Someone totaling your car in a collision is a stroke of good luck.
You know five different recipes for tuna casserole.
You know which days are sale days at the thrift store.
You’ve been inside a dumpster… more than once.
Your mattress is older than you.
You own something repaired with cardboard, something repaired with duct tape, AND something repaired with JB Weld.
You wear a hat to bed in the winter.
You’ve peeled sheets of ice off the inside of your bedroom window.
You know as many euphemisms for not having money as you do for using the restroom.
You’ve taken parts out of one of your cars to keep the other running, and vice versa.
You’ve collected cans for the deposit to buy food.
You’ve convinced a grocery store clerk to pay you to collect carts from your neighborhood.
You’re too poor to have a cat.
You’ve eaten food that fell on the floor, because that was your option.
You hide food so your roommates won’t steal it.
You’ve walked more than three miles to save $1.50 in bus fare.
You’ve been panhandled by someone wearing better clothes and shoes than yours.
You realize you’re darning the same pair of socks for the third time.
You’re excited to get new socks and underwear for Christmas.
You’ve worn hand-me-down underpants.
You know multiple methods for using the last of the toothpaste.
You’ve gone to bed early because there was nothing to eat for dinner.
You ask if you can come in and work over the holiday weekend (and they say no).
You have more than five side hustles.
You’ve improvised a Band-Aid substitute because the real thing was too expensive.
You’re on a road trip, the car runs out of gas, and between five adults you can’t fill the tank.
You have to ask the neighbor to borrow some bowls when the roof leaks and you run out of containers.
You’ve eaten meals out of empty butter tubs.
You see a ceramic crock of butter for $10 at Whole Foods and laugh until you cry.
You’ve eaten breakfast cereal with water instead of milk.
You’ve had to pull things off the conveyor belt at the grocery store check stand.
You have literally worked for food.
You know the distinction between food stamps and WIC.
You’re talking to a friend and a social worker interrupts to hand you a pamphlet for the homeless shelter.
You have a system for sleeping in your car.
You get followed by store security.
You have a medical bill go to collections, and it’s under $40.
Your rent is more than fifty percent of your income, and that’s just your third.
You had to sell some possessions to pay for your marriage license.
Your friends have to stage an intervention to get you to go to the doctor because you were coughing up blood.
Disclaimer: Technically three items on this list didn’t happen directly to me, only to someone in my immediate family.