Not me but
I read a student magazine about 10 years ago (when i was a student) and this kid had his first grant cheque (back when u had grants) and had always fancied this really expensive stereo, so went out and blew almost his entire grant on a big stereo. Then he thought, what am i going to eat for the rest of the term, so he bought two huge bags of porridge. Thats all he ate for ten weeks. Apparently he caught scurvy. Twat.
( DumbMonkey The penis mightier than the sword, Sat 9 Oct 2004, 21:55, Reply)

14p 2 LitreCoke from Tescos
Sugar free, caffiene free, taste free.
It's just brown, fizzy water; but it does the job. It's also fun to throw them and soak each other with coke.
Also it's free advertising. I've writen my website on them and strategically left them at skate parks and on benches.
Oh the fun of being a poor teenager...
(I Want Billy, Sat 9 Oct 2004, 20:30, Reply)

Foreign Currency
While incredibly low on cash and still living at home, i rummaged around in my dads study and found the tin in which he kept all the left over foreign currency from business trips.
There was about $600 inside! So i skipped to the post office to change it into nice english money, and went on to have one of the best weeks ever.

A couple of months later, the parents deicided to do a last minute trip to america, but couldnt find their dollars in the tin. My mum blamed my dad.Haha.

Losers.

See you in Hell
(Kiorte, Sat 9 Oct 2004, 20:20, Reply)

At one point I was completely broke, but I kept it a secret from everyone.
To keep from starving I often visited my family, sharing joy, laughter, and love, while covertly loading my empty backpack up with food from their pantries.
( Rob T Firefly talked, like, William Shatner, on, Sat 9 Oct 2004, 20:15, Reply)

In an arcade I used to run
there were always poor kids with no lives who wanted to play the games, but couldn't afford the tokens. So they'd endlessly go from machine to machine, checking the return slots and the floors for stray coins.

Eventually I put them to work, letting them sweep up, wipe the windows, or get stuff from the neighboring shops for me in exchange for a couple dollars' worth of free games.

I often sat back reading "Oliver Twist" while they were doing my dirty work. It seemed appropriate.
( Rob T Firefly talked, like, William Shatner, on, Sat 9 Oct 2004, 20:11, Reply)

I got a job
.
(dr-kill, Sat 9 Oct 2004, 20:00, Reply)

I sold my playstation..
..and used the money for a night out in Bognor Regis.
(Grobie, Sat 9 Oct 2004, 19:02, Reply)

I spent the best part of a day busking in Cambridge
I got moved on by shopkeepers more times than I can remember, had no instrument with me so I sang, and earned £1.19 for the best part of a days work.

And no, It wasn't fecking worth it.
( Spaniels Ears, Sat 9 Oct 2004, 17:36, Reply)

Bankruptcy
Just to get food. No kidding.
(moonfire38, Sat 9 Oct 2004, 17:00, Reply)

Was deperate for money
so i made bets with my firends which cause me pain, for some reason, they enjoyed me being in pain.

One of wich was to heat up a coin over a lighter and hold it for as long as i could, this earned my £5 and a permenant circular scar on my hand.

Was worth it
(Mr_McCool, Sat 9 Oct 2004, 13:10, Reply)

The Best Solution I found....
There are two really good ways of getting cash relatively quickly, though only one that is socially acceptable to admit:

1. European / Nesta grants - say you are going to start up a unique business (Euro money is very hard to get now, but not when I started out!)

2. Marry someone who is fairly well off.

Both worked a treat for me.
(justinb Maybe, maybe not!, Sat 9 Oct 2004, 13:08, Reply)

Thanks for the
tips, kids!
( Laughing Boy, Sat 9 Oct 2004, 12:33, Reply)

Yes we were poor
When I lived in a shared house we were bored one saturday afternoon so we rustled up all the money we could (£7.23) and went to tesco. We bought 7 packs of 3% tesco value larger (89p pack of 4) and a 3 litre bottle of strongbow for £1!! Ok we didn't get pissed on the larger but mixing them worked a charm!
(Gingasculler, Sat 9 Oct 2004, 12:08, Reply)

Spandex HotPants
i once got bet £5 by my mates to try on a "very" tight pair of shiney silver hot pants in a shop and come out and show my mates, when i say they were "very" tight i mean they were an extra large and there was no way there were gonna fit, but i got my £5 and had a good lunch with it
(ShaneGxp, Sat 9 Oct 2004, 11:56, Reply)

Free food at burger king
If you go into BK or McDs (at peak time) and tell them you had a big takeaway for your office yesterday, and when you got back, it was short something, most times, they'll just hand over whatever it was without question.

Got to be heaving with people mind, twenty past eleven on a Friday night isn't going to work.
( bowdie, Sat 9 Oct 2004, 9:47, Reply)

Books for food
Last semester here at uni I had about 4 weeks left of classes but no funds at all. Being an industrious young student I realized I could still sell all my textbooks. The idea that I might require their assistance on my final exams was far outweighed by my desire for food and cds and so I gradually sold off all my books. Later I realized how fucking useless it all was as books that had cost me upwards of $400 garnered me in total about $150. Worst was my damn anthropology book, which had cost me at least $100 but made me only $22. I knew that class was pointless.
(Magzah, Sat 9 Oct 2004, 8:12, Reply)

Sounds bad, but
Last year when I was especially poor and couldn't afford food, I went out on dates for free dinner regularly.
It's good to be a girl...
(little one, Sat 9 Oct 2004, 6:58, Reply)

pfffft
im still in high school milking my parents for meals/lodging. plus i have a job. $900 in the bank, $100 a week (summer's over), and $2000 in pc parts. And no aspirations. I can't wait to be poor like you guys!
(wampa_stompa, Sat 9 Oct 2004, 6:45, Reply)

I went to a lecture...
...in odd shoes... I spent the day at uni and only noticed on the way home. Couldn't find a matching pair.

They weren't even similar... One was grey and one was blue
( beefandcheese, Sat 9 Oct 2004, 2:56, Reply)

T
Smoking the contents of tea bags...
Not having any rizla we used (lined) paper...
Then we moved 'up' to jars of coffee...
'nuff said.
(Lemster the sound of one luma clamping, Sat 9 Oct 2004, 1:54, Reply)

By Saturday...
...I had drank my giro. On the Sunday, my flatmate nicked two industrial size bags of bombay mix from a local kebab place. I lived for the next fortnight solely on bombay mix. My tastebuds went into a coma after a few days, but it was the other end of my alimentary canal that took most of the punishment.
(druidus, Sat 9 Oct 2004, 0:47, Reply)

yesterday a bum asked me if i had any spare change. i said no and asked him back... he just looked at me weird
(retro, Sat 9 Oct 2004, 0:45, Reply)

My friend is as poor as me. At my school instead of cash they have swipe cards - essentially, credit cards that have money on them that you use in vending machines and in the lunchroom. You can put coins onto your balance at a "revaluator" - a small metal box in the wall with a coin slot, a wee screen and a swipe thingy.

What my friend realised was the whole thing was computer-controlled. So he found a PC that a helpful IT Support staff member had forgotten to log off of, opened the "SkoolMoney(TM)" program [not it's real name] and added about £150 to his bank account. Needless to say, he was caught.

He tried again two months later - he discovered if you swiped your card, proceeded to cut a red wire in the side of the revaluator and then reconnect it, your credit balance would fly upwards, roughly £15 a second. [course, if you cut the blue wire the bomb would blow]. He got about £225 before a teacher found him at a revaluator, screwdriver and swiss army knife in hand, and asked him what the hell he was playing at.
(basstard, Fri 8 Oct 2004, 23:15, Reply)

picture this
its 3 a.m. No money, havent eaten all day and no food what so ever in the house except tea bags, sugar and one lone onion. I bit the bullet and then the onion [having peeled it first].

Kept having to stop and wash the taste of feet away with much water....

And was still hungry
(monkeyseemonkeydo, Fri 8 Oct 2004, 22:55, Reply)

Scotch Eggs
From the co-op.

Hundreds of them.

Two months.

'Nuff said.
( Chrysogenated - the Uber-lurker, Fri 8 Oct 2004, 22:43, Reply)

walking through the week-end open air produce market in chef whites and clogs is always good for free samples. "hey chef! hey chef try this!". usually good for the makings of a weeks worth of vegetable soup.

tip - say you only have a little cash and you really only need
* insert something exotic or just out of season* for tonight's menu and will be sure to come back next week for some of their lovely wares.
( sosumi, Fri 8 Oct 2004, 22:14, Reply)

I lived...
...on curry fried rice for 3 months, and so did six mates who would haul round my flat each evening for the big fry up. Cheap as fcuk. Any small cash we had was spent on cheap drugs and cheap booze. That is, until we pinched a kung-fu arcade machine from a nearby hall of residence in a midnight drunken ninja escapade, parked it in my hallway and jemmied it open for the seventy quid inside.

Then we all got pissed, stoned, continued to eat curried rice and played the game free for a couple of months.

All good things must come to an end. The cash ran out, the machine broke and two mates starved to death while a third went into hibernation.
(smell the cheese, Fri 8 Oct 2004, 21:39, Reply)

When I was desperate...
I spent an hour wandering round my school picking up loose change to make enough to buy a burger.... I kept getting dirty looks from the popular kids... Those were the days...
(Achka, Fri 8 Oct 2004, 21:29, Reply)

took my clothes off for money
I got through uni by life modelling in various draughty art schools. It's easier for girls, as there is no fear of the stray erection (supposing you might get turned on by harsh strip lighting and having grannies looking startled as they accidentally catch your eye).

Downsides included having to wash charcoal dust from the most surprising places, the class with the mad woman who would wander round and dribble instead of drawing, and the deadly cold.

Upsides were free cups of tea, and reclining poses, where you are basically being paid to have a nice lie down. In the nude. In a room full of people. Hmmm. I think the money is rather better at Spearmint Rhino. At least there you then don't have to see twelve or fifteen wierdly distorted drawings of the saggy areas you are less than proud of...
(sticks Errol flynn in female form, Fri 8 Oct 2004, 20:40, Reply)