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

[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.

This is a new thing though. I grew up in an upper middle class area where most dads were CPAs, engineers, doctors, lawyers, etc and they ALL still mowed their lawn. Our house was set on 1.5 areas too and my dad was out there twice a week like clockwork. Now it seems like even middle class neighborhoods are all mowed by companies.

I still can't do it. I am squarely UMC, and I am the only person on our block, and the only person I know, who mows his own lawn. I once mentioned to a neighbor that my daughter is getting old enough to use the mower, and she looked at me like I had horns and a tail. As if a *girl* could be expected to mow the lawn - the horror!

I grew up UMC and all of us kids mowed the lawn: 1 boy, 3 girls. We did all the yard work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think of this when I buy my kids shoes. We weren't poor but my parents were very frugal and shoes were strictly from Payless or K-Mart. My teens are generally not into clothes and have pretty small wardrobes but they care about their shoe brands and I don't mind spending $150+ for a pair of running shoes.

My 6 year old picked out Nikes and it felt so weird to buy them. When I was a kid I could only get name brand shoes as a birthday present, starting in 5th grade. I still remember them (maroon vans)

[Anonymous]

Yup. House cleaning. Lawn services. New clothes for my second child when she could use hand me downs. Buying clothes that are not 2 sizes too big so my kids can get use out of them. Repairs to the house that aren't strictly necessary. And restaurants. We NEVER went to restaurants and our takeout was limited to fast food.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

How long did you wear braces? Did you have to wear a long while retainer after? They didn’t slide back at all?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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?)

Same and yes, I totally had he Coca Cola rugby shirt with the popped collar with no logo on it! But my DH grew up similarly strapped for cash and our running joke to our kids is that they get brand name clothes/sneakers/food and not the “Grampions” (aka “Champions” knock off) sweatshirt daddy had to wear as a kid!

[Anonymous]

$4k per month on daycare. My poor self would assume I was a billionaire or something

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

I remember the Christmas lying so well. I hated the first day back from christmas break when the teacher would have each kid tell what they got.

[Anonymous]

My next door neighbor grew up very poor in the Phillipines.
She shared a home - more like a hut - with her 5 siblings and her mother with no indoor plumbing.
She is so humble, but thinks she is absolutely spoiling her two daughters.
(Fortunately, the girls are also humble and kind!)

[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.

This is a new thing though. I grew up in an upper middle class area where most dads were CPAs, engineers, doctors, lawyers, etc and they ALL still mowed their lawn. Our house was set on 1.5 areas too and my dad was out there twice a week like clockwork. Now it seems like even middle class neighborhoods are all mowed by companies.

Our street is still like this. HHI is $300k+ easily and I’d still say at least 1/2 the neighbors do their own lawn, including us. My DH takes pride in it.

+1. You can tell the people who take care of their own lawns because they look so much better than those maintained by lawn services.

Plus, I suspect the "middle class" neighborhoods where no one mows their own lawn are DC "middle class."

[Anonymous]

I spent $40 for dinner for 3 at the take out food section at Wegman's.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I agree with this. We take our kid on very nice European vacations, but we also take road trips where we stay in random dump hotels and eat at roadside cafes and barbecue joints. First, I want my kid to see all of America, and second, I don't want him to think he's too good for that. I want him to be comfortable with people from all walks of life. It amuses me how many people on this board are so adamant that their kid be exposed to "diversity," but that really just means they know rich people of many different ethnicities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

How long did you wear braces? Did you have to wear a long while retainer after? They didn’t slide back at all?

Not pp, but I had braces as an adult. I don't remember now exactly how long it took, but maybe a year and a half? I wear a retainer at night (essentially just a night guard) about every other night, and my teeth still look perfect twenty years later. The idea about adult teeth "sliding" may be a result of the fact that most adults' teeth move, anyway. I didn't have braces as a kid because my teeth were perfectly straight. They didn't start becoming crooked until I was in my 20's, hence the braces later in life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not shocked at what I spend money on, but that I can easily afford every day expenses: new clothes, shoes, field trips, lunch money, etc. I honestly don't even budget for it; if my kids need something they get it. They do not have to find odd jobs, save and scrap to buy school clothes or sports uniform items.

I am so happy to be able to send my son to Peru with his Spanish Club. I so badly wanted to travel with my high school friends, but it was simply too expensive.

Do you worry about what that will do to them though, in terms of learning to provide for themselves? Or are you pretty much setting them up for life financially, so if they aren't able to support themselves, they have a nice little safety net?

Not that PP, but buying kids what they need is very different than making sure they know how to provide for themselves as an adult. My parents did not always supply my needs. I had three pairs of shoes all of HS. I often walked 90 min or more to save the bus fare. So when it rained or snowed, I had to wrap trash bags around my feet. This caused me a lot of anxiety and distracted me from school work.

Yeah, same here. Sometimes I get angry at the mental energy I used to spend on stupid decisions all because of being poor.

My parents gave me lunch money at the beginning of the week and I remember saving it so that I could buy some necessities later. I remember planning out my underwear so that I would have something that I hadn’t outgrown on PE days. I cried when I started getting boobs and realized how expensive bras were. I used toilet paper instead of pads during my period. Spending money on necessities that nobody would see felt wasteful, just like skipping spending on food felt normal.

[Anonymous]

When I was 9 or 10 my mom asked to borrow money from my piggy bank. There’s just no scenario where anything like that would ever happen with my children.

[Anonymous]

We were never food insecure but I remember things like: Using one pad for a whole day because they were expensive, using the same cheap razor for weeks, tissues and shaving cream and non bar soaps were luxury items. Threadbare towels, hand me downs.

Now I spend money on stupid shit like fee credit cards so I can access airport lounges. Concierge medicine. Fancy gyms and Pilates classes. Meal service.

It’s still very hard for me to buy clothes at full price, though.