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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My answer is kind of weird because though we weren't poor growing up, my mom was (and is) a fool with her money and it got us into the type of situations I imagine poor people get in a lot. Like one time, I remember I came home from school (maybe 9th grade) and the power was off. I called my mom at work and she said she must have forgotten to pay the bill. But she came home that day with a brand new outfit + new shoes because she was going on a date that night. And she never wanted to spend the $30 to get her oil changed, so two years after she bought her car, the engine literally blew up on the side of the road and we had car issues ever after.

My dad had plenty of money, but my sister and I were really prideful and never let him know this stuff, so he had no idea. My mom was working and getting $1000 a month from my dad in child support (in the 90s) and I believe, for a short time, alimony from her second husband whom she divorced. There was NO reason for us to not have power or to have the check she wrote to school for our yearbooks bounce. She just wasn't and never has been responsible with money.

So- we were not poor. My mom had the money, she just didn't spend it on the right shit. So we lived like poor people. Everyone at school was convinced we were rich because my sister and I were raised with really good manners, got great grades, and wore nice clothes. We came from a nice family; nobody had any suspicions that my mom was blowing all our money partying all the time and we would maybe have hot dogs for dinner one night. No buns, just hot dogs. But to this day, I believe I have the mindset of a poor person. I CANNOT put more than $15 of gas in my car at a time. Drives my DH crazy, he just fills up when the tank gets low. But I can't help but think, "What if something happens and I need the $45 and it's just sitting in my car in the form of gas?" It mentally pains me to think of pouring $60 at once into my car. Can't do it.

[b]It doesn't matter how much money we have in our account, I'm convinced we can't afford stuff. We can. I know because sometimes DH will insist we can do something I swore we couldn't afford and lo and behold, we are fine. (FWIW, he makes six figures. WE are not poor, even now.) We drive two nice cars, but there is never a time- and I do mean never- when I get in any car and don't worry about it breaking down. [/b]Because it happened so many times in my mom's POS that she then handed down to me, so it broke down on me too. Just stuff like that that I'm sure it would never occur to people who didn't have these issues growing up to worry about. [/quote]

I can relate to the bolded.
I didn't grow up poor, but spent a few years on assistance after I had DC (during which time I divorced his good-for-nothing father). I make decent money now, not anywhere near DCUM standards, but enough to provide for DC and myself, and I still get that cold clench in my stomach when I have to pay for something with my debit card. I no longer have to worry about which utility bill to pay and which to put off or having to scrounge for change to put enough gas in the car to get to work. I HATED that feeling.[/quote]

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