It's Pay Day! The ABC's new column where we ask Australians the money questions we don't like to talk about. We aim to demystify personal finance and normalise conversations about what we earn and how we save it — or spend it.

Liz Allen is a demographer and social researcher at the ANU Centre for Policy Research, published author, and noted academic whose work focuses on joining the dots between Australia's past and present to understand our future.

In her public roles she has spoken about how her own experiences with poverty and homelessness have informed her perspective on the transformative possibilities of demography.

For Pay Day, Dr Allen shares the secrets of survival, the shame that comes with living in poverty, and how "having no money grants the privilege of seeing the world differently". 

How would you describe your financial situation right now?

Surviving. I have a love-hate relationship with money: I hate money because I don't have it and would love to have more. Money rules everything in a way the lucky don't appreciate. Society suggests money determines the worth of people. There's an ugly, pernicious belief that money reflects success. Those without money are somehow less than those with it. Money is about luck, nothing else.

I have a privileged job. One I never dreamed I could have achieved. I have seven children: two adults and five kids. We are a sole-income family. My children live with disability and my partner had to leave the workforce to provide full-time care for our kids. As a family, we pool our money when needed. We look out for each other and never let anyone go hungry.

How was money spoken about in your house growing up?

I've never not known a time when resources weren't scarce. I learned from a young age to make do with what you have. Fancy has always been out of the question, out of reach.

When my eldest kids were little, we had barely enough. Toys were out of the question. We used to make puppets out of toilet paper rolls and other odds and ends we'd recycle around the home. My second-eldest was so terribly impatient and couldn't wait for us to finish a toilet roll to make a new person for the collection that she'd clog the toilet getting to the end of the roll. I'm very good at unblocking toilets. I still make a great toilet paper roll person.

About how much of your income goes towards your rent or mortgage each week?

Rent represents around a third of our family income.

What has been your biggest financial disaster?

Using buy-now-pay-later for groceries. These services are great in principle but are traps for people with fewer resources. It makes me so terribly sad that in a society such as ours the wealthy keep creating new means to harm the less lucky.