he'd save it. Well needless to say, the coin collection went in petrol to get me to work. Took us 5 months to be able to not have our pays allocated to bills before we got paid.

Now I cant afford to leave this job to go back to uni......................... am looking at part time study options, but cant finish that particular degree part time. Plus probably getting too old to start a new career now...... At least I'm investing and nor treading water I suppose. Investing has been a sucess, career a bit of a fizzer. BUT no longer broke.:)
 
I'm 38 and can't remember ever being broke since I left home. I think it's because I have quite a few memories growing up of having no money. Dad gambled and we were always either loaded or broke and when they divorced Mum moved back to Australia with my brother and I and $50 in her pocket. We had to live in a home provided by the Salvation Army.

The positives from that is that I have a massive fear of not having money and HAVE to have $300-$500 cash in my wallet at all times and the negatives are that when I first started earning a decent income I blew it and blew it and blew it again on lots of unneccessary expensive stupid things.
 
had zilp zilch nada for 6months when I was 14 ward of state then kicked out of home/school dad in prison no help from anyone was interesting but always managed to scrounge up a feed and kalyan house in mackay looked after me well to broke again after contract worked ended in 98 should of saved some cash in hindsight have slept in parks in diffrent towns etc since I turned 18 and settled down with my G/F at the time now wife have not been broke since and never intend to be again.

back in 2004 I pulled in quite a substantial amount and started to buy property :)
 
AndrewT said:
My story probably isn't as bad as some on here but I thought I would tell mine anyway.

Back in the early 90's our family was doing things pretty tough. My parents had split up and my father ended up with medical issues after that, leaving my Mother with us 3 children and 1 german shepard! This left her by herself trying to get enough money together to pay all the bills, mortgage and etc. On a single wage, cleaning houses for a living, made it quite tight.

I can't remember how many nights we ate vegemite on toast, bakebeans on toast or strawberry jam on weetbix! Many nights mum wouldn't eat anything because she couldn't afford to feed herself and us!

One funny story though, one night mum decided to buy a Charcoal Chicken for dinner. Now this was exciting, because takeaway food was quite rare in our household...! Anyway, it was on the kitchen bench ready to serve up and then our Nan turned up. Of course we all went out to see her...only to come back inside to find our german shepard quite happily chewing on our dinner! Needless to say, we had 2-minute noodles that night lol.

It was a tough time and I don't know how my mum did it. Amazing women, I think.
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I liked the part about the dog, we had a similer thing happen but luckily it was not our dinner,
we had a samoyed/husky and it roamed freely, one day we get a knock at the door from a lady and she said do you own this dog (yes) well while we were out the back of our house having wedding photo's taken the dog came threw the front door and got up onto the kitchen bench and ate the wedding cake, I bet the dog had a :D on his face LOL
 
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