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: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.

I did this, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

I’m with you. The way retail works these days, paying full price is just dumb. You don’t need to shop the clearance racks, but everything gets discounted so quickly. Payin full price would be like going to Bed Bath and Beyond without a coupon.

[Anonymous]

I’m amazed that we always have back-ups of back-ups of back-ups. That we never run out of milk, because there’s 3 gallons in the fridge. That not only do we have Ziploc bags, but we have multiple sizes, and a whole shelf of new boxes of them in the basement. That I buy what I want at the grocery store without adding things up as I go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I didn’t grow up poor, but with way less than my kids have. We went to Build a Bear and spent an obscene $120 getting the kids their animals and my mom commented how much we had begged them to take us there when we were kids and how they really wanted to but didn’t have the money. The funny thing is that I have no recollection of this and had a very happy childhood even though my parents didn’t have a ton of money.

Build a Bear was founded in 1997. Are you a teen mom who wanted a build a Bear in 2007?

[Anonymous]

I just bought six new bath towels because the old ones were faded. Not ragged. Not stained. Just faded.

I bought them at Kmart, too. $5 each. And DH who also grew up poor and I both laughed at how decadent it felt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn’t grow up poor, but with way less than my kids have. We went to Build a Bear and spent an obscene $120 getting the kids their animals and my mom commented how much we had begged them to take us there when we were kids and how they really wanted to but didn’t have the money. The funny thing is that I have no recollection of this and had a very happy childhood even though my parents didn’t have a ton of money.

Build a Bear was founded in 1997. Are you a teen mom who wanted a build a Bear in 2007?

Or PP begged at 10. She is now 30 with very little kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Ah yes. Guilty conscience tourism. That will teach kids how to be grateful. Not. Staying at a Hampton inn or eating at a roadside BBQ is not teaching your kid anything about how the other half lives. And visiting a place you can leave is not diversity either.

Everybody needs to do what they need to do, but don't kid yourself you're any better than the people you're chiding because you're not

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn’t grow up poor, but with way less than my kids have. We went to Build a Bear and spent an obscene $120 getting the kids their animals and my mom commented how much we had begged them to take us there when we were kids and how they really wanted to but didn’t have the money. The funny thing is that I have no recollection of this and had a very happy childhood even though my parents didn’t have a ton of money.

Build a Bear was founded in 1997. Are you a teen mom who wanted a build a Bear in 2007?

Or PP begged at 10. She is now 30 with very little kids.

If she begged at 10 (2007) she’d be 21 today

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn’t grow up poor, but with way less than my kids have. We went to Build a Bear and spent an obscene $120 getting the kids their animals and my mom commented how much we had begged them to take us there when we were kids and how they really wanted to but didn’t have the money. The funny thing is that I have no recollection of this and had a very happy childhood even though my parents didn’t have a ton of money.

Build a Bear was founded in 1997. Are you a teen mom who wanted a build a Bear in 2007?

Or PP begged at 10. She is now 30 with very little kids.

If she begged at 10 (2007) she’d be 21 today

Only if she was born in 1997, the same year as BAB.

She could have been born in 1987.

Or in 1985. I don’t think she said she was 10 when she wanted one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn’t grow up poor, but with way less than my kids have. We went to Build a Bear and spent an obscene $120 getting the kids their animals and my mom commented how much we had begged them to take us there when we were kids and how they really wanted to but didn’t have the money. The funny thing is that I have no recollection of this and had a very happy childhood even though my parents didn’t have a ton of money.

Build a Bear was founded in 1997. Are you a teen mom who wanted a build a Bear in 2007?

Or PP begged at 10. She is now 30 with very little kids.

If she begged at 10 (2007) she’d be 21 today

Um, or she was 10 in 1997?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn’t grow up poor, but with way less than my kids have. We went to Build a Bear and spent an obscene $120 getting the kids their animals and my mom commented how much we had begged them to take us there when we were kids and how they really wanted to but didn’t have the money. The funny thing is that I have no recollection of this and had a very happy childhood even though my parents didn’t have a ton of money.

Build a Bear was founded in 1997. Are you a teen mom who wanted a build a Bear in 2007?

Or PP begged at 10. She is now 30 with very little kids.

If she begged at 10 (2007) she’d be 21 today

Um, or she was 10 in 1997?

Or maybe since OP has no recollection of this, perhaps her mom is confusing Build a Bear with another toy that OP begged for? Does it matter if her parents couldn’t afford Care Bears or to take her to FAO Schwartz? Or the Disney store or whatever else was the cool thing when OP was little?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Ah yes. Guilty conscience tourism. That will teach kids how to be grateful. Not. Staying at a Hampton inn or eating at a roadside BBQ is not teaching your kid anything about how the other half lives. And visiting a place you can leave is not diversity either.

Everybody needs to do what they need to do, but don't kid yourself you're any better than the people you're chiding because you're not

I'd agree with this. You are either poor or you're not. "Slumming it" on vacation at the Hampton Inn (really, btw?) is not going to change their perception. Being raised poor is 24/7 not something that can be taught.

[Anonymous]

I'm the PP and realize the Hampton Inn comment came from the poster I agreed with not the poster I was referring to in my post.

[Anonymous]

I did not grow up poor as I had a roof over my head, food on the table and decent clothes - but extras were few and far between. Now I have a great deal of money but there is always a level of thriftiness in everything I do. I am shocked about what I'm able to buy but I'm pleased that I don't have the need to buy it. I live very comfortably but well below what I can afford.

[Anonymous]

I grew up in a large, very MC family where every dollar beyond necessities was saved to put all of us through college. We were a very happy family so we never felt deprived even though others had more. That thriftiness was embedded in me and while I have far more money than my parents ever did I do try to spend it wisely. I'm shocked by how much I have but not by how much I spend. We do indulge in certain things such as travel but we buy used cars and I shop in consignment shops.