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

[Anonymous]

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

..and not using coupons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

..and not using coupons.

Or food stamps

[Anonymous]

Regularly getting my hair highlighted.

[Anonymous]

Not shocked so much as incredibly thankful that my kids don't have to live the way I did.

No pretending with your friends that you saw the latest episode of The Simpsons when really you have no idea what happened because you either didn't have power or cable. No having to pull your girl scout troop leader to the side and tell her that she couldn't call you with more details because your phone had been cut off. No couch surfing with relatives because you got evicted. No babying a pair of new shoes because you knew when they were ruined/wore out that it meant thrift store shoes for your next pair that school year. No lying about what you got for Christmas because in reality you just got a new pair of jeans or a sweatshirt if anything at all. No starting off the school year with a lie of an awesome vacation you took as your "what I did over the summer" because you didn't go anywhere or do anything.

It blew my kid's mind when they asked why 95% of the pictures I have from my childhood were LifeTouch photos that say PROOF on them and I told them it was because a) we didn't have money for a camera and b) we didn't have money to purchase those photo packages from the school. I think that's when they really understood that when I say I grew up poor, I meant it and it wasn't just something I said as a mom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My parents didn't/couldn't get me braces as a kid.

I paid in cash as an adult for braces with one of the priciest orthodontists in downtown.

Did they work? I thought late in life, teeth are prone to sliding after. Which is why veneers are so popular.

[Anonymous]

I have a hard time making small purchases because they were so cost prohibitive as a kid. I never had popsicles in the freezer as a kid. Buying them for my daughter feels strange. As I pick them up, I automatically think back to using that three dollars to wash a load of clothes or to buy a pack of bus tokens for the week.

[Anonymous]

My frugal mom still gives me a hard time about the things I buy. Like prepackaged Goldfish to save time packing lunch, actual beef (she only bought ground or cubed beef), and eating out at actual sit down restaurants on the weekends.

[Anonymous]

Yes. I recently bought a $400 cricut for fun crafting. Then I needed a bunch of vinyl, at least $500 worth. Had to have a $500 heat press to put that vinyl on my 2nd grader's tshirt. Not to mention all the extras, tools, paper, etc. etc. Oh, and the couple hundred I sent building a work table last weekend to put it on. I'm sitting on the floor, in my home office, right now, overwhelmed by the sheer volume of shit I have surrounding me. I would have been lucky to have a set of markers and fresh art paper when I was a kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My parents didn't/couldn't get me braces as a kid.

I paid in cash as an adult for braces with one of the priciest orthodontists in downtown.

Did they work? I thought late in life, teeth are prone to sliding after. Which is why veneers are so popular.

Yep, they worked great.

[Anonymous]

I didn't grow up poor, but became poor as an adult. DD has grown up poor. When she turned 14 my financial situation got much better - now I'm on the low end of middle class. Some things DD notices, and some go right over her head.

She gave me a very significant look when we went on a four-day vacation and I let her get a Starbucks drink each morning.

But she thinks she "has to" have braces, not "gets to".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

+1, but I don't really have the time to do it on my own, dislike doing it, and don't do a very good/thorough job. But I don't want to pay someone to do it bc I feel like it's a waste of money, and that I should be doing it. Unless I could literally replace the money spent on the cleaners by earning that money back in the time lost, I probably won't hire someone to do it...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lol- we make about 160k (both working) and someday it will be my kids starting a thread like this about how poor they were. I'm not trying to take away anything that you all suffered through as children. Not getting your needs met and having very few, if any, treats is a tough childhood to say the least.
But it will be my kids that say that their vacations to the beach (staying at a Holiday Inn) or to their grandmother's house (that had a pool, so it was like a resort!) were signs of their impoverished youth. No Europe or MV here!

+1.

Can we, the poors, be friends? I'm getting the inferiority complex by the minute just reading about 50K a year for 'vacations'.

[Anonymous]

I was LMC, so not food insecure, but it struck me when my kids were picking out clothes for their first day of school how they have sooooo many material things. I was terribly insecure (and still am) since I never felt like I had the right clothes. My kids are much more confident - may just be their personalities - but I was appreciating that they'll probably never be embarrassed that their mom buys them a knock-off version of the latest fad, and they have to wear it or her feelings will be hurt (coca-cola shirt with no logo, anyone?)

[Anonymous]

Yes, we spent $1,500 eating out at last month and I almost cried. Mostly because I didn't realize it since it didn't hurt our bottom line by much and we only went out to eat as kids about once every six months. It was so frivolous of us and I'm just in awe of how different my life is now versus when I was growing up. We also NEVER took vacations so I do tend to splurge a little on travel and weekend trips just because I feel like I have so much catching up to do now that we have the ability.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lol- we make about 160k (both working) and someday it will be my kids starting a thread like this about how poor they were. I'm not trying to take away anything that you all suffered through as children. Not getting your needs met and having very few, if any, treats is a tough childhood to say the least.
But it will be my kids that say that their vacations to the beach (staying at a Holiday Inn) or to their grandmother's house (that had a pool, so it was like a resort!) were signs of their impoverished youth. No Europe or MV here!

+1.

Can we, the poors, be friends? I'm getting the inferiority complex by the minute just reading about 50K a year for 'vacations'.

They can enroll for services for traumatized children along with the children who lost their parents in chemical warfare in Syria.