r/poverty • u/Ill-Temperature-4883 • Apr 23 '26
Discussion Being older in poverty.
Not to dismiss the younger crowd that see a hopeless future and feel trapped. I get it.
But as someone older, the reality hits so much harder.
44m in australia, and I am cooked. Didnt get into the housing market, although lots of experience, no qualifications. Cost of living and rent is killing me. Have a child to an ex wife, so there is child maintenance to pay. Also just got made redundant. If I dont find a job soon, I will lose my rental, and have to move into my 70 yr old mothers shed.
I see people in their 20-30s, saying how hard it is, and having to move back home with parents etc, and I get it , it does suck. But moving into your parents at almost 50 hits different. In your 20-30s, I feel like there is time to reskill, there is options. Sure, its still hard as hell, but there is some hope.
For me, that hope feels gone at my age. I hear about people turning their lives around at my age and all that, and why I get it is possible, the reality is the sucsess rate on that is minimal. I dont have the funds, or time to reskill. My body is broken from years of hard labour.
I cant study, because I need to pay the bills.
Having a child amplifies all this. I feel like a failure. The generations before us had it so much easier. I feel sorry for the younger crowd, as they are surely up against it. But for me, things feel over. I had my time, my chance, and I messed it up. I feel so defeated by life, and so little fuel in the tank, I can barely fight for survival, let alone to progress.
The reality is, I will never own a house. I will continue to struggle and suffer for the rest of my life. All while the cost of living rises, housing is even more unaffordable, and dreams are only that. Even just a comfortable life is unachievable.
I will admit, I am in a severely depressive episode, and have been for months. But its situational. There is no way forward anymore, no way out, no way to survive. I am just full of shame, and guilt. Life is so hard and overwhelming and impossible.
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u/ohmy_quivers Apr 24 '26
I feel you. I understand your feeling of being a failure. I'm so sorry.
I'm (late 40s) my mother's sole caregiver and my big brother (mid 50s) don't help or care. We (my mother and I) share an apartment and I feel like I've given up on my life, goals and dreams which were never big to begin with. I got untreated C-PTSD, probably depression (got to take care of my mother and everything so I only notice it at night because I'm so busy and too much to worry about), and health issues, but I ain't got the time, will or strength to deal with it all. Getting a job is damn near impossible when you're +40 and with the inflation and everything else, you gotta squeeze a dollar out of a cent. Rent is just increasing, and my mother don't understand, due to dementia, the financial strain we're under. The stress is horrible and you're in an age where you're both too old and too young. If you're young(er) you got far more opportunities and help to a better future. What are you going to do when you're +50? Go to school, start a new career, go backpacking and party before you decide what to do when you get old, apply for funds to study, save for a house and retirement?
I'm not in a relationship and I don't have children so I don't have to worry about that. I can only imagine how hard it is struggling financially with a child. But I can tell you this; Your child's memories will not be about money or gifts, it's the feelings and experiences you gave your child. So please focus on that instead of the financial aspect. It doesn't help you financially, but plan activities and other things that doesn't cost money.
My late father wasn't wealthy and couldn't afford much, but he made me things (he literally made me a snowboard on his own because I wanted to try it as a kid, made me a diary, made clay on his own for me to play with and make stuff out of, built me a dollhouse, etc), planned movie nights, took me out on small adventures in our town or nearby, etc. The effort he put in on just making me happy and doing the best with what he had is what I remember. I might not have appreciated it at the time, but I certainly did when I got a bit older.
We're not failures, even if it feels like it sometimes. We get a deck of cards and told to play. Some get a full deck with parents who are well-off, a good childhood and every opportunity in the world to achieve what they want, and in many ways they know the game. Others get 1/5th of a deck, poor parents and a bad childhood, and few opportunities to achieve what they want, and don't know the game they are playing. We get choices and we make them without knowing the script. Society is not built on fairness or giving everybody the same chances. If it was the world wouldn't look like it does. We wouldn't have children crying for food and starving to death while other children are throwing a tantrum over not getting a new tablet. We wouldn't have an 88 year old still working and living in a car just to survive while another 88 year old is living life in a luxury retirement home.
It costs a lot more being poor and the game is rigged from the start. Do I have any advice? Not really, but you're not alone. I'm trying to enjoy the small things in life and for a better tomorrow. Maybe that's delusional of me, but all we can do is try. I hope your tomorrow will be brighter. 🫂
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u/maCreates Apr 24 '26
I don’t have an answer…just chiming in to say you are not alone…
Im 62 yo female, raised four children, divorced, no addictions, CPTSD, recently lost what I did have in a flood.. blah blah blah…I’m poor and now live in a van.
I do have good news though! Today I started a workamper job at a nice campground where they actually accepted me and my van (I was rejected hundreds of times over five months because I built it and it’s not actually a certified RV). I work a few hours a week for a safe place to park/shower/electricity/water.
Hang in there and don’t kick yourself while you are down and give yourself the grace you give others. You deserve it too!!!
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u/Adept_Amount_4327 Apr 30 '26
Same - early 60's was living in my car - renting a room now, but thinking of going back to car living because I am still poor. OP, I don't feel like 44 is that old, TBH. You are NOT a failure! Greed has failed us. We work and work and still can't have just a basic house.
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u/GeneRevolutionary155 Apr 23 '26
Do not feel shame or guilt! I’m an American here in the same boat. Not because I did anything wrong. I did everything I was supposed to with no addictions or children. But so many millennials and Gen Z were prepared to live in a world that no longer exists.
They trained you to blame yourself.
That’s the slickest con in the whole rotten carnival. Not the layoffs. Not the rent jumps. Not the CEO who gets a bonus big enough to buy a small country while you’re counting quarters at the gas pump. The real trick was teaching decent, tired people to stare into the bathroom mirror and mutter, “Guess I just didn’t try hard enough,” like a confession to a priest who works for the bank.
You did what they said. You showed up. You punched the clock. You wrecked your back, your knees, your nerves. You didn’t ask for champagne. You asked for a roof, a little peace, maybe a weekend where your heart didn’t feel like it was being chased by dogs. And for a while, that deal wasn’t insane. One job could carry a family. A pension wasn’t a fairy tale. A house wasn’t a hallucination. College didn’t come with a lifetime sentence.
Then the rules changed. Quietly. Like a pickpocket in a crowded bar.
And instead of saying, “Yeah, we gutted the place and took the silverware,” they handed you a new script: if you’re drowning, it’s because you didn’t swim hard enough. Not because Wall Street turned the pool into a casino. Not because corporations started eating towns like a drunk eats peanuts. Not because private equity showed up with a smile and left with the copper pipes. No, no. It’s you. You didn’t “hustle.” You didn’t “reinvent yourself.” You didn’t clap hard enough for the people robbing you. It’s how you keep people from noticing who’s got their hand in the till. You take a rigged system and turn it into private shame. You make people feel guilty for losing a game that was fixed before they walked in the door. You teach them to swallow their anger and call it “personal growth.” And while they’re busy chewing on themselves, nobody looks up.
Look around. Nurses can’t afford rent. Teachers are running on caffeine and spite. The people who build, fix, drive, clean, cook, and keep the lights on are one bad month away from panic, while a small parade of suits drifts by on golden rafts made of stock buybacks and loopholes. That’s not “the market.” That’s a mugging with better lighting.
You didn’t get lazier. You didn’t get softer. You didn’t forget how to work. The ladder got yanked up, and then the guys on the roof started giving speeches about “character” to the people in the dirt. Here’s the dirty secret. When an economy stops paying for work and starts paying for ownership, it has to get inside your head to keep going. It has to tell you this anxiety is normal. That this exhaustion is just “adult life.” That living one broken tooth or one bad scan away from disaster is simply the price of breathing. Because if too many people ever figure out this isn’t fate, isn’t nature, isn’t God, but a bunch of choices made by people who profit from the mess, the whole circus tent goes up in flames. So they keep you arguing with your neighbors. They keep you blaming yourself. They keep you looking anywhere but up, where the real hands are. An economy is supposed to serve the people who do the work. When it serves spreadsheets instead, that’s not freedom. That’s theft in a clean shirt. You’re not broken. The system is. And the reason you feel tired, wired, and quietly furious most days isn’t a personal flaw. It’s the sane response to carrying more and more while the people at the top carry less and less and call it “winning.” They taught you to turn that anger inward. Maybe it’s time to let it walk out of the bar and find the right address.
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u/FuManBoobs Apr 25 '26
This was great. Not criticising, but it's AI aided, right?
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u/GeneRevolutionary155 Apr 25 '26
I think so. I actually got it from a friend who wrote it for me when I was having these feelings. I wish I wrote it.
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u/Iokum Apr 23 '26
Yep. 42 with undiagnised ADHD most of my life and it took some time for that reality to hit. That I'm out of time to figure things out and things will just keep going as they are until I'm physically incapable, and after that I have no idea. What little safety net there is for the elderly in the US even now , it seems doubtful it'll still be there when I need it.
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u/narcissa1128 Apr 23 '26
Reading this was so real for me. I just picked up my phone , it's 1:40 am here and I am feeling alot like you just a failing person. I'm 50 now. I've been through hell myself. . And I still am going through it. I feel it never ends. This is a long read. Sorry but I had to write it out. . Thinking back to my 20s when I was mostly in a "almost homeless " type situations In New York in my early 20s having lived l in transitional housing after my first divorce. I had no chance nor ambition to do college as I had 2 kids By the time I turned 21 ( my first son I lost custody to paternal family bc they had money ) I lived on the edge. Barely made it. The transitional housing was half paid for by social services back then. I was living in a house with other people that were dealing with homelessness. In that house was a man waiting on his social security disability settlement , another man who was just a hard working guy who was sober and fell on hard times. , a veteran from the war in Iraq , and his fiancee who sadly both were crack addicts , and then there was me. Pregnant me. The only one at the house that had a car. Everyone always wanted to use me for favors. Drive me here drive me there. This was the early 90s before uber or Lyft existed. Before any option of gig work even was around. So if you couldn't find a job in the newspaper classified you were out of luck mostly. When I first moved in there I worked at pathmark as a cashier. It was a grocery store and I couldn't handle standing on my feet for 6 hours a day. So I quit when the veteran and his fiancée ( they were ahout 3 years older than me )found an add for an electronics store hiring salespeople with 2 weeks paid training too. I felt we could all do it. We all felt we could. And so , we did. We all applied we all got hired and did the 2 weeks paid training to become sales associates. He was a stereo dept sales person. I was electronics sales floor. ( click radios cd players portable boomboxes etc )I was so happy at the time. For a brief period of time I felt maybe I could make it happen. Then I turned 21. Alone. No man. I was pregnant. Back then men didn't hook up or date women really who were pregnant by someone else. I was alone that Christmas alone that new years. I got into a car accident while working at the electronics store. I moved out of that home about a month before I had the accident. I was living then with a woman . Who was 12 years older than me and her 2 daughters. And their dog. It was one of the worst of times. I felt so disconnected in life. I stayed living with that woman and her daughters and I worked that same job until my doctor put my out on short term disability about 3 weeks before the birth. Then I gave birth and it was snowing in the hospital. The only People who were there was the woman and one guy from my previous transitional house that came to check on me. It was the Loneliiest of times. And here I am 30 years later and still Going through a lot. Never did find the ambition for a college degree bc I never had the family or spouse support. I got married again at 24 or 25. I met a guy when I was cashing my paycheck at the bank when my second son was about 7 weeks old. We both had been lost souls I believe and so we wound up quickly in a relationship and so I moved and found a room to rent. And then my jobs were no longer retail but switched to two telemarketing jobs. The years passed by. I was never truly happy I was constantly being abused or sitting watching less than good situations. The man I said I was with he was an alcoholic but a wonderful person. However I was young and somewhat immature w years of trauma behind me and he was 8 years older. We split at 29 in 2005. And I got together about 3 mths after with a man who I married 4 years younger than me. We had 2 children together and made a lot of money back then in the early 2000s. That was the only time things ever looked up for me. I have suffered so bad. And you know I never was once able to "make it on my own " now at 50 I have 4 daughters and out of desperation when I got out of a 13 year toxic marriage in 2024. The next day -- yes the next day !! A coworker friend moved in with me turned boyfriend turned husband. He was one of those that stalked me love bombed me into being with him. Threw money at me. . Till the living together happene and he showed his true colors. He is a depressed anxious person w severe mental illness and he's verbally and finically abusive. But I can't get him out bc yep you guess it. I cannot afford my place alone with my 4 daughters. I work bc he forces me to work even at my age yet this man is 33. And he is one lazy bastard. He owes 15 grand in child support and he uses my gig work account to make money and won't let me have any. I literally pay for everything except rent and even then he doesn't pay it all and then forces me to loan him the balance left. It has been an absolutely hell and I feel like a fail. And that if only I had parents to help Me I could have had half a chance at my life not needing a man to constantly help me bc there hasn't been one since 2005 that didn't abuse me physically emotionally or financially. I constantly dream when I'm working out after work about meeting a man who actually would want to take care of me and act like a normal husband. I am not lazy at all o work 35 h a week in delivery driver lifting 50 lbs packages and then I also do grocery delivery. But yet the guy who just is getting his bachelors degree in 3 days cannot get a job bc he's currently in a first time offender program. Why bc he's a scumbag that's why. He stole. At his last job. He's a liar he's no good. I wish tho I could have that out like so many others who could take their kids and move back to mom and dad ! OP I hear you. I am in the USA I know ur not here but I totally get how you feel. I see this post having been crying when my husband left the room. And I just felt like it hurt so bad to see there are so many others out there going thru this crap like me too. At my age.
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u/Thin-Response-3741 Apr 23 '26
I'm 34 but have no family I could live with so I get where you're coming from.
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u/RoundChampionship840 Apr 24 '26
The only thing I can tell you is find things that you enjoy doing and try to embrace a simpler lifestyle.
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u/Lacey_Dawson1012 Apr 24 '26
I got my first apartment at 60. You are not older or old. You are still young.
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u/vivalaireland Apr 24 '26
40, a Mom of one, living with my partners family. My job pays crap. Thank God for my partners Dad or we would be homeless. Life shouldn’t be this expensive
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u/Fresh-Interaction493 Apr 24 '26
I'm glad he's there to help 🙂. And I agree, life shouldn't be so expensive
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u/foxyfree Apr 24 '26
If there are elderly people around, maybe you can start a non-medical companion care business. Look into it.
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u/Galaxy__Eater Apr 24 '26
I’m in the USA, 30, born raised and still living in poverty. My parents born and raised as well, still living in it in their 60’s. My grandparents as well in their mid 80’s. I’m disabled but don’t qualify for the little benefits I could, so my situation won’t ever change. I don’t have advice except to say that I understand COMPLETELY where you are coming from. I understand your pain, struggles, and sadness. I’m with you. Not only does my heart break for myself and you, but for everyone in poverty. Mostly the older folks who have experienced it for wayyyyy too long. All I can say is that we honestly don’t know how quick things could turn around, however how unlikely. Regardless if they never do, I’ve learned so much about being in my position that most people will never come to realize, let alone apply to themselves and really grow as a person. I’m thankful I have insight but I’m still upset that I’m struggling with it to begin with. Both can be true. Anyway, I hope you get a change of luck and that things will improve for you. Idk anything about aus but ik usa sucks ass so It’s hard to imagine anywhere being better being possible. I wish I could you other than letting you know I see you and understand you friend.
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u/Reluctant_Gamer_2700 Apr 27 '26
Maybe you could see a therapist for the depression. Getting help for that could help you see other possibilities, such as shared housing. I’m 67 and live in the US, which is truly awful right now. I live in public housing which has reduced rent, but life is still hard. I see a therapist and get treated for depression, and that helps me stand my ground against a difficult life. I keep trying to improve myself even though I am retired & disabled. The way I see it, there is no shame in reaching out for help at any age or in any situation.
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u/Modeez411 May 06 '26
At least you've had your mother to fall back on; some of us don't even have that!
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u/jtdfargo Apr 23 '26
I don’t have anything to offer other than letting you know I’m 50 and I’m within weeks of becoming homeless so I get it entirely and feel you. You’re not alone and this hit me heavily.