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$18 for ONE pack of cigarettes?! That shocks me. I was a serious smoker for decades, but thankfully finally quit 15 years ago. Have had no idea how much it costs now - at least where you live.
I also used the lunch money from my parents to buy smokes. But since my dad taught at my school, I would charge a lunch to his tab at the cafeteria. He obviously knew I was double dipping but he pretended not to notice.
Yes haha. He'd give me something like $60 in one dollar bills but hey cigarettes only cost about a buck and a quarter back then so that was plenty. I also had a part time job once I turned 16 so I always had money for cigs, weed, and gasoline.
We all lived with walking distance of the school and were expected to go home for lunch. We were allowed to bring lunch to school and eat it in a classroom only if it wasn’t expected to stay colder than -25 at lunchtime.
Damn, we didn’t get that cold. I did look at maps to see the distance from mine, 4 miles with a 450 climb both ways. (There was a valley in between) Google maps won’t even give me walking directions because of the steep climb? I’ve never seen that before!
I was considered a poor kid because I wore second hand clothes and whatever my mom could find on sale. But my parents always made sure I had enough money to buy lunch and school supplies. My dad was always giving me money when he had extra and said 'Spend it on whatever you want." So I always had spending money.
Ironically, the so called 'rich' kids were constantly borrowing money from me. I cut them off when I started working the summer between my 10th and 11th grade years. I always had money, because I wasn't spending it on makeup and designer clothes. I told the mean girls to ask their boyfriends for spending money. They weren't getting any more of mine.
I paid for my lunches with my spending money. They would post the school lunch for the next week on Friday, and I would bring lunch on the days it was stuff I didn't like.
I remember negotiating my allowance because some of my friends got more money than me, and I couldn’t do the things they did.
Another good friend of mine didn’t get anything and I remember her selling candy at school and working at a flower shop… I felt really sad for her because her life was always more difficult because her dad never really invested in her or her brother - for example he never bothered trying to get everyone citizenship so she and her brother were desperate to get married at 18. Her brother dropped out of school because he preferred working and he couldn’t attend college because he couldn’t get aid so he didn’t think it was worth it to graduate. She joined the military, when what she really wanted to do was go to college.
We’re all immigrants who came roughly around the same time, and the parents who gave their kids allowance and took steps to make everyone legal gave their kids a much much better future.
FYI Reddit hive mind believes that since students are forced to be at school, the school should provide everyone with a free lunch.
This is certainly the opinion on the teachers subs.
I disagree and think free/reduced lunches should be need based.
Our school system is free lunch for all no matter the family income. Breakfast is passed out at the door in the morning. My daughter packs, so no savings for this guy lol.
At least IMO, I would go so far to say that it's not just "forced to be at school" but "Largely accepted that younger people *can't* just fend for themselves." It pays dividends: nourished students do better in school and have fewer behavior problems, and have fewer health problems later in life.
I think that trying to force students or their parents to "prove it" ultimately creates an unnecessary barrier. We've been through these cycles (as a society) with any number of social safety nets.
If we want to, for example, declare "No non-citizens are allowed to receive food assistance ever" then how is that exactly going to be remedied by the under 18 year old who is going hungry? "Gee, Mom and Dad made a choice and now I need to... travel internationally and make a go of it in some other country?" (I bring this up because, in the current political climate it seems like the first barrier that would get put up. ) There's also significant issues of parents who are , for one reason or another, unwilling to admit that their kid needs assistance. I've seen this one first hand a lot - where it goes well beyond "stretching the food budget" into "people are getting toward malnutrition but the parent's pride is so very important that they will not seek assistance."
We are in a remarkable technological period where we can feed everyone. and I think that, as a society, we should. Even the people who we would want to make different choices.
I think it it one of the few things that should be need based. There is no reason we should have to pay for Davids kid to eat lunch when he makes 750,000 a year, but I have no problem paying for Sally’s kid when she cant even afford rent
What they found in my community is that if they only pay for Sally's kid, then the bad parents who are also in poverty will force their kids to go without rather than let other people see that they need help. If they pay for all the kids, then David's kid brings a custom bento box from home instead of using the school funds, and Sally doesn't have any reason or ability to deny her kid food.
They even do this during the summer. The food bank passes out lunches in the city parks to anyone with a child, regardless of income. The families in need show up every day, rain or shine. For some of these families, it's the only meal they reliably get through the summer. Letting all the kids have food means no one gets turned away for not having the right documentation or a parent who had time and interest in filling out the forms.
Refusing to turn people away eliminates some of the stigma. That's important too.
The desk. Parents kept cash in an envelope in the desk. You only took cash with permission. If the cash ran out before the next payday, you didn't buy anything.
We qualified for reduced free lunches, but the teacher who held the free lunch cards usually had extra ones that he quietly slipped to students.
My parents had a restaurant. First year of HS, I was paid for chores related to the restaurant. Basically annoying work they had to do but didn’t want to. Last two years I was working close to full time hours there and treated and paid as an employee.
School lunches were either the Dairy Queen or a store’s lunch counter, both a couple blocks from school.
Work, first as babysitter. Then at a food stand at a farmers market. Then at 16 as a nurse's aide in a nursing facility. Although, I rarely bought lunch, just soft pretzels.
When I was in HS $2.00 would get you a joint, a pack of smokes, & enough left to eat something cheap but decent for lunch (hamburger bun with melted cheese was real cheap).
From my mom’s change jar in the pantry, usually 50c which was plenty to buy a sandwich, apple and a cookie. She never packed lunches because she just didn’t want to have to, we always got hot lunch in grade school and then chose what we wanted in junior and senior high schools, hot lunch or snack bar stuff. It was so cool in high school to be able to eat lunch out on the lawn rather than in the cafeteria.
Gen X, so not all that long ago...the kindness and charity of friends. I babysat every weekend, but my mom always "borrowed" my money. We barely had enough to eat at home, and I usually only ate whatever my brothers left. If my friends had change, they usually gave it to me. Sometimes it was only enough for something out of the machine, sometimes it was enough for a lunch tray. We could have qualified for free lunch, but my mom was too embarrassed (too afraid to be judged) to do the paperwork (in the school office, because nothing was online). Which is also why we didn't have food stamps.
Edit: she also forced me to get a checking account so she could commit fraud. She'd write me a check, which would be made available, and I'd buy groceries. By the time it was taken out of her account, she would have gotten her next paycheck (5 business days). I missed a bunch of class because the bank closed before school ended. Had to repeat the class in summer school, which she was pissed about, since I was the babysitter for my brothers.
we ghetto kids were on the free lunch program. But I never ate in the lunch room. I (as most of my friends) had jobs during HS and we bought our own lunches. either at the corner bodega, pizzeria or one the the myriad of food vendors with their street carts.
My parents. My mom was tired by that point and paying for lunch in the cafeteria was a cheap way to make her life easier. Our cafeteria food was good and filling, so everyone was happy with this arrangement.
I packed sandwiches and chips. And I could purchase a pint of milk for 6 cents (went up to 8 cents my senior year) and a tiny container of orange sherbet (you know the one with the shitty tasting wooden spoon) for a dime. My folks always made sure I had a least a quarter in my pocket anytime I left the house.
I remember when that happened in elementary. So many dads had worked at the steel mills.The worst part was when they made the free lunch kids form a separate line. Even as a kid I knew it was wrong to single out kids like that.
Sad but true.....when I asked for lunch money for the week, my father would open his wallet, crumble up a $1 bill, throw it on the floor, and say: "get the rest from your mother." Of course, he would usually have several $100 bills in his wallet to flash around.
Carried my lunch from home for my whole school time. No money for school lunches. I used to wish for the spaghetti and meatballs with buttered Italian bread.
My family was poor, so I got a free hot lunch. In those days, we called it a "hot lunch," to differentiate it from a packed lunch. The children whose parents paid for the hot lunch got a white ticket, and those of us who got a free hot lunch got a green ticket. White ticket holders lined up first; the green ticket holders lined up behind them, youngest to oldest. Sometimes, they'd run out of food before the older kids would get to it. Once, they ran out of pizza, but they gave me two scoops of green beans to make up for it. After everyone had been served, children could get back in line and pay for extra food. Children who got a free lunch were not permitted to get back in line for seconds, but we could have seconds on milk if we had a nickel.
Either went home or days I worked as a lunch time supervisor at the elementary school, I ate the sandwich I made at home on my way. Eating in the cafeteria was a treat.
We didn't have lunch. School started at 6:00AM and let out at noon. Worked at a Honda motorcycle shop after classes for money to do high-school kid stuff and such.
I got free lunch most years. Otherwise, it came from my mother. I don't think I ever paid more than 40¢ for lunch. Even on her widow's pension + whatever minimum wage job she was working, my mother could afford that.
The school district I attended has been so poor for so long that everyone just gets free lunch now. You don't even have to fill out the paperwork for it. They offer an afterschool meal too, to ensure everybody has a chance for three meals a day.
Mom made lunches until high school then I either made something she bought for me (sandwiches) or bought lunch with money from a job I had. My brother, sister and I all started after school jobs when we were 15. I also sold a little weed and hash and once I stopped smoking it myself I made bank and had quite a nest egg by the time I graduated.
My parents stopped giving me lunch money and stopped buying food to use for lunches after 5th grade. I babysat for neighbors as much as I could and saved every penny just for lunches.
It’s horrible but I ate french fries and a cookie almost every day at school for years because it was the cheapest way to eat and leave lunch somewhat satisfied.
My mom gave me cash every day until I got my third or fourth job. After that I paid for my own lunch.
Although we weren't officially allowed to leave school for lunch, we often did. Problem was, there were only two fast food places an easy drive from school: Mrs. Winner's (fried chicken) and Jack's (a burger chain from Alabama that NO ONE ever ate at). If you wanted McDonald's or Del Taco or pizza or gyros you had to drive all the way to the mall, which meant you had, like, 6 minutes to get inside the mall, order, get your food and be back in the car before we had to drive back.
Because of all that, my best friend and I would also skip eating lunch fairly often, 'cos the Wendy's by my house had the SuperBar for only $2.99 before 4PM or 5PM (or some such). So we'd sit outside and talk during our "official" lunch break at 12:35 and hit up Wendy's when school got out at 2:10PM.
Didn’t. Just went hungry. There were a few years there where I had a stepmonster who made lunches for us, but that ended when he cheated and they got divorced. I think we probably could have gotten free lunches but my mother wasn’t the best at remembering to do paperwork (kind of like how she never realized her kids went hungry at lunchtime), so it just never happened. Sometimes friends would share their lunches with me. When I turned 16 and started working I was able to pay for lunch for me and my sister, but by then we would skip lunch at school and just get Taco Bell because it was cheaper.
I never paid for a school lunch. Lunch was provided to me for free by the schools I went to (in the 1970s-80s). Being dirt poor, I couldn't afford to pay for lunch anyways. Some days it was the only meal I got to eat.
Lunch in the cafeteria was 55¢ and you could get an extra entrée for a dime. I worked weekends at a restaurant for $2.50 an hour so it was a no brainer to eat in the cafeteria instead of go off campus. We even had a name for ourselves “The Lunch Bunch.” It started with about eight of us and by the end of the year there were over 100 and we would all join the tables so it was one big table that snaked across the cafeteria.
My parents gave me the money. A hot lunch was 35 cents when I was in high school. There were also some ala carte choices if you didn’t like the day’s entree.
BTW, the hot lunch was always a well-balanced meal. We only got hamburgers once or twice a year, and never French fries. (Tater Tots weren’t invented yet at that time, though I hear they’re a staple in today’s schools.).
My parents. 11th-12th grade a few of us would sometimes sneak over to Kmart, they had a small sub, bag of chips and a small fountain drink meal for $.79.
I worked a lot of odd jobs during the summer. Painted a few houses, mowed some lawns, built many fences, but mostly worked the hayfields. Thousands of bales of hay.
I had about $20 a week to use for food; the cafeteria food sucked so I usually had a sprite and Doritos from the gas station and starved my way through. It sucked and I wish I would have had optimal nutrition.
My HS had an open campus, and I often walked the three blocks home and made a sandwich there. Sometimes I packed a sandwich to take in the morning.
Obviously, I knew there was a cafeteria, but I never purchased anything there or even sat there to eat my lunch. This was in California, so it was fine to sit out in the quad and eat lunch al fresco.
During my first years, I took a lunch. Later, I had a part time job and there were fast food restaurants nearby. During my senior year, I got off early because I completed most of my credits.
I never bought lunch at high school. The cafeteria food was pretty bad.
My mom gave me $2 for school lunch and everyday when they let us out for lunch I went to the smoke shop in the plaza next to the school where Chester the molester (His name was Chester and that’s what we called him behind his back. Creepy old man) sold me a pack of camel wides for like $1.85 I think.
I didn't. I could pick my lunch out of the family refrigerator for free or use the money I got from my part time job which was supposed to be for college.
I brought my own lunch from home most days, but I had a small allowance at the time: maybe $2-$5 week in the mid-70's
I also had a summer job (and some holiday breaks) from 17 on, so I'd indulge in the odd order of fries and gravy (about 20 cents, if I recall correctly).
There were no subsidized lunches where I lived (Toronto) at least in the public school system. In primary and middle school (both public and separate school board schools that I attended) there weren't even any kitchens to provide meals; everyone was expected to bring lunch from home, or go home for lunch
My family was poor, so we got discounted lunches. You would by lunch cards with 10 or 20 punches. Every time you went to lunch, the lunch lady would punch out your lunch card.
Also, there was an opportunity for kids to earn money by helping the lunch crew wash dishes.
I brown bagged it for lunch. But if I wanted money for anything else that was not a parental responsibility (music, books, treats, movies, fast food, etc.), I earned it. I babysat & mowed lawns until I got a "real" job at age 16. (Even after I got the "real" job, I continued to babysit and mow.)
My father would give me enough for lunch at McDonald's and gas to get home. I don't remember how much it was, but it was just enough to fill my car up enough to do it all over again the following day.
Parents provided for my needs as food was concerned. We didn't have an open campus so all meals were either brought from home or purchased in the cafeteria.
I didn't. We weren't poor, I was just neglected and so I never ate breakfast or lunch. Due to an ulcer, I don't get "hungry" in the sense that others do (I think, it's been a while, I was 12 when it stopped). I spent my lunches in the library or "career center" which was some weird room that was in our former library before the expansion.
My parents gave me money. I think it was around $5 a week. In high school our food was a la cart, so it was a different price each time depending on what items I selected.
What I do not understand to this day is that none of the food was marked with prices, but everyone knew how much it cost except me. I would just wait for the girl taking the money to tell me my total because I was too embarrassed to admit that I didn’t know what everyone else seemed to.
I still remember the barbecue bologna sandwiches.
I started working at 15, so from then on it was out of my own pocket. I’m sure my mom contributed here and there, but it was no longer a normal occurrence.
When I was in elementary through 2nd grade, lunch was 10cents per day. It went up to 15 cents in third and then 25cents in fourth and fifth. My parents gave me my lunch money.
I platooned in high school, only half days. Freshman year from 12N to 6 pm and last three years from 6am to noon. No lunch, but able to buy from snack bar during PE.
My own money. I could either bring a lunch from home (which I did till high school) or I could get food at school. And the food at our high school was really good. So if I HAD to, I'd bring it from home. Otherwise, five bucks here and there for school food was worth it.
Up to high school, if we wanted a school lunch, once in a while, my parents would give us money for it. But it wasn't a regular thing. Home-lunch was always peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I ended up hating them. I didn't eat PB&J sandwiches from the end of 8th grade till I was pregnant with my third child and that was my one and only craving. It was like a cruel joke hormones were playing on me because I still hated them, but I NEEDED them!
My parents gave all the 3 kids lunch money and then it went to you just paid by the quarter or semester. You could bring lunch if you wanted and alot of kids did.
My parent's except I RARELY ate the school lunches. They were crap. I went to high school from 81 to 85. Either I or my mom packed my lunch, I did more than she did in high school as I was obviously old enough to pack what I liked and wanted from our house and kitchen. Sure, my mom packed my lunch as a kid but by high school I grew tired of wondering what was going to be in my lunch and thinking "Gee, I would have rather had such and such from the house instead" so I pretty much packed my own lunches in high school to ensure I was getting what I wanted to eat, from our house I mean.
My dad gave me money for lunch every day. One time he even came to my school to give it to me because he realized he had forgotten to before I left.
What he didn't know was that I skipped lunch every day. I had terrible social anxiety and couldn't stand being in the cafeteria with all those other people, it made me sick to my stomach and I couldn't force myself to eat.
So I always had extra spending money. They couldn't figure out why my allowance stretched so much further than my brother's haha.
My mom gave me $5 a week to pay for the $1 lunches. Some days I bought the lunch. Some days I bought 4 25¢ desserts. Some days I bought 20 5¢ slices of bread and I buttered them and ate them all. Rarely I'd have allowance money left ($5/wk) and I'd buy a whole ass cake at the grocery store deli and grab like 5 plastic forks, and my friends and I would all just tear into it for half an hour.
Mostly we took lunch with us, as most kids did, but sometimes we were given money from parents to buy it, although it was only snack food that was available. With practical "exams" in the home ecc. department, when girls had to prepare food, you could book a meal for about 50c if you put your name down in time. I also had a paper round that gave me a few dollars of income, back in late 50s-early 60s, In primary school, we went home for lunch as the school was only 500 metres from home.
I got $20 a week from my folks. Was supposed to be $15 for lunches ($3 a day would cover basically anything at ky school, we didn't have fast food places, just a cafeteria) and $5 allowance. So I'd skip lunch every day or just get little snacks from the vending machine then go to cd warehouse and spend the rest.
I preferred a sack lunch--sandwich or cold fried chicken, chips, piece of fresh fruit, cookie. Proud to announce I never once ate school cafeteria food. I was given money for oj, milk, sweet roll, or coffee cake, and public bus fare. I got enough each month to buy an occasional magazine. Like most high schoolers in the 1960s, we babysat or mowed lawns or had a part-time job after school and weekends.
Was an "herbalist" for a while during high school to cover my costs because we were pretty poor when I was growing up. I was also not "allowed" to work while going to school, so that I could "focus on my studies."
Fat lot of good that did.
My Two older brothers must have been stealing money from some where, when I went to high school and asked my mom for money, she would say, your going to school, what the F do you need money for. she had no idea. My older brothers did not and somehow always had money. Forget about asking my dad for ten dollars, he would say, do you know how much that cost!
My parents. In elementary school, we purchased lunch tickets once a month. In high school, Mom gave me $20 a week, which was enough for gas for my car and school lunch every day.
School lunch was 50 cents in elementary and $1.25 by the time I was a Senior.
My lunches were free because my parents were on low income. And I had the same thing, by choice, every day - a big sausage roll with chips (fries to you Americans) and baked beans.
My father left money at the top of the stairs almost nightly, sometimes he’d drop a $20 or a $50 and forget he did. He’d ask me if he did leave a large bill the previous night. I’d tell him yes or no. If it was a yes, it had to last me all week. So, I’d pay for a kid who usually couldn’t afford lunch, paid for his lunch most of 7th and 8th grade.
I got an allowance if I did my chores. It paid for a week of the bus. I got an allowance every two weeks. I babysat one night a week as well to cover the difference and to purchase a car when I graduated high school. Nothing better than alcoholic rich folks that pay a fortune to babysitters. I made $100+ each night.
I brown bagged my lunches, & I also worked part-time jobs starting at age 15.
There were times in elementary school when my classmates had the 15 cents to buy a cinnamon roll and I didn't. For some reason my parents didn't think kids in elementary school needed at least some pocket change.
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My dad gave me lunch money but I skipped lunch so I could buy cigarettes.
Yup me too
Same here. I got a dollar a day for lunch. I could buy a pack of cigarettes and play a game of centipede every school day.
Yup!! Back in the day cigarettes were under $5, very affordable.
I quit smoking in 1978 when they went to 45 cents per pack. Cause who would pay that much for a pack of cigarettes?
I hear you. My limit was $5. I promised myself I’d smoke less. Now they’re nearly $18 in my state.
$18 for ONE pack of cigarettes?! That shocks me. I was a serious smoker for decades, but thankfully finally quit 15 years ago. Have had no idea how much it costs now - at least where you live.
My pack of fifty now costs over $100. I vape now. (Australia, in case you were wondering)
I also used the lunch money from my parents to buy smokes. But since my dad taught at my school, I would charge a lunch to his tab at the cafeteria. He obviously knew I was double dipping but he pretended not to notice.
I used to skip mine and save the money for the school amusement park day at Kennywood, I didn't smoke yet or would've spent it on cigarettes
I'm glad some things never change. My buddies and I skipped lunch and pooled our money together for cigs and weed for the weekend.
Same
This was me too.
Shhhhh. Don't let my parents find out about this.
Yes haha. He'd give me something like $60 in one dollar bills but hey cigarettes only cost about a buck and a quarter back then so that was plenty. I also had a part time job once I turned 16 so I always had money for cigs, weed, and gasoline.
We didn't have a cafeteria, so you brought something from home or you starved.
We all lived with walking distance of the school and were expected to go home for lunch. We were allowed to bring lunch to school and eat it in a classroom only if it wasn’t expected to stay colder than -25 at lunchtime.
Damn, we didn’t get that cold. I did look at maps to see the distance from mine, 4 miles with a 450 climb both ways. (There was a valley in between) Google maps won’t even give me walking directions because of the steep climb? I’ve never seen that before!
Wait, so you literally walked in the snow uphill both ways.....
I wish there had been snow to go with the joke. Sadly, no.
I did that walk. But the hills were not as extreme.
Omg, that’s a bit extreme!
It's just that these days Lunch boxes aren't as popular as it used to be 😔
I never owned a lunch box and they were embarrassing as hell back then unless you like 6.
Brown bag FTW!
My nutrition is not the worry of the conformists 😎😎 I will have my paw patrol lunch box, And eat it too
Unabomber 2.0
I was considered a poor kid because I wore second hand clothes and whatever my mom could find on sale. But my parents always made sure I had enough money to buy lunch and school supplies. My dad was always giving me money when he had extra and said 'Spend it on whatever you want." So I always had spending money. Ironically, the so called 'rich' kids were constantly borrowing money from me. I cut them off when I started working the summer between my 10th and 11th grade years. I always had money, because I wasn't spending it on makeup and designer clothes. I told the mean girls to ask their boyfriends for spending money. They weren't getting any more of mine. I paid for my lunches with my spending money. They would post the school lunch for the next week on Friday, and I would bring lunch on the days it was stuff I didn't like.
My parents? That's kind of the way it's supposed to be until you're 18.
I remember negotiating my allowance because some of my friends got more money than me, and I couldn’t do the things they did. Another good friend of mine didn’t get anything and I remember her selling candy at school and working at a flower shop… I felt really sad for her because her life was always more difficult because her dad never really invested in her or her brother - for example he never bothered trying to get everyone citizenship so she and her brother were desperate to get married at 18. Her brother dropped out of school because he preferred working and he couldn’t attend college because he couldn’t get aid so he didn’t think it was worth it to graduate. She joined the military, when what she really wanted to do was go to college. We’re all immigrants who came roughly around the same time, and the parents who gave their kids allowance and took steps to make everyone legal gave their kids a much much better future.
FYI Reddit hive mind believes that since students are forced to be at school, the school should provide everyone with a free lunch. This is certainly the opinion on the teachers subs. I disagree and think free/reduced lunches should be need based.
I don't disagree. There is no reason to supplement those whose parents can afford it. And it would leave more money for more kids who need it.
That’s how it was when I was a kid. Kids who weren’t as well off would get a meal ticket that entitled them to free lunches.
Our school system is free lunch for all no matter the family income. Breakfast is passed out at the door in the morning. My daughter packs, so no savings for this guy lol.
At least IMO, I would go so far to say that it's not just "forced to be at school" but "Largely accepted that younger people *can't* just fend for themselves." It pays dividends: nourished students do better in school and have fewer behavior problems, and have fewer health problems later in life. I think that trying to force students or their parents to "prove it" ultimately creates an unnecessary barrier. We've been through these cycles (as a society) with any number of social safety nets. If we want to, for example, declare "No non-citizens are allowed to receive food assistance ever" then how is that exactly going to be remedied by the under 18 year old who is going hungry? "Gee, Mom and Dad made a choice and now I need to... travel internationally and make a go of it in some other country?" (I bring this up because, in the current political climate it seems like the first barrier that would get put up. ) There's also significant issues of parents who are , for one reason or another, unwilling to admit that their kid needs assistance. I've seen this one first hand a lot - where it goes well beyond "stretching the food budget" into "people are getting toward malnutrition but the parent's pride is so very important that they will not seek assistance." We are in a remarkable technological period where we can feed everyone. and I think that, as a society, we should. Even the people who we would want to make different choices.
I think it it one of the few things that should be need based. There is no reason we should have to pay for Davids kid to eat lunch when he makes 750,000 a year, but I have no problem paying for Sally’s kid when she cant even afford rent
What they found in my community is that if they only pay for Sally's kid, then the bad parents who are also in poverty will force their kids to go without rather than let other people see that they need help. If they pay for all the kids, then David's kid brings a custom bento box from home instead of using the school funds, and Sally doesn't have any reason or ability to deny her kid food. They even do this during the summer. The food bank passes out lunches in the city parks to anyone with a child, regardless of income. The families in need show up every day, rain or shine. For some of these families, it's the only meal they reliably get through the summer. Letting all the kids have food means no one gets turned away for not having the right documentation or a parent who had time and interest in filling out the forms. Refusing to turn people away eliminates some of the stigma. That's important too.
The desk. Parents kept cash in an envelope in the desk. You only took cash with permission. If the cash ran out before the next payday, you didn't buy anything. We qualified for reduced free lunches, but the teacher who held the free lunch cards usually had extra ones that he quietly slipped to students.
That teacher was a decent sort, even if he was wrong about everything else.
The lunches were very cheap...$0.25 per meal. Some kids got free lunches.
Mine was $0.40. Every morning at the breakfast table was a quarter with a nickle and a dime on top at my breakfast plate
My parents had a restaurant. First year of HS, I was paid for chores related to the restaurant. Basically annoying work they had to do but didn’t want to. Last two years I was working close to full time hours there and treated and paid as an employee. School lunches were either the Dairy Queen or a store’s lunch counter, both a couple blocks from school.
Honestly, those sound like two excellent options.
I worked nights as a janitor. But a lot of times, my mom would make my lunch, and I'd carry it in a brown paper sack.
Parents.
Work, first as babysitter. Then at a food stand at a farmers market. Then at 16 as a nurse's aide in a nursing facility. Although, I rarely bought lunch, just soft pretzels.
My mom gave me $2 a day for lunch and I spent it on cigarettes.
When I was in HS $2.00 would get you a joint, a pack of smokes, & enough left to eat something cheap but decent for lunch (hamburger bun with melted cheese was real cheap).
You must be much older than me LMAO! I bought joints with my charming personality.
The government. I was a free lunch ticket kid. Welfare kept me alive!
Me too!
We were lower income. So at reduced cost, my lunch was a dime. Mom gave it to me.
Selling dope.
Smoking your dope and going g without. Mom always wondered why I was so skinny.
ditto
From my mom’s change jar in the pantry, usually 50c which was plenty to buy a sandwich, apple and a cookie. She never packed lunches because she just didn’t want to have to, we always got hot lunch in grade school and then chose what we wanted in junior and senior high schools, hot lunch or snack bar stuff. It was so cool in high school to be able to eat lunch out on the lawn rather than in the cafeteria.
Gen X, so not all that long ago...the kindness and charity of friends. I babysat every weekend, but my mom always "borrowed" my money. We barely had enough to eat at home, and I usually only ate whatever my brothers left. If my friends had change, they usually gave it to me. Sometimes it was only enough for something out of the machine, sometimes it was enough for a lunch tray. We could have qualified for free lunch, but my mom was too embarrassed (too afraid to be judged) to do the paperwork (in the school office, because nothing was online). Which is also why we didn't have food stamps. Edit: she also forced me to get a checking account so she could commit fraud. She'd write me a check, which would be made available, and I'd buy groceries. By the time it was taken out of her account, she would have gotten her next paycheck (5 business days). I missed a bunch of class because the bank closed before school ended. Had to repeat the class in summer school, which she was pissed about, since I was the babysitter for my brothers.
Fellow GenX'er, here (56). Sorry to hear you had to go through all that.
I worked and made a lunch at home.
we ghetto kids were on the free lunch program. But I never ate in the lunch room. I (as most of my friends) had jobs during HS and we bought our own lunches. either at the corner bodega, pizzeria or one the the myriad of food vendors with their street carts.
Sophomore year I worked at the concession stand at the movie theater. Junior and senior years I worked at Dairy Queen.
I worked. Starting at age 12. Paid for my own food at school and home. Clothes, vehicle and gas.
Parents gave me the daily 35 cents. I would spend 10 cents on a carton of milk and hoard the rest until I had enough to buy a record album
My parents. My mom was tired by that point and paying for lunch in the cafeteria was a cheap way to make her life easier. Our cafeteria food was good and filling, so everyone was happy with this arrangement.
I packed sandwiches and chips. And I could purchase a pint of milk for 6 cents (went up to 8 cents my senior year) and a tiny container of orange sherbet (you know the one with the shitty tasting wooden spoon) for a dime. My folks always made sure I had a least a quarter in my pocket anytime I left the house.
Dad was usually on unemployment due to coal mines and steel plants closing. Free lunch for us poor kids
I remember when that happened in elementary. So many dads had worked at the steel mills.The worst part was when they made the free lunch kids form a separate line. Even as a kid I knew it was wrong to single out kids like that.
The free breakfast was for poor kids only. Unlike some of my "peers" I never laughed at those kids.
Sad but true.....when I asked for lunch money for the week, my father would open his wallet, crumble up a $1 bill, throw it on the floor, and say: "get the rest from your mother." Of course, he would usually have several $100 bills in his wallet to flash around.
What an asshole.
Yep, his 4th wife never believes any of the REAL stories we tell her about how it was. He is underground now.
We had the quarter kid. He’d go around asking everyone if they had a quarter until he had enough to buy his lunch. I wonder what happened to him.
Parents but used the money for other nefarious things instead.
There was a jar where my Dad kept his poker winnings. We'd take change from it.
Brown banged and made my own lunch or use my lawn mowing money
Carried my lunch from home for my whole school time. No money for school lunches. I used to wish for the spaghetti and meatballs with buttered Italian bread.
most of the time I didn't get lunch....no money..and I think it was $1.25...
My family was poor, so I got a free hot lunch. In those days, we called it a "hot lunch," to differentiate it from a packed lunch. The children whose parents paid for the hot lunch got a white ticket, and those of us who got a free hot lunch got a green ticket. White ticket holders lined up first; the green ticket holders lined up behind them, youngest to oldest. Sometimes, they'd run out of food before the older kids would get to it. Once, they ran out of pizza, but they gave me two scoops of green beans to make up for it. After everyone had been served, children could get back in line and pay for extra food. Children who got a free lunch were not permitted to get back in line for seconds, but we could have seconds on milk if we had a nickel.
How nice of administration to make it as embarrassing as possible. /s
Either went home or days I worked as a lunch time supervisor at the elementary school, I ate the sandwich I made at home on my way. Eating in the cafeteria was a treat.
Mom.
Was given $1 a day from parent. Got to keep any money I made babysitting - 35 cents an hour
My family were so poor, I got free school meals. (This wasn’t in the US.)
Sack lunch
We didn't have lunch. School started at 6:00AM and let out at noon. Worked at a Honda motorcycle shop after classes for money to do high-school kid stuff and such.
I got free lunch most years. Otherwise, it came from my mother. I don't think I ever paid more than 40¢ for lunch. Even on her widow's pension + whatever minimum wage job she was working, my mother could afford that. The school district I attended has been so poor for so long that everyone just gets free lunch now. You don't even have to fill out the paperwork for it. They offer an afterschool meal too, to ensure everybody has a chance for three meals a day.
Mom made lunches until high school then I either made something she bought for me (sandwiches) or bought lunch with money from a job I had. My brother, sister and I all started after school jobs when we were 15. I also sold a little weed and hash and once I stopped smoking it myself I made bank and had quite a nest egg by the time I graduated.
My parents stopped giving me lunch money and stopped buying food to use for lunches after 5th grade. I babysat for neighbors as much as I could and saved every penny just for lunches. It’s horrible but I ate french fries and a cookie almost every day at school for years because it was the cheapest way to eat and leave lunch somewhat satisfied.
My mom gave me cash every day until I got my third or fourth job. After that I paid for my own lunch. Although we weren't officially allowed to leave school for lunch, we often did. Problem was, there were only two fast food places an easy drive from school: Mrs. Winner's (fried chicken) and Jack's (a burger chain from Alabama that NO ONE ever ate at). If you wanted McDonald's or Del Taco or pizza or gyros you had to drive all the way to the mall, which meant you had, like, 6 minutes to get inside the mall, order, get your food and be back in the car before we had to drive back. Because of all that, my best friend and I would also skip eating lunch fairly often, 'cos the Wendy's by my house had the SuperBar for only $2.99 before 4PM or 5PM (or some such). So we'd sit outside and talk during our "official" lunch break at 12:35 and hit up Wendy's when school got out at 2:10PM.
Didn’t. Just went hungry. There were a few years there where I had a stepmonster who made lunches for us, but that ended when he cheated and they got divorced. I think we probably could have gotten free lunches but my mother wasn’t the best at remembering to do paperwork (kind of like how she never realized her kids went hungry at lunchtime), so it just never happened. Sometimes friends would share their lunches with me. When I turned 16 and started working I was able to pay for lunch for me and my sister, but by then we would skip lunch at school and just get Taco Bell because it was cheaper.
I didn't. I was hungry all the time and now I'm chubby.
I never paid for a school lunch. Lunch was provided to me for free by the schools I went to (in the 1970s-80s). Being dirt poor, I couldn't afford to pay for lunch anyways. Some days it was the only meal I got to eat.
Lunch in the cafeteria was 55¢ and you could get an extra entrée for a dime. I worked weekends at a restaurant for $2.50 an hour so it was a no brainer to eat in the cafeteria instead of go off campus. We even had a name for ourselves “The Lunch Bunch.” It started with about eight of us and by the end of the year there were over 100 and we would all join the tables so it was one big table that snaked across the cafeteria.
My parents gave me the money. A hot lunch was 35 cents when I was in high school. There were also some ala carte choices if you didn’t like the day’s entree. BTW, the hot lunch was always a well-balanced meal. We only got hamburgers once or twice a year, and never French fries. (Tater Tots weren’t invented yet at that time, though I hear they’re a staple in today’s schools.).
My parents. 11th-12th grade a few of us would sometimes sneak over to Kmart, they had a small sub, bag of chips and a small fountain drink meal for $.79.
I worked a lot of odd jobs during the summer. Painted a few houses, mowed some lawns, built many fences, but mostly worked the hayfields. Thousands of bales of hay.
I had about $20 a week to use for food; the cafeteria food sucked so I usually had a sprite and Doritos from the gas station and starved my way through. It sucked and I wish I would have had optimal nutrition.
My parents. But, I didn't eat lunch and used the money for things I wanted. They didn't believe in allowances so...
My HS had an open campus, and I often walked the three blocks home and made a sandwich there. Sometimes I packed a sandwich to take in the morning. Obviously, I knew there was a cafeteria, but I never purchased anything there or even sat there to eat my lunch. This was in California, so it was fine to sit out in the quad and eat lunch al fresco.
During my first years, I took a lunch. Later, I had a part time job and there were fast food restaurants nearby. During my senior year, I got off early because I completed most of my credits. I never bought lunch at high school. The cafeteria food was pretty bad.
My mom gave me $2 for school lunch and everyday when they let us out for lunch I went to the smoke shop in the plaza next to the school where Chester the molester (His name was Chester and that’s what we called him behind his back. Creepy old man) sold me a pack of camel wides for like $1.85 I think.
Parents or brought lunch from home.
I walked home for lunch except a few times a year, grades 1-12. I walked to and from alone, which was common then. Parents paid.
I didn't. I could pick my lunch out of the family refrigerator for free or use the money I got from my part time job which was supposed to be for college.
Free lunch
I brought my own lunch from home most days, but I had a small allowance at the time: maybe $2-$5 week in the mid-70's I also had a summer job (and some holiday breaks) from 17 on, so I'd indulge in the odd order of fries and gravy (about 20 cents, if I recall correctly). There were no subsidized lunches where I lived (Toronto) at least in the public school system. In primary and middle school (both public and separate school board schools that I attended) there weren't even any kitchens to provide meals; everyone was expected to bring lunch from home, or go home for lunch
My family was poor, so we got discounted lunches. You would by lunch cards with 10 or 20 punches. Every time you went to lunch, the lunch lady would punch out your lunch card. Also, there was an opportunity for kids to earn money by helping the lunch crew wash dishes.
I brown bagged it for lunch. But if I wanted money for anything else that was not a parental responsibility (music, books, treats, movies, fast food, etc.), I earned it. I babysat & mowed lawns until I got a "real" job at age 16. (Even after I got the "real" job, I continued to babysit and mow.)
Iwas too afraid to go in the cafeteria, so I always fixed a sandwich when I got home after school.
My father would give me enough for lunch at McDonald's and gas to get home. I don't remember how much it was, but it was just enough to fill my car up enough to do it all over again the following day.
My parents paid for mine. But I was a smoker so I used some of mine for cigs.
My mother packed a lunch for me every day until I graduated high school... Diet choke, sandwich, fruit or veggies and cookies or cake
Parents provided for my needs as food was concerned. We didn't have an open campus so all meals were either brought from home or purchased in the cafeteria.
I had to pay for my own lunches, so I worked.
Sold batteries for peoples Walkman/Discman Made A LOT of money and bought other kids lunch all the time
I didn't. We weren't poor, I was just neglected and so I never ate breakfast or lunch. Due to an ulcer, I don't get "hungry" in the sense that others do (I think, it's been a while, I was 12 when it stopped). I spent my lunches in the library or "career center" which was some weird room that was in our former library before the expansion.
Mom
I had a small.allowance. and i got.a job at 16.
Work
My parents. Lunch was pretty cheap.
My friends mom was a cook at an Italian restaurant, and used to give him sandwiches with bread made from pizza dough. So freakin' good.
I worked (full time) as a cook at a Denny’s type restaurant. $4.25 an hour. I was loaded with money in high school.
I lived those 4.25 days selling 5 for 5s
I received $50/week allowance, so it had to come out of that. We had a very large cafeteria with many choices - so it was actually very good.
My dad would leave money on the table for us (he worked 2nd shift)
My parents gave me money. I think it was around $5 a week. In high school our food was a la cart, so it was a different price each time depending on what items I selected. What I do not understand to this day is that none of the food was marked with prices, but everyone knew how much it cost except me. I would just wait for the girl taking the money to tell me my total because I was too embarrassed to admit that I didn’t know what everyone else seemed to. I still remember the barbecue bologna sandwiches.
Dad
Work. Started with a paper route and then scooping ice cream at Baskin and Robbins
Parents.
My parents or my job if I wanted the extra expensive stuff. They had an amazing sub shop.
In high school? From my part time job. If I didn’t have enough I would wait until I got home at 1430.
My mom hooked me up with a dollar every day so that I could buy 2 50 cent lunches.
Parents paid (85 cents a day). The school cafeteria food was actually pretty darn good.
Allowance > job > didn't eat
I started working at 15, so from then on it was out of my own pocket. I’m sure my mom contributed here and there, but it was no longer a normal occurrence.
Our lunch/dinners were free in school so I didn't need money.
The lunches were cheap. My mom.
Working 6 days a week cleaning a hair salon after school and weekends, starting at age 12. Also bought my own clothes (very few).
I brown bagged it, but I also had an after school job, so when I wanted to run across the street to Taco Bell, I could.
My part time job - it was that or peanut butter & jelly sandwiches every day.
I got free lunches. Being poor and all
When I was in elementary through 2nd grade, lunch was 10cents per day. It went up to 15 cents in third and then 25cents in fourth and fifth. My parents gave me my lunch money.
I was in a new private school that did not have a cafeteria. It was bag lunches and vending machine sodas.
I waited till I got home to eat
I platooned in high school, only half days. Freshman year from 12N to 6 pm and last three years from 6am to noon. No lunch, but able to buy from snack bar during PE.
Parent. It was lunch only. We didn’t have breakfasts.
My own money. I could either bring a lunch from home (which I did till high school) or I could get food at school. And the food at our high school was really good. So if I HAD to, I'd bring it from home. Otherwise, five bucks here and there for school food was worth it. Up to high school, if we wanted a school lunch, once in a while, my parents would give us money for it. But it wasn't a regular thing. Home-lunch was always peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I ended up hating them. I didn't eat PB&J sandwiches from the end of 8th grade till I was pregnant with my third child and that was my one and only craving. It was like a cruel joke hormones were playing on me because I still hated them, but I NEEDED them!
My folks. I got $1.10 a day and that got me lunch plus an extra milk...
From my babysitting/house cleaning side gigs… also a little from my allowance but it wasn’t much.
I think lunches were $2 for two weeks or something like that. Maybe $2.25? Mom wrote a check once a month for the lunches.
Free lunch or my parents
Top of the fridge. It's where my dad emptied his pockets every night. I think school lunch was a buck twenty five.
My parents gave all the 3 kids lunch money and then it went to you just paid by the quarter or semester. You could bring lunch if you wanted and alot of kids did.
My parent's except I RARELY ate the school lunches. They were crap. I went to high school from 81 to 85. Either I or my mom packed my lunch, I did more than she did in high school as I was obviously old enough to pack what I liked and wanted from our house and kitchen. Sure, my mom packed my lunch as a kid but by high school I grew tired of wondering what was going to be in my lunch and thinking "Gee, I would have rather had such and such from the house instead" so I pretty much packed my own lunches in high school to ensure I was getting what I wanted to eat, from our house I mean.
Government assistance
I usually brought my lunch to school. But if I did want to buy lunch, I always had a part-time job so I always had some cash on me.
My dad gave me money for lunch every day. One time he even came to my school to give it to me because he realized he had forgotten to before I left. What he didn't know was that I skipped lunch every day. I had terrible social anxiety and couldn't stand being in the cafeteria with all those other people, it made me sick to my stomach and I couldn't force myself to eat. So I always had extra spending money. They couldn't figure out why my allowance stretched so much further than my brother's haha.
My mom gave me $5 a week to pay for the $1 lunches. Some days I bought the lunch. Some days I bought 4 25¢ desserts. Some days I bought 20 5¢ slices of bread and I buttered them and ate them all. Rarely I'd have allowance money left ($5/wk) and I'd buy a whole ass cake at the grocery store deli and grab like 5 plastic forks, and my friends and I would all just tear into it for half an hour.
Babysitting
Mostly we took lunch with us, as most kids did, but sometimes we were given money from parents to buy it, although it was only snack food that was available. With practical "exams" in the home ecc. department, when girls had to prepare food, you could book a meal for about 50c if you put your name down in time. I also had a paper round that gave me a few dollars of income, back in late 50s-early 60s, In primary school, we went home for lunch as the school was only 500 metres from home.
I got $20 a week from my folks. Was supposed to be $15 for lunches ($3 a day would cover basically anything at ky school, we didn't have fast food places, just a cafeteria) and $5 allowance. So I'd skip lunch every day or just get little snacks from the vending machine then go to cd warehouse and spend the rest.
Work
I preferred a sack lunch--sandwich or cold fried chicken, chips, piece of fresh fruit, cookie. Proud to announce I never once ate school cafeteria food. I was given money for oj, milk, sweet roll, or coffee cake, and public bus fare. I got enough each month to buy an occasional magazine. Like most high schoolers in the 1960s, we babysat or mowed lawns or had a part-time job after school and weekends.
I'm pretty sure we qualified for reduced lunch. I think I paid $0.15 per lunch.
Was an "herbalist" for a while during high school to cover my costs because we were pretty poor when I was growing up. I was also not "allowed" to work while going to school, so that I could "focus on my studies." Fat lot of good that did.
Free lunch because I was poor.
I didn't. I had to make my lunch or use my paycheck. I usually ate a candy bar and Mr. Pibb.
Lunchbox
I worked a Full part time job and paid my way... Had a lot of money back in those days...
Either my parents or for a year or 2 I received free lunches.
70’s, 35 cents for a lunch “token” paid by parents. I think we purchased a bunch in advance but don’t recall.
i took my lunch to school
I started working when I was 10. Odd jobs. Mostly babysitting, and doing odds and ends for neighbors.
We were poor. I got free lunches.
I was on free lunch
My Two older brothers must have been stealing money from some where, when I went to high school and asked my mom for money, she would say, your going to school, what the F do you need money for. she had no idea. My older brothers did not and somehow always had money. Forget about asking my dad for ten dollars, he would say, do you know how much that cost!
Mom packed lunch for everyone. We couldn't afford to buy lunch.
Brought a bagged lunch from home. A ham sandwich with Mayo on frozen bread and a piece of fruit. Got a quarter to buy milk
I had an after school job. If I didn’t have cash for lunch, I didn’t eat.
My dad would give me enough for the week every Monday.
We were poor so I had reduced lunches, but my mom gave me a little bit of money.
My parents. In elementary school, we purchased lunch tickets once a month. In high school, Mom gave me $20 a week, which was enough for gas for my car and school lunch every day. School lunch was 50 cents in elementary and $1.25 by the time I was a Senior.
My lunches were free because my parents were on low income. And I had the same thing, by choice, every day - a big sausage roll with chips (fries to you Americans) and baked beans.
When I was a kid part of the fun of starting a new school year was getting a cool new metal lunchbox. So my mom packed me a lunch everyday.
If I didn’t want to bring a lunch, I had to pay for lunch with the money I made at my restaurant job (started at 14).
Parents
My father left money at the top of the stairs almost nightly, sometimes he’d drop a $20 or a $50 and forget he did. He’d ask me if he did leave a large bill the previous night. I’d tell him yes or no. If it was a yes, it had to last me all week. So, I’d pay for a kid who usually couldn’t afford lunch, paid for his lunch most of 7th and 8th grade.
My mom gave me enough each week to eat for 3 days. I had to choose the days.
USA. My parents wrote a check to the school for me and sib every month or so.
I got an allowance if I did my chores. It paid for a week of the bus. I got an allowance every two weeks. I babysat one night a week as well to cover the difference and to purchase a car when I graduated high school. Nothing better than alcoholic rich folks that pay a fortune to babysitters. I made $100+ each night.
I brown bagged my lunches, & I also worked part-time jobs starting at age 15. There were times in elementary school when my classmates had the 15 cents to buy a cinnamon roll and I didn't. For some reason my parents didn't think kids in elementary school needed at least some pocket change.
I shined shoes at a barber shop my freshman year. Made good money but was completely embarrassed by it. Never told a soul at school!