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Not posted in quite a few months so this is a weird thread, but I felt this was the most impartial forum I was a member of where I could ask for advice, opinions and thoughts.

I have a friend who is properly skint. She couldn't work due to illness but when she got better she got back into work. She now has to wait about 2 months before she gets paid and hasn't been able to get an advance on her wages. I've already loaned her over £400 so she didn't lose her home and could pay rent, but being pretty skint myself I can't loan her anymore. She literally doesn't eat because she can't afford it, has no utilities and is in debt up to her eyeballs.

I don't live close enough to feed her myself so I need solutions that can happen fast. There are no food banks nearby and she probably doesn't qualify for any benefits now she is employed again. She's actually a swimming instructor, so starving and swimming don't go well together. She has no family and is too proud to ask other friends for money. I'm the only one she confides in about this.

What do people suggest? I was tempted to ask friends and try and raise some money to tide her over, but I'm reluctant to ask other people who don't know her for money. She's good for repayment as she's a very honourable person, but she would hate to find out I'd asked other people for money on her behalf.

Any ideas? She's been through a hell of a lot in her life and just needs a hand through this dark time.

Does your country not have any unemployment assistance or a food bank?

Where does your friend live? Is she also in Hampshire or another county?

I know someone who volunteers for the Andover food bank (he's also the chair of a local charity), he might be able to offer some advice even if she doesn't live in Hampshire.

You can email me the details if you prefer: jamesgrealy29@gmail.com

She could always open a current account with a planned overdraft. Depends on how much and what sort of debt she is in.

A bank might be willing to put her on a temporary interest free or low fee overdraft, providing she can prove her employment.

She should go speak to someone in person at the bank to explain her predicament. Either that or on the phone.

Ask the job center (DWP) for a welfare grant.

I believe they scrapped crisis loans right? if not check into that...

Let me preempt this by saying I know what she's going through. I've been there; to hell and back. I grew up in a rough neighborhood, got out but, long story omitted, wound up living out a suitcase on the other side of the country for two years, lost the support of my family and had to come back to my hometown where I ended up renting a single room in a slum. I somehow lived through it but I still struggle as I have had uncontrollable epilepsy for 6 years so I cannot hold down a job anymore. I'm going to give you a basic idea of this hell-hole country I live in first so you understand that I speak from experience.

I live in RSA and the government aid here for medically-boarded people is 800 - 1800 ZAR depending of various factors. The rent for a room (as in a room in a flat/house) begins at 2k. There are no food banks here. The only real aid goes mostly to "previously disadvantaged" communities which means native Africans. Caucasians and Coloureds (mixed breeds or "mudbloods" as I jokingly call a friend of mine) see little aid. Same goes for jobs. There's a thing called EE which means Employment Equity, a prerequisite for companies to meet certain criteria for race and sex distribution among employees. Then there's AA, Affirmative Action, which is a broad-scope term for employment among other things that aims to uplift natives but all it does is bring Caucasians, Coloureds, Indians (not emigrants, people who lived here for generations, having been brought here as slaves) and Chinese emigrants down. This country is rotting with racism and the government blows billions on our president's whims. In short, even without my epilepsy, jobs would be tough. A friend who's now in the UK used to work in a video shop despite her being a qualified teacher (for all grades). RSA is a great place to holiday but a bad place to live unless you're rich as there's no middle-class. By the way, I don't have a medical grant because my condition doesn't allow me to get up early enough (see sleep depravation vs epileptic seizures) to get to a state hospital for an exam (which may see me waiting until the next day anyway as state health means a wait of 6 hours if you're lucky, but some have waited over 24). Also, my medicine is not free unless I go through this same process.

So onto my survival guide.
* I opened my own business. Basic PC repair and stuff. No startup or running costs and I charge a 50 ZAR callout fee to cover transport (bare in mind 1 GBP = ~14 ZAR, our currency is very different. Bread is ~10 ZAR per loaf). So I do make profit on callouts alone. Your friend could do something in her spare time.
* I eat lean atm because cashflow is bad. Did you know rice is cheap and highly nutritious? I eat rice topped with a small helping of veg (how very Japanese) most nights and sometimes just have plain rice. I have pilchards on toast once every week to second week and I buy a jar of Bovril once a month to supplement my meat. For breakfast and lunch I usually have peanut butter sandwiches (margerine and butter is not needed) as it is very nutritious. My only real luxuries are spices/seasonings which I buy now and then. Oh, and tea/coffee but that's necessity to me.
* Ask for help. It's not about pride, but common sense and if you pay it back there's no loss in dignity. To get back to my hometown and to get me started (so I wouldn't sleep on the streets) I loaned two large sums of money from my godfather. I pay him back something each month, even if it means a week of skipping lunch.
* Rent a room. Does she have a spare room in her house? If she isn't a private person, she could rent it. Currently there are more rooms than apartments to rent where I live so everyone is doing it.
* Rent her home. If she owns it, she could move in with someone else and pay them board and lodging while renting out her place.

Instant Solutions (for immediate cash):
* Pawn something. Nobody needs a television. I haven't owned one for over 3 years and haven't watched TV for prolly double that. Books are free from a library and just as entertaining without being obnoxious and PCs make TVs redundant. Jewelry is a good one too. Remember pawning is not selling, it's a temporary thing and you can get it back.
* Selling. She can sell all the stuff she doesn't need. Sure the spare bed/etc isn't worth much but it'll add up. Any old cellphones? Sell them, that emergency when she needs them prolly won't come.
* Go begging. Lolwut. No, seriously, an old and cliche con that works wonders. You go around telling people you were mugged and ask them for money for a bus/taxi/train home. Many say no but plenty say yes.
* Credit. Dangerous, beware. Most banks -- well in my country -- will give anyone who isn't blacklisted a credit card. It's dangerous but if you have the willpower to pay it back at the end of the month and cut the card up you're fine.

I can't vouch for anything but the credit card trick on list 2. Luckily I survived with that alone but friends of mine and people I lnow have all confirmed success with these (and scams I can't post). Being poor sux. I know. So those are the options. List 1 is a long-term solution, list 2 is a temp solution. I don't know how far she'll get but I do know that at least she's in the first world which makes things easier. If you (or someone) can buy her a few bags of rice and a small pack of veg twice a week, a small jar of Bovril and some bread just once a week, it'd be enough to live on. When she gets her first paycheck, she should really start saving.

Thanks for the suggestions gents. I'll pass on the various tips I think make sense. And NonZero, that's a serious story mate. I'm glad you're still here and pushing on through. She's a survivor too, so she'll make it.

I have a friend in a similar situation, just had another kid and just been evicted from their house. There's less and less help from the government with this stuff, all I could suggest is that she makes demands at the local council office. They have the authority to issue emergency loans, and they will - but she will have to refuse to leave the building without one, she'll have to fight for it or she'll get nothing.
It's horrible, but that's how the benefits system works - people who accept the word no or are too polite to get nasty get nothing. She won't get anywhere by being civil and polite to those people I'm afraid.

The worst thing she could do is get a payday loan, because that's just a debt spiral - she'd get her first pay and most of it would be eaten up by them, so you have to go get another payday loan until payday to pay the payday loan she got for her previous payday.

Sometimes the best thing to do is be open about the problem with colleages, employers, debtors. People can be very understanding and incredibly generous, and when that is appreciated everyone is happy. Maybe she should talk about it with work colleages, see if they have any ideas, see if they can help - hell, even if it's someone making an extra lunch for her, or inviting her round for dinner - if 3 or 4 people do that then it's a helluva lot smaller a problem. Debtors can wait, debtors like to wait because they get more money that way, sometimes it's better to face up - make the phone call and make an agreement about repayments. The guy on the phone really just wants the case dealt with efficiently, if they can arrange regular payments in the near future they will allow a grace period. Consider the phone calls that debt collectors get 99% of the time, if they get a phone call from a nice person who they can actually help, then they will go out of their way to do that.

I guess the main thing is that she has to be open about it, people can and will help, people like to help, people love to offer advice and there's probably 5 or 6 matriarch's at her work who wouldn't dream of seeing her go without food.

Kinda sucks reading how bad it is in other countries :/ I live in Sweden and well - nobody really has to starve etc - unless you live in a house... But the thing is - you do get money from the government, even if you don't have a job. you can essentially (if you have a child) get up to almost 800€ a month(probably a bit more), as long as you live in a apartment/house, have a child - and arent working.
Sweden is in fact quite damned good with this stuff (even if I personally feel it could be a heck of a lot better)

Really get me down when I hear about other countries - well, it's great to hear about other countries - but it's sucky to hear how bad some countries have it in Europe :/.

The UK has very good benefits ... too good in some respects and easy to exploit. The problem is for the people who are somewhere between unemployed and full time employed in a decent job. When you start work you give up a lot, if not all of your benefits, and if you don't have a decent income you end up worse off! She's an example of this.

Overall the UK is considered very generous with it's state care, it's just there're plenty of scenarios in which you can suddenly find yourself without help if you make poor decisions with poor planning.

Cheers for the suggestions btw Van.

in sweden i'm 90% sure that you could ask to get money until your first paycheck - that's very odd that as soon as you get a job, you get stripped of all the benefits - even if the paycheck is 2 months away. That's reallly really odd to me : S

In a nutshell she needs to visit/call the Citizens Advice Bureau. No one is in a better position to help her than they are in finding some support. She has enough to deal with and could use someone informed who will track down and help with applications etc.

Normally payment in lieu is reserved for weekly wages and monthly must be at least part paid, the company she is working for are at the least being unethical in expecting workers to wait two months for wages. If she is part time then they can get away with it.
They can probably write whatever contract they want but it's not in a company's interest to have a half starved and broke employee. Though with wages paid these day's that probably covers two thirds of the working population

Thats great advice...not, I have been asked for this and yes I gave it to them. Not anymore though, which means your screwed if you are genuine, in much the same way as 'benefit scammers' screw it for genuine cases. Wonder why things are bad all round....right?

Of course yourself and like minded individuals probably don't blame yourselves for the way things are going and justify it easily, poor wee, hard done by souls that you are.
If your genuinely hungry then ask for food, sounds to me like you just want cash, knowing if you asked for money for food then folks would hand you a burger. So you con them instead and leech off decent peoples kindness and generosity. Which will end when they see you asking someone else for the same thing you just gave them, how stupid do you think people are?...oh! thats right....you count on it!

I look forward to buying you a bus ticket, which hopefully is to a far away destination, and I will personally see you off
If you were mugged I will happily call the police and stay with you till assistance arrives

I am a caring citizen who wouldn't see a fellow human being in distress without helping.

Holy crap, I wish I could give some meaningful advice or something to help. All I can say is there's some depressing stories here, and I wish anyone in that situation the best of luck.

No, I don't blame myself. It's not just because I'm not a scam artist myself and, as I stated in my post, I haven't personally pulled this scam (a friend did, actually as a project for Social Studies or something), but also because if it's to eat then it's an acceptable evil since it obeys law 1, "And it harm none, do as thou will". It's necessary to lie only because begging for food money yields no sympathy (the guy's project proved the mugging story yielded the best return: beggars are mostly avoided or told to ---- off). But putting that aside, it's kinda easy to judge people from the safety of a warm house and plenty food and it's easy to kick back and say "Well we should all rely on the system and do things properly and everything will be okay" but there's more than one reason people don't follow the system: it doesn't always work. Sure, there are plenty people out there scamming the system and it's wrong in action, but I happily wager at least some of them have no choice because the system failed them. Sometimes it happens. That aside, too, I just have to get this off my chest here: "Who the ---- do you think you are to judge me?" Immature as that is, I needed to say it. I can't stand it when people judge me. Besides this was supposed to be a thread for giving advice, not slamming other posters or using it as a podium to stand at promulgating your social/political beliefs.
Look, I don't want this to become a debate because we're both speaking from places of ignorance regarding one another's social systems. I'll concede that it's possible that the UK's works so long as procedure is followed but I'm speaking from the perspective of a South African. RSA is not like the UK. Out here it's a shark tank. Oh, it's great fun for tourists and people with money but for the poor, it's hell. You do what you can to survive, lest you end up in a shack you built from corrugated iron, cardboard and refuse bags with bicks on top to stop the roof blowing off. I don't want that. I pay my rent first, before anything else. If I was starving and had no other means, I'd do anything to keep my roof, keep me in food and keep me in medication. So please don't throw your judgement around. I was just tossing around any suggestions I could think of to try and help. If things don't work like that in a "civilised" country, sorry. You can correct someone without coming across as someone with a superiority complex. Clearly your understanding of a situation is heavily outweighed by your own ego which is sad because you're quite an intelligent person and a little more wisdom could really bring out the best in you.

Honestly, do I need to answer that.

PS: OP, I appologise for the thread hijack. It just annoys me when people presumptuously make statements about me (in a condescending manner), especially when it's in a thread like yours where we're all just slinging ideas around to help someone and be constructive.

Your the one came out with the conning for money idea, so where am I being presumptuous, particularly as you still witter on about being right.
I will be straight with you I believe I have as much of an understanding as you do of others difficult lives and don't live in a rose tinted world. You miss the point entirely which is their are others who wouldn't agree with your methods. No matter how bad things got, The OP's friend is just one of those and doesn't live where you do.
I was told outright by a street beggar he was making more per hour than most working folks, you know the very folks he is taking money from are earning less than he does. Don't patronise me about the genuinely needy, they are mostly poor because they wouldn't stoop low enough to conning other people.

Your friends social experiment, if it ever existed, was a complete failure in the sense it merely showed how easy it is to con innocent people. I hope he gave those folks thier money back, I doubt it. My superiority complex may be because I despise being conned and can't stand a thief (yes, that's what it is), as you might find to your cost if you do it to the wrong person. Maybe I am an 'intelligent person' as you say but it's that intelligence that prevents me thinking it's ok to con people, I doubt very much your 'friend' stopped conning once he raised the cost of a sandwich.

Your own assumption that I know nothing of these situations is in fact way off base, I know homeless people and actually spent time with down and outs, I have seen it all in action from the little guy with nothing to the Gypsies who travel round in Merc's, sending the women barefoot to beg for money for the 'starving ' kid she carry's around.


You said something stupid and got called out for it, deal with it and move on.

You say you survived yourself, you also say you never conned anyone, not with your suggested method anyhow. So you obviously know yourself you can get by without being an ass. Even in your supposed 'harsh' world Your full of contradictions.

Ok this thread got really useless really quickly. Sorry Fallout, gonna lock it, and hope that your friend finds a way.