If you grew up poor are you ever shocked at what you now spend money on?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, though for me, it’s mostly labor/time-savers and vacations. I’m finally at the point that paying to have someone clean my home before a party is palatable. And I can go on vacation without calculating how many hours I need to work overtime to pay for it.

It's the labor savers that highlight how different I am from my parents. My parents would never have spent money on house cleaners, lawn mowing, grocery delivery, etc.

Hear, hear. I felt really guilty about hiring cleaners. It just wasn't done in the little town where I grew up, not by very middle class folks like us.

[Anonymous]

I grew up lower middle class, blue collar, with extremely frugal parents. I sometimes scold my kids for being ungrateful.

This summer I signed my kids and me up for golf lessons. driving home from the first lesson I actually had tears in my eyes thinking of how far I've come. GOLF! LESSONS! That is about as far away from my childhood as anything else. In my childhood, golf is for rich people who are doctors or lawyers. If you want to play a sport join the church league softball team.

[Anonymous]

Yep, we joined a modest country club this year for the pool and I am ashamed to tell my family back home.

I still clean my own house and mow the grass. I did buy a pricey zero turn (we have a lot of acreage) and I really enjoy using it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We weren’t totally poor but lived paycheck to paycheck and had little left for non-essentials. The biggest thing that shocks me now is travel. We never traveled as a kid, and the rare times we did it was in the car and to the Comfort Inn. My kids are in ES and have no concept of what it’s like to not travel regularly by air. It bothers me - they are nice kids but don’t know how fortunate they are. We tell them, but they don’t “get it.”

There is a way to control this. Skip a vacation or 2 just bc. On 1 vacation stay at a Hampton Inn instead of your usual 5 star. Take a road trip or 2. That shows that travel isn't a requirement and fancy travel is a luxury. But let me guess you can't do this bc YOU don't want to be inconvenienced or slumming it -- so instead you're just lecture your kids and hope they get it which 99.9% of the time, they don't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, though for me, it’s mostly labor/time-savers and vacations. I’m finally at the point that paying to have someone clean my home before a party is palatable. And I can go on vacation without calculating how many hours I need to work overtime to pay for it.

It's the labor savers that highlight how different I am from my parents. My parents would never have spent money on house cleaners, lawn mowing, grocery delivery, etc.

Hear, hear. I felt really guilty about hiring cleaners. It just wasn't done in the little town where I grew up, not by very middle class folks like us.

I haven’t been able to bring myself to hire a house cleaner. I can afford it, but we also have the time to do it on our own.

[Anonymous]

not so much me but i see this in my DH. he grew up one of 7 children in Haiti. They were quite poor. He is partial to luxury cars, namely British (jags, range rovers). he even bought my son a mini range rover and i rolled my eyes. when we vacation he is very partial about our accomodations and has cancelled his reservation just by his sense of the hotel (just the lobby). yet he will wash plastic ware to reuse (i always discard them when i find them) and complain when i throw out something a week after it's expiration date. i am appreciative of where i am and my home is nicer than the one in which i was raised but i also didn't really lack for anything.

[Anonymous]

Yes to everyone, YES! I think about firing the cleaning service every week I pay until I come home to a clean house! Yet, I still do payless, store brand and buy in bulk whenever I can get away with it. Simple things like replacing an old TV that still works is what gives me pangs of guilt so I try to pass it down to someone I know that needs it whenever I can.

[Anonymous]

Inflation and 2 parent household so it's not a good comparison

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not what I spend money on, but the things I buy and don't even need.
I grew up in Soviet Union and the stores had bare minimum when it came to stuff. You were able to find winter boots if you got really lucky ad ofcourse you had to go to the city for that. Local store had mostly milk, bread and meat products. We were not short of money, we were all short of stuff to buy. Most people made their own socks, scarves, sweaters. Clothes were patched up, reused or handed down. Shoes were always too big, too small or had holes in them. Some parents were better than other chasing down new winter boots. Many fights in the stores. Amazing how little we needed and at the time we didn't even recognize that we were poor because everybody was the same and we always had food.
We were shown a lot of conflicts all over the world with tanks rolling down the street. This put it all to respective- we had a good life. Unless it was cold, we found the hole in the shoe a funny thing. Well, once we got home at least. My kids don't want to listen to my "Russian stories".

Same, but without holes in shoes. There was so little to be had, even if you could. And treats were really "treats." And being poor immigrants was tough too. I am still baffled that I don't have to reuse paper towels or wash ziplock bags or use my teabag several times over and that I can take an uber without thinking twice instead of walking for over an hour to save bus money.

[Anonymous]

My mom recently scolded me for not reusing Ziploc bags. she "can't believe how wasteful I've become." she has a point.

[Anonymous]

We weren’t poor but my parents were extremely frugal. Like a pp, shoes and clothes only came from discount or thrift stores, or were hand me downs. Every left over scrap of food was eaten. We rarely got toys, let alone trendy/popular toys. I begged and begged for a cabbage patch doll but my parents wouldn’t buy me one because they were too expensive. Both my DD’s have American Girl dolls and a few accessories at a total cost of a few hundred dollars. I just spent $900 to take us all to see Hamilton. If my parents knew how much those tickets cost, they’d be appalled.

BUT we work hard and are frugal in other areas, so I have no problem spending money on certain things.

[Anonymous]

When my dad came to stay for us for a couple weeks at Christmas and there were so many things I was embarrassed by. Yes, maid service, but also, buying berries out of season, buying luxe air mattresses rush for last minute guests, just generally my instinct to solve problems with money and not try to make do.

He’s a saint and didn’t say anything but the alarm in his eyes made me see how little of my upbringing is reflected in my daily life now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I mainly feel the guilt when I spend money on food & drinks. I always said when I was growing up poor that I wouldn't skimp on nice shoes & clothes when I could afford it. I don't and I feel zero guilt there. However, it's been a process to train myself not to fret over the restaurant prices too much. Mainly because in the back of my mind I'm still thinking "$15 for ONE cheeseburger bought us food for a week when I was a kid!"

I posted in the other thread today that I still can't bring myself to order soda in a restaurant. I always order water or have a cocktail/wine (which again, guilt!).

It also shocks me how every kid gets braces now. I mean, my niece just got stage one at age 8! That was really unheard of when I was growing up as you usually got them in middle school. And, only the rich kids got braces. Everyone I grew up with who was poor and had crooked teeth got adult braces once they had some money! I was lucky enough to have perfectly straight top teeth and only slightly crooked bottom teeth.

Another thing that was hard to get used to was how much vacations cost. It's still hard to wrap my mind around paying $2000+ for a few days at the beach when growing up we had to scrounge and hustle to make our $800 monthly rent.

Same thing with us and vacations.

I haven’t added it up but even just ball parking it, we’ll spend 50k on vacations this year.

That’s actually a splurge I don’t feel bad about - I want to see the world and I want my kids to see it too.

However, they’re not coming from a childhood like mine that will give them the perspective of how fortunate they really are.

They think it’s totally normal to go to Europe, the Caribbean, skiing out West every year...

Kind of a shame. My kid actually asked me if we are poor the other day, lol. (We make over 700k)

+1

My kids think it’s totalky normal to travel like this too. I’m pretty sure 2/3 of their private school class took at least a 7 day trip to Europe this summer if not 2-3 full weeks.

We make that kind of money (750k) and we’re the poor ones because we don’t have a second or third home, a house in the water, a boat, etc.

well, why don't you? with that kind of money you should.

We can't afford a 3M dollar house on the beach or the mountains.

[Anonymous]

Yes. Getting my kids a treat or a surprise just because. Buying whatever groceries I want.

[Anonymous]

Grew up on food stamps and for me, it's the cleaners. Even more so that I pay them to come EVERY week. I haven't changed my own sheets in a year. We don't even own a mop.

Other than that, I have a Maine coon cat that I take once a year to be groomed. Because he is an a-hole, he has to be sedated in order for them to groom/shave him, so it works out to be about $250 every time. The idea that I would ever $250 on a haircut for my cat is mind-blowing to the poor kid in me, even if it only happens once a year.