This is what to do when you have no money at all

• Ensure you have food for three-four weeks.
• Negotiate all payments you have to make and ask for a ‘payment holiday’.
• Apply to all emergency money schemes for which you are eligible.
• Keep yourself clean, tidy, and presentable.
• Start earning money; fast.
• Don’t allow your brain to drown all your other thoughts by screaming ‘I have no money’.

You open the fridge and only a smelly piece of cheese you forgot there a month ago is staring back at you. No food, no warmth, no money in the bank. Your mind starts pulsating with panic, screaming at you:

I have no money!

In this article, I’ll share what to do when you have no money. I did it all and pulled out. I’m not talking about being so skint that you have to cancel your iPhone payment. I’m talking real emergency; a situation where hard choices become unavoidable. Like choosing between:

• Having heating and buying food;
• Having a haircut and replacing your worn-out socks;
• Taking the bus and having your clothes washed.

This is the kind of ‘I have no money’ emergency I’m talking about.

You may think that you’d never be in a position where you have no money. You have a secure job, after all; don’t you? Get off it. If life has taught me one thing, it is that anything may happen at any time. This includes job loss, overwhelming debt, currency devaluation that wipes out your savings, or a fire that leaves you homeless. Anyone, including university professors like me, can find themselves in a situation where they have to make impossible choices.

A decade ago when we realised how much debt we had, my darkest money fear was that my son won’t have enough to eat. Now that have paid off all our consumer debt, I live my life with no fear.

(I know you have little money now, but it may be worth learning how to pay off debt the smart way.)

Over 4 million children in the UK, this is close to one in four children in one of the wealthier countries, live in poverty. It’s even worse: close to two-thirds — three of every four — children…