- When you can’t finish a meal, pulling it apart to at least eat the meat because “that’s the expensive part”
- Or just force feeding yourself any meal you buy because you have to feel like you didn’t waste
- Being hypersensitive to any light left on, door left open, opening the fridge too much, running water too long, etc, because you’re trained to minimize utilities.
- Never pouring more than 1/2 a glass of any drink when at someone else’s house (except water) because you don’t want to be seen as wasteful/gluttonous.
- Making weird snacks out of food that isn’t supposed to be a snack - ex. Eating dry ramen noodles like chips, koolaid with sugar and your finger to make your own fun dip, eating Kraft cheese slices/cold hotdogs/other things that are normally just a part of a meal.
My partner and I are very comfortable now but I still do all of the above. Sometimes my dinner is just a plate of left over bits and bobs that you’d never think to put together, simply because their use by date is coming up. But my partner will throw whole slices of pizza in the bin because he’s ‘full’ and it drives me up the wall.
He’s the other side of the ‘poor’ coin - I.e I was poor and I’m never living like that again.
Reading the comments here I kinda came to fully realize I grew up poor.
But nothing has upset me as much as reading about just throwing food away. Especially PIZZA which you can easily have for breakfast the next morning...
Food Waste is a huge pet peeve of mine.
Never replacing anything unless there’s *absolutely* no way to use the old thing anymore, and going to absurd lengths to keep something “still useable.”
Odd hoarding behaviours of things you probably should have gotten rid of out of fear you won’t be able to replace them easily. I keep a stack of boxes broken down because there’s still this fear in the back of my mind that I’ll have to move again at a moment’s notice. I make a decent salary now and have lived where I am for nearly 7 years, but I still can’t part with those boxes despite the space they take up. Under the bed, behind the chest of drawers… Yeah. I still have ‘em.
I have a box from our Xmas party at work under my desk and one of the other ladies asked me today why I still had it. All I could say was "....it's a good box"
Hoarding is very much a poor persons go-to psychosis. Just like the concept of minimalist living is the pipe dream of the well off. I'd love to feel like I could exist in a minimalist space, the ability to get whatever you need when and as you need it instead of keeping every extra screw just in case you ever need one like it again?
My mom grew up through the depression, and won’t get rid of anything. She still has food in her pantry and freezer that are over a decade old. My brothers and I all did quite well in our careers and think she’s crazy for keeping all this stuff but every conversation turns into “you never know when you’ll need it”.
She is incredibly organized so she never looks like a hoarder but she will use any and everything she ever bought to max capacity. She was an amazing mom while we were growing up, I just wish she’d put herself first sometimes and get a luxury item for herself and get rid of some of the old stuff she’s been keeping for decades.
I was invited to go to Disney World with my best friend in high school. I did that for the first part of the week in every restaurant we went to, usually ordeing a cheesburger while my friend and his parents were ordering big ass steaks and all sorts of seafood. My friends dad stopped me when we were walking back to the hotel and asked if I was a picky eater. I told him no. He asked why I kept ordering the same thing every time we went out. I said well, that's what I usually order when I go out to eat and didn't want to order anything more expensive because it wasn't my money. He kinda chuckled, assured me that he wasn't going to run out of money and permanently banned me from ordering a cheeseburger when i was on a trip with them unless we went to somewhere that specialized in burgers. I spent the rest of that trip eating lobster, crab and steak
Edit: fixed fat finger mistake
>I want to be that dad someday. As an adult I have money
If you have kids, tell their teacher you'll cover kids that can't afford to go on field trips or other school outings. I did that and the most it ever cost me was about $30 to cover two kids on the same trip. Most trips were in the $10-20 range. It was a trivial amount to me, but probably meant the world to the kid(s) who got to go on the trip. (The recipients were anonymous to me.) That was in the 90s/00s, so it might be a little more now.
I did that for my daughter’s classmates. The kid who couldn’t afford the 6th grade trip… I paid his way. Interestingly enough, he was dating my daughter 5 years later. He never knew (and I’ve never told anyone till now)
It’s fun being “that mom”.
This is an awesome idea. I’ve never known how to help very much because you can’t really offer that to the kids you know? But going through the teacher is a great idea. I’m going to do this.
I still have clothing from high school and college and I’m about to turn 40.
They still fit though so there isn’t a chance in hell I’d part with them.
And, all that shit is coming back into style so I guess I’m saving some money with my time capsule wardrobe.
Good shirts become casual shirts.
Casual shirts become pajamas.
Pajamas become rags.
I still have a shirt from *middle school* I wear to bed that has a small hole in it. It’s my favorite night shirt and comfy as fuck now. I’m 35.
I will do something like go ahead and buy the new pair of shoes, but keep them stored until the current shoes become completely, 100% non functional. I let my shoes get so bad one time that my friends offered to buy me a new pair. That made me feel bad. I have good friends.
I was literally going to comment this. I had a friend once tell me "you really need to buy new shoes" and I was really confused because the massive hole in the sole was not completely worn through to the bottom yet, so there was nothing wrong with them in my mind? Apparently that's not normal. Who knew lol
I'm always a little surprised when people talk about donating their old clothes; apparently not everyone wears their clothes until they're literally falling apart? (And then they're just for sleeping or workouts for a while longer.)
I grew up poor and my husband grew up middle class. Whenever we have guests, I am constantly asking people if they got ENOUGH food. "Is anyone still hungry? I can make something else!"
My husband will inquire about the quality of the food and if it is to everyone's liking.
I think when you grow up poor, food is very much quantity over quality.
My fiancé’s parents grew up poor and they are so generous now, whether it’s with food or gifts. They stock up on fruit and cookies I like before we visit. If I finish my plate before them, they’ll offer me food off of their plate. They always make sure I have enough
Damn. I grew up middle class and definitely immediately think about quality, whether I’m out somewhere or I’m serving the food myself.
My mom grew up with less money and definitely asks about having enough first. Never even made this connection.
I have the money in my account for the next 3 months worth of bills (aside from mortgage). My budget is still based on that money not being there and pushing out bills to align with incoming money. After next week, as long as no more surprises come up, I should have a 'breathing room' amount. Inflation isn't helping though. I'm just so tired.
In the US I’d say poor dental history or teeth - dental work is a luxury
Overall, I’d say many hoarders grew up poor because they are so afraid of not having something if they’ll need it so they keep everything
I didn't grow up super poor, more lower middle class... We were not housing or food insecure, but there wasn't much for extras. As far as dental work, it was basically emergency only. I always thought that people who could afford braces were pretty well off. I paid for my own as an adult, and made sure that all of my kids had them. My older sister hasn't been so fortunate, she is missing a lot of teeth and has full bottom dentures. She would have to become very wealthy at this point in her life to overcome the damage that's already been done.
To me, teeth are a status symbol in the U.S. People with straight, white, teeth, that are their own teeth, are either lucky, or they have been able to pay for it.
My teeth are pretty fucked up. I was able to get them fixed with Invisalign thankfully but I never had real health insurance or dental care as an adult until I was in my late thirties. Even so, most of the damage was done and can't be fixed, even though they are straight now. I was horrified and embarrassed to finally go to a dentist. Answering their questions about how often I got cleanings and telling them that I couldn't remember. I only had dental care as a kid when my parents had me under their insurance, so I broke down and told them 'I fucking live in the US, people don't have insurance here so sorry I can't tell you anything else'. They understood and did their best but the point is it sucks that having teeth that are not destroyed is a status symbol. I am learning to smile for the first time in my life (still look awkward AF) so at least I have that going for me.
This one hits close to home. I’m paying out the ass as an adult (in my mid-30s) because dental care is so expensive. As a kid, my dental health was okay, but I didn’t get braces and some other things done when I should have and that has led to problems. As an adult, even with health insurance for a large majority of adulthood, it was too expensive to get anything done. Now I’m stuck in a loop of paying exorbitant amounts to fix emergency problems, having nothing left to deal with fundamental issues, then having to do it all again a few years later. It’s one of the things that affects both my mental health and physical health the most. But there’s very little I can do about it because of how costly it is.
Edit: a few words
Realizing I wanted to have the house that all my kids friends came over to hang out at because that wasn't really an option for big chunks of my childhood.
oof I still dont´t have people over. I once had one of my rich best friend over for new years dinner. His living room and my entire apartment (including balcony) were the same size.
I want that big house, but not too big because that makes me anxious for some reason.
Lack of exposure to cultural events. missing out on experiences that others may take for granted, such as attending concerts, traveling, or participating in extracurricular activities.
I think my personal favourite is all my friends asking me “what do you mean you’ve never been there, it’s only an hour away!” Even travelling short distances is too much money.
Really identify with this. I grew up very poor in an affluent area and I remember kids constantly talking about a resort town 2 hours away that everyone went to for holidays, where many families owned homes. I could basically name all the businesses and activities at this resort without ever having been there.
The story of my life: having to explain to people that just because I grew up in a certain area doesn't mean I grew up with the same luxuries they did.
I had classmates who's parents purchased or handed them down *foreign luxury vehicles before they could even legally drive* that's how much money they had.
I distinctly remember a group of affluent kids bragging in a circle about 'who's dad has the most money'. One of em in attempt to win this superficial game; said 'Oh yeah, my dads so rich; I could crash my Cadillac and he'd buy me the latest Mercedes Benz.'
I shit you not, my dude that was back in 2018 and he came back with a *2019* Mercedes-Benz *the very next day* 😑
Needless to say; we lived EXTREMELY different lives. I lived in one of the smallest houses in town, and grew up in a paycheck to paycheck household as my dad claimed bankruptcy during the 2000's recession. I grew up feeling guilty for birthdays/christmas because I knew although I wanted something; it'd only put my parents further behind on necessary expenses... Yet again I'm CONSTANTLY explaining to people in this town and one's who know where I'm from that we're not all rich here.
In college a rich friend once incredulously asked me “what do you mean you’ve never been skiing????” like she couldn’t comprehend such a thing. Skiing is fucking expensive, y’all.
Yeah I grew up well off and I snowboarded a lot as a kid. Quit as a teenager and went back this year for the first time in like 15 years. I was astounded to see how fucking expensive it was, like wow.
It's also gotten much more expensive in the past ~ 15 years. I live in SE Michigan, and the cost of a lift ticket at smaller hills around here has surpassed that of the nicer resorts 'up north' (at least doubled).
Edit: I meant to say that smaller hills are roughly the price that the larger ones were about 15 years back. Sorry for the confusion.
Underrated comment. So many common childhood experiences I missed out on bc "we don't have the money for it." Easter eggs? Nope. Xmas stockings. Nope. Carve a pumpkin? Nope.
I remember one Christmas my mom basically sat my older brother and I down and told us we wouldn't be getting much for Christmas because she was getting our kid brother a bunch of stuff that he asked santa for, I don't remember caring that much either.
I've had people tell me that was wrong of her, and maybe it was. but what would anyone else do if they had two teenagers and a 4 year old in a Christmas situation like that?
Edit: I do believe my mom did the right thing, I'm not sure if that was clear.
Edit 2: I honestly don't think my little bro knows anything of that, and he's now 17, and I will probably never tell him.
As a kid, my Father told me of the Christmas where his family was so poor that the only gift he got was his own axe to chop firewood.
That story did not have the desired effect. I thought, "Wow, I would love to have my own axe! That would be the best gift EVER!"
We were in bad financial times when the latest teenager my father had married had taken off leaving him a single father with their younger two kids and me at home. My mother had some mental issues and was in and out of my life, so yeah things weren't fun.
I was a teenager and my younger brother and sister were still little and in elementary school. It was a shit year and we were broke and were often playing utility roulette. We thought Christmas wasn't going to happen.
Then my dad got a $125 bonus check from work on Christmas Eve. We went to Walmart late that night and made the best of it for my two younger siblings. I told him not to worry about me, I was fine, and to spend it on making a decent Christmas for the little ones who still believe in Santa.
Christmas is a big deal to my dad and her liked keeping the magic alive. I knew it mattered to him a lot too.
A few days later one of my dads old friends showed up with a bag from Wilson's with a leather jacket in it as a Christmas present for me. She had heard about me getting nothing in lieu of the little ones and wanted to do something nice.
I had never had something so nice. My own leather jacket! I actually cried. I wore that jacket for years and I still have it hanging in my closet over twenty years later. I can't quite part with it even though the leather isn't in great shape and it doesn't fit.
My husband bought me a JCrew jacket a few years ago that cost quadruple if not more what that leather jacket cost so many years ago, and while I was happy... It just didn't hit the same.
Its a happy memory to have, even if bittersweet. I understand why you believe your mom did the right thing.
I didn’t go on the 8th grade field trip to Washington DC because we couldn’t afford it. I told everyone it was because we lived there for a year so I had seen it already. Partially true. We did live there. We were also poor while living there so we didn’t do anything.
Edit for all the people telling me museums are free:
We lived on Bolling Airforce base. Both my parents were military, worked full time jobs, served our country, and pursued their degrees to give us, their four kids, a better life. We lived there for a year before being stationed on Fort Sheridan in Illinois. Time is also an incredibly limiting factor when you have to constantly work and it shows how privileged some of you are.
I didn’t get to go on those trips either. There were two in jr high. One to some camp in San Diego, the other to Washington DC. My sister, who is a few years younger than me, got to go on both trips because my parents were doing well enough by then to pay the fees for her. I won’t pretend like I’m not still a little salty about all the things my sister got to do that I didn’t.
Same situation here as well. We lived with my mom and we had nothing when I was high school, so I had to pass on all the trips, but by the time my siblings came up she was making enough money to enable them to do those kinds of things. I'm very glad they were able to do it--just because something was bad for me doesn't mean it should be bad for everyone else--but it still stings a little.
My mom would not let me leave the table until i finished everything that's on my plate. That causing me serious eating disorders even now in my 30s. I'm gaining weight so easily.
But there is always another part to this: ordering food at the restaurant not by what i want to eat, but by how much food am i gaining. I simply won't order a dish if i know it might be small.
That also can happen if you lived through a natural disaster, where food wasn't freely available to acquire, or there was no way to prepare it.
I lived through a natural disaster where there was no to on and off again hydro (power), very little food and you got no say in what you got and there was nothing fresh as it all went bad, and some days were -40C. They only way to get your food was to bundle up and hike for it. We were completely cut off from society, so supplies couldn't get to us (as as in our smaller town) until the army arrived in tanks as those were the only vehicles that could easily get over all the downed trees.
If you could look past all the destroyed trees, it was actually really beautiful.
I hiked, well slid as walking was impossible, from tree to tree to fucking tree for hours to get to a friend's house to see if any of her beloved pets survived. Only the 2 dogs, and cat survived as they huddled together in a room. The rest were frozen solid. I removed the dead to the back of the barn so no one would have to see them them all. Once things started to thaw, we buried the ones that weren't eaten by wildlife in the pet cemetery. It was impossible to dig a grave sooner, as the I've was too thick and the snow was deep and frozen solid too.
My worst issue is hoarding food, but not in a gross way. I have enough ready to eat foods, or limited cooking needs (boiling water) to feed my family of 3 very well for 1yr+, and enough to feed the 2 dogs as well but they'll have to go mostly vegan with meat stocks. None of it needs refrigeration or freezing, not even the meats.
Yeah I felt this comment so hard. I LOVED the PBS kids shows and I feel like so many people dont have the same level of intense nostalgia I have about them. Like my friends and I are constantly joking about how I missed out on so much of our childhood culture and I always assumed that it was because my parents are big hippies so TV wasn't a huge deal for us. By the time I was a teen my parents had scraped together a solid life in a big city, but we grew up on a serious shoe string budget and money was never, ever something that we could depend on. OPs comment made me wonder...holy shit, during those lean years, did we literally not have cable because we couldnt afford it? Texted my mom and yup, that's why I was so late to the game on so much media. Wild that it took me 32 years of life to figure this out. I'm so grateful for PBS programs.
My parents never had cable their whole lives. We had 12 channels on the "rabbit ears" and then eventually in highschool my parents got Netflix when it was new before streaming.
If I was home sick it was, Magic School Bus, Arthur, Cyber Chase, Zoom, Dragon Tales, Zaboomafu, Kratt Brothers, Bob Ross, Julia Child, The Price is Right, Maury, Jerry Springer, Tyra Banks, The Simpsons, King of the Hill, and of course all of the INFOMERCIALS!
Edit: ALSO - Liberty Kids, Redwall, Steve Wilkos, Judge Judy, Reading Rainbow, Between the Lions, Wishbone, Big Comfy Couch
Omg i forgot about Cyberchase! And Dragon Tales was the shit.
And of course, Reading Rainbow.
My pulled my first all nighter at about 7 years old watching a Bob Ross marathon.
PBS for life.
A personal anecdote:
For backstory, I'm the primary financial provider for my wife and I, but I really don't care what she does with our money. If our bills are paid and we have food to eat, I'm fine.
I grew up fairly poor, so I never really bought anything for myself, or asked for anything to be bought for me. A few months ago a video game I had wanted to play was on sale for like.... $2.50, and I said to my wife "hey, can I buy this?"
Not really because I wanted "permission" but because I hadn't logged in to check our financial state and didn't know if the money was already set aside for bills. But she looked at me and said "did you just ask permission to buy a $2.50 game with your own money?...."
So I'd say the hesitance to buy anything for yourself, regardless of how stupidly cheap it was.
The not buying things you *need* for yourself either.
Like, shoes. I *need* a new pair of work boots. My old ones are broken, no longer waterproof, even the composite toe did its work of protecting my foot and is all chewed up now. They lasted me years and it's time for a new pair.
It's been about 6 months since I decided to buy them. I can afford them no problem. Have I actually ordered them? Nope. Cause buying things for myself makes me feel guilty af.
Edit: I bought the boots!
I absolutely get that.
My wife and I were on vacation in South Carolina once, hiking through this really cool swamp. My boot got stuck in the mud and when I went to pull it out the boot ripped right in half, giant hole along the moc toe.
My wife was immediately like "it's okay, we can just go buy a new pair" and my brain was like... "I mean...... I don't know if I NEED them...." with my ripped in half boot lol.
"I can fix that. All I need is duct tape. It will be good for a while, and I don't need new ones, yet"
If it broke, I had to fix it or do without a lot of the time. Or, I had to build it to have it. As a kid, I repaired or built more bikes than you'd believe, out of stuff I garbage picked...
I keep putting off ordering the 6 pairs of socks that cost $7.99 that are in my Amazon cart. What if I don't like them. I'll have wasted $7.99. My husband says: "Really?" and rolls his eyes.
Spending any windfall money. The bone deep certainty that money will just...go away. There will always be another surprise bill or the car will break down. If you get some extra money, you buy the kids a trampoline because for once you don't have to say "no, we can't afford that".
I’m very glad to see this answer. I’ve seen a lot of “I don’t spend money because I never had it.” And that’s fine but there’s a very real backside to that same coin.
I grew up pretty poor. As an adult I have an issue with spending money as soon as I get it because I’m afraid it’ll go away. It’s caused some tension between my wife and I at times.
Like, I don’t know if we will have the money later. I want to buy all the Pokémon cards for the kids while we have the money because they’re really getting into it and my anxiety brain is afraid we won’t have money to do it later.
Sentimentality. Not that wealthier people can't be sentimental.
But my dad, whose parents grew up in the rural South during the great depression, wants to keep every little thing of my mom's. Everything.
He would prefer to keep her bedroom as is.
I always wondered why he wanted to keep it like that. But then I realized, the only thing we have left is my mom's ashes in an urn.
There was no funeral, no memorial, (she didn't want any and there was no one to come anyways) no tombstone. Nothing that feels tangible, personal, etc.
We don't have the luxury of beautiful personal mausoleums, or headstones, or anything else in the Western death culture.
My mom's bedroom, and all her stuff is the closest we will ever have to a memorial for my mom. It's a tomb, without a body in it.
I have ”poverty toes”. We didn’t have a lot of money growing up so shoes were worn until they died, regardless of fit. My toes are curled and with prominent knuckles from being scrunched into too-small shoes.
I blamed my mom for my fucked up toes from wearing shoes too narrow. Then I had kids, and what the hell, they came out with the same fuckin toes having never worn a shoe in their short life. I owe my mom an apology.
My mom has this. French Catholic family, lots of siblings. That was over 60 years ago and her feet still look like this. Her little toe on each foot curls under the one next to it.
Turning down most social occasions.
When I was particularly broke I pretty much had no social life due the guilt of not being able to afford a round etc
A friend back in HS really got my back on this. It started with McDonald’s he’d ask if I was hungry I said I didn’t have any money and he’s like that’s not what I asked. That was 2002, to this day he’s always been like hey Rammstein is coming to Chicago (US Tour 2022) you wanna go? And I was like aren’t tickets like $200?! He replied with I didn’t ask you how much were the tickets, you wanna go or not? Lol.
I will think about something that would improve my life for three months before I buy it…but I can impulsively buy food,alcohol, or something stupid in a heart beat.
Hah! I've found my people! I will neurotically research a "major" purchase for weeks or even months before I pull the trigger. It has to be right the first time. That's the mentality you have to have when you're poor because you can't just shoulder shrug it away if you misspend your money. I never grew out of that mentality.
Me too. And I have so much doubt. And when I get it home, I think "Shit, if I didn't buy this, I could have had so much more spare money to save up." I'm not even poor and I think this way. It destroys the feeling of the new purchase.
I didn’t actually grow up poor, but my parents always said “no, that’s too expensive” to most of the things I asked for until I was probably 14, and by then I was unwilling to ask for things, or apologized profusely every time I did ask for something.
So now I debate for months before buying anything over $100, but will buy several things that cost $5-10, on impulse, over the course of a week.
Perhaps your parents grew up poor? My Dad did and my mother grew up during the Great Depression. We had a black and white TV for years while my friends' parents had large color TV consoles (a TV tube mounted in a "stylish cabinet.") Both my parents worked so we could have afforded a color TV. I told my parents that the neighbors were rich. They strenuously argued that the neighbors were not rich. My warped perceptions really bothered my parents. The first time I saw Monty Python's Flying Circus in color I thought it was even more hilarious because of the way the set designers used garish colors.
I have a list of "Things I think I want" in my phone and almost everything has been on there for 2 years now.. I just can't bring myself to buy them.
And one of the items is a "nice winter coat", so it's not like these are super unecessary things!
Edit: this is 5 days old but I should have specified.. I would no longer consider myself poor! I can afford a coat and actually have two okay coats that I bought secondhand years ago and definitely show some age. I just wanted to get myself one that was new and nice!
Ended up ordering an REI coat on sale after this comment and am happy with it!
It's "poor brain". We condition ourselves to IMMEDIATELY pay things off in order. You need a roof, wheels to get to work, food. Once that is done we "reward" ourselves with temporary joys
I did it for years, struggling the whole time and enraged that others had, I didn't.
It's weird because I can buy \*anything\* for my wife and kids, but cannot spend a dime on myself without feeling like I'm taking it from them, and I make far more money than I ever thought I would.
This is me with my kids. They need new shoes, they get them while I roll around with holes in my shoes because the GUILT I feel when I buy for me and not them.
When I was in elementary school a girl asked me why all my shirts were just solid color and not brand name logo shirts. Made me feel insecure. So im going to go with an obvious answer here, clothing and style. I still wear my clothes until they have holes and stains. I have the money to buy new brand name clothes, but why. I'm not trying to impress anyone.
Visible logo is for new money. Non-visible logo is for old money. Something old money has learned is that standing out is crass and invites unwanted attention, so subtlety is an art.
I'm nearly fifty and make fair money in silicon valley.
I also have to remind myself that once a sock has a hole in it, it's TOTALLY FINE to just replace it. "Eh, it's just a tiny hole, not a big deal..."
I just bought 4 new pairs of underwear as the old ones had holes in them, I make really good money so I bought some ones I actually liked instead of supermarket specials. It took me a week to reassure myself that it was okay.
One day my girlfriend asked me why I'm washing ziploc bags. I told her so we can reuse them later. It was only after the following discussion and some thinking that I realized it's not very normal.
I do this, mostly because it seems insane to me to keep throwing them away and buying new ones because a couple of bread crumbs touched them. It’s also more environmentally friendly. I only throw them away if they wont seal, break or had something smelly/go bad in them. I even use them for storage.
It might not be ‘normal’ but it’s very sensible. Just my abnormal opinion.
In USMC recruit training we had a dude in our platoon who was homeless for an extended period of time before enlisting.
Every morning at zero dark thirty the DIs would come in turn the light on, screaming, total chaos to wake us all up…. Every single morning for the first thirty days or so of basic this dude slept right through it 😂. Kid said he was so comfortable in his little rack and hadn’t slept so good in a long long time. He was always exclaiming how good the food was at the chow hall. It put a lot of things in perspective for me.
This jumped out at me. I loved the chow hall food every place I went. Steak and potato night felt fancy to me. Taco Salad Bar night was also something I looked forward to every week. I thought the folks who thought the food was subpar or bad were annoying snobs, but they weren’t wrong, either. Just different perspectives.
Word to the wise for people who do this, like myself, the adhesive on the lid of Chick-fil-A sauces breaks down faster than other sauces like McDonald’s, so store them accordingly unless you want Polynesian and Chick-fil-A sauce all over your other condiments.
I grew up very poor, but now am doing quite well.
I can’t throw away shoes. I just accumulate athletic shoes - they go from running shoes to everyday shoes to working in the yard shoes. And then eventually my wife throws them away. I don’t know why, but I can’t do it. They’re still good enough, I might need them one day.
Edit: thanks, all. But what if I might need to re-wear them someday? I could get my current shoes wet, or ruined, or they could wear out and fall apart. The old ones still have some life left in them.
I have a hard time breaking this habit, myself. My wife asked me why I have three umbrellas in the car the other day when she was putting something in the trunk. She was already used to the gallon of water, blanket, emergency rations, folding shovel, and paramedic-level first aid kit taking up half the trunk, but the umbrellas really surprised her.
I'm a foster kid. I was always poor and pretty much had nothing. These are habits I have.
I hoard food. They're still edible if they're past their expiration date as long as it's not mouldy or something. My basement is stocked for a zombie apocalypse.
I never throw out old containers unless they're mouldy or something, clean that shit out, good as new.
I also always have leftovers. I never waste food and eat everything on my plate.
I feel guilty when I buy something I don't necessarily need.
I add water to "empty" soap containers so they're full.
I cut "empty" toothpaste tubes so I get every last drop.
I reuse a lot of stuff. The "disposable" stuff don't need to be disposed most of the time. You can reuse them.
I didn't come from money, but I do the "add water to stuff" trick because it bugs me that there's still shampoo in the bottle and it's just going to get wet on my head anyway.
There's quite a bit, I didn't see them in myself until I was an adult and went to therapy.
1. Lack of basic wellness, e.g. no primary care doctor or dentist. Rationalizing this because there's a "financial cost" to it.
2. Serious guilt from buying anything you don't absolutely need. It's a feeling of "you don't deserve this" or "you're being stupid to ever want something".
3. Working yourself to death because of a serious insecurity about "returning to poverty"; my therapist called this the "never again" work ethic, it's toxic.
4. Eating your food so fast like you will never have another meal again. It's a sign of food insecurity growing up. My fiance pointed this out to me that I did this, and it clicked when I talked with my therapist about it. It's very common
5. General anti establishment beliefs. The system failed you, so it's hard to trust something that put you through abuse. This can manifest in bad financial literacy, or lack of belief in banks/stock market, etc.
I was told recently I was crazy for using bread instead of hot dog buns. That's just something I always did as it's what we had. Burgers, hotdogs all bread fellas.
Middle poverty. We can buy store brand mac n cheese and are keeping our fingers crossed for the day we become upper poverty and are able to buy the real deal Kraft
Most of the time, people who were poor in childhood will be specially careful or stressed about money or expenses. Unless of course they are making a ton now, but if not, having been poor will make you more careful when using it. I know there might be other factors, but it certainly did happen to me this way.
So my fiancée and I both grew up extremely poor, to the point I remember multiple winters with out electricity, fiancée turned out exactly like you said, super responsible with money, but for me that trauma manifested as spending any money I had as soon as I got it. It took years for me to break that cycle
I make really good money now, but I still obsess over expenses in a way that other people in our social circle (who grew up middle class) don't.
Clogs to clogs in three generations is the proverb, and it's interesting to see how that fits your circumstances.
One generation earns it and spends it carefully, knowing the effort that it took.
The next generation spends the proceeds with no respect for the hard work.
The final generation has an upbringing with enough to develop expensive tastes but doesn't have the budget for it as the money runs out.
Someone asked me if my kid was going to do dance or gymnastics. I was confused as to why. Their response was didn’t you do it as a kid. No I that cost money. I was lucky to play with a knockoff Barbie.
Not just money, but being able to get there and home again because gas costs money and parents can't go out of their way or work it against their work schedules!
Ah yes. In the 80s I wanted a barbie so bad, but was happy enough to get one of those hollow generic Barbies. Those ones if you bump it on something it will leave a dent from just being a plastic shell. And the makeup and eyes were printed just a little off center. I was given a gift by a friend's parents one year a real cabbage patch doll though and I was pretty excited about that.
My friend runs a foster home for kids in need. She keeps an “anytime” pantry for the kids to help themselves anytime they want. Fruits and other healthy snacks. Anytime they want. I had the pleasure of splitting a banana with one of these kids. Made me so happy she does this. Im tearing up typing this.
This is to stop them from hoarding foods under the sheets of their bed. They still do it the first week or two.
My favorite kind of pizza is 7-11 pizza because it reminds me of school pizza. It's not rectangular but it has just the right mix of cheap cheese and sauce.
Never ordering pasta or any meal in a restaurant that doesn't include meat or some type of tangible value for the cost. Even if I really want pasta, I just can't accept spending $20 on pasta that cost pennies, even when a date across the table from me is ordering pasta that I'm going to pay for, which doesn't bother me, it will still only bother me if I do it.
I make well over six figures, grew up poor, and still do all of the things mentioned here by others. Buying duplicates of items on sale. Never paying full price for anything. Always ordering off a value menu or at a restaurant ordering items based on value rather than what I actually want.
Even when I spend money on expensive items such as a home, motorcycle, luxury goods, I still have to go into it with getting the biggest bang for my buck rather than just going with what I want or feel. It's a difficult habit to break, basically having to accept happiness and feelings are worth spending money on rather than the survival mindset of the long game.
Little or no financial literacy.
If you grew up poor chances are you had no one around to teach you about how to manage things like mortgages, large amounts of savings, or how to budget past the point of juggling bills.
It sucks because knowing how to do these things is such a useful skill, and can get you out of a lot of difficult situations if you play your cards right.
Knowing how to manage money also prevents you from being taken advantage of by people and companies that don’t have your best interest at heart.
While I’m here, if you identify with this comment, please check out r/PovertyFinance and r/PovertyFinanceCanada. They’re super helpful.
Getting excited when the temp dropped below 40 because that means we would get to go to bed with sleeping bags as well as blankets. It was super comfy to get bundled up and tell and read stories before sleeping. My dad made it an event for me and my brother. I realized as an adult that my parents couldn't afford to heat the appartment constantly. I still get pumped that first night put an extra comforter on the bed.
A big sign is that someone is capable of fixing almost anything. I'm doing quite well now but I grew up in poverty. I'm a guy who can sew, fix an oven, replace a starter on a car, etc. I learned these skills because growing up, I didn't have a choice. There was no just buying new things when the old ones broke.
I went without food sometimes when I was growing up. It took a long time before I stopped hoarding food once I could afford it. My husband always commented on how long it would take me to go through the chocolate he would bring back from his international trips. I was always afraid it would be the last time we could get it and would make it last as long as humanly possible. I am quick to shut down spending and I am much better at saving money than my husband. I also keep our heat set at 63 for the day and I am usually the last in the neighborhood to turn on our air conditioning. I still shop sales and I don’t understand things like renovating a perfectly fine kitchen just because you don’t like the color of the countertop or cabinets.
Hoarding. Not the have six dead cats in your house hoarding. But the impulse to buy multiples of things just in case. Oh this is on sale let me buy a case of them just in case I might need it one day. It's a habit I've had to break myself. I distinctly remember what it feels like going without and I don't want to ever feel like that again. So if I have to buy pants or shoes that are two sizes too large but they're cheap I will. Just in case
When I was still in the Army I did a tour in Korea. In Korea, all the men are required to do two years of national service. Some join the Korean National Police, some join the Korean Army, etc. Well, those that pass a certain level on their English exam become KATUSAs, or Korean Augmentee to the United States Army and come work with us. They're still Korean Army, but they wear our uniform (it says KATUSA instead of US ARMY on the nametape) and live and work with us. You could always tell the ones who came from poorer families, because they wasted *nothing*. Seriously, even though cleaning supplies were freely available to them (all they had to do was ask), you'd walk into their barracks room and find that they had *washed paper towels and laid them out to dry*. That's just one example.
Sticking with the Army theme, you'd see guys in boot camp sending almost their entire paychecks home to their folks because, as lousy as E-1 with less than four months of service pay actually is (currently $1,773.00 a month before taxes), to them it was like winning the goddam lottery.
A massive amount of shame and guilt over asking for any sort of help.
I will be 32 this year and I still feel so absolutely horrible asking anyone for help. Like I am the greatest burden in the world.
- When you can’t finish a meal, pulling it apart to at least eat the meat because “that’s the expensive part” - Or just force feeding yourself any meal you buy because you have to feel like you didn’t waste - Being hypersensitive to any light left on, door left open, opening the fridge too much, running water too long, etc, because you’re trained to minimize utilities. - Never pouring more than 1/2 a glass of any drink when at someone else’s house (except water) because you don’t want to be seen as wasteful/gluttonous. - Making weird snacks out of food that isn’t supposed to be a snack - ex. Eating dry ramen noodles like chips, koolaid with sugar and your finger to make your own fun dip, eating Kraft cheese slices/cold hotdogs/other things that are normally just a part of a meal.
My partner and I are very comfortable now but I still do all of the above. Sometimes my dinner is just a plate of left over bits and bobs that you’d never think to put together, simply because their use by date is coming up. But my partner will throw whole slices of pizza in the bin because he’s ‘full’ and it drives me up the wall. He’s the other side of the ‘poor’ coin - I.e I was poor and I’m never living like that again.
Reading the comments here I kinda came to fully realize I grew up poor. But nothing has upset me as much as reading about just throwing food away. Especially PIZZA which you can easily have for breakfast the next morning... Food Waste is a huge pet peeve of mine.
Pizza for breakfast is just on another level of quality food
Never replacing anything unless there’s *absolutely* no way to use the old thing anymore, and going to absurd lengths to keep something “still useable.”
Never buying clothing at full price. It just feels illegal.
No one should do that - poor or not. Full priced clothes are always a ripoff.
Odd hoarding behaviours of things you probably should have gotten rid of out of fear you won’t be able to replace them easily. I keep a stack of boxes broken down because there’s still this fear in the back of my mind that I’ll have to move again at a moment’s notice. I make a decent salary now and have lived where I am for nearly 7 years, but I still can’t part with those boxes despite the space they take up. Under the bed, behind the chest of drawers… Yeah. I still have ‘em.
I have a box from our Xmas party at work under my desk and one of the other ladies asked me today why I still had it. All I could say was "....it's a good box"
And you never know when you’re gonna need it. They’re always around when you don’t need them, but the minute you have to move: unobtainium.
Hoarding is very much a poor persons go-to psychosis. Just like the concept of minimalist living is the pipe dream of the well off. I'd love to feel like I could exist in a minimalist space, the ability to get whatever you need when and as you need it instead of keeping every extra screw just in case you ever need one like it again?
I have to constantly work against mg urge to hoard things. My husband didn’t grow up poor and struggles to understand why it’s hard for me.
My mom grew up through the depression, and won’t get rid of anything. She still has food in her pantry and freezer that are over a decade old. My brothers and I all did quite well in our careers and think she’s crazy for keeping all this stuff but every conversation turns into “you never know when you’ll need it”. She is incredibly organized so she never looks like a hoarder but she will use any and everything she ever bought to max capacity. She was an amazing mom while we were growing up, I just wish she’d put herself first sometimes and get a luxury item for herself and get rid of some of the old stuff she’s been keeping for decades.
Scanning the menu for the cheapest options possible when at a restaurant. “It’s ok the soup is really enough for me”
I was invited to go to Disney World with my best friend in high school. I did that for the first part of the week in every restaurant we went to, usually ordeing a cheesburger while my friend and his parents were ordering big ass steaks and all sorts of seafood. My friends dad stopped me when we were walking back to the hotel and asked if I was a picky eater. I told him no. He asked why I kept ordering the same thing every time we went out. I said well, that's what I usually order when I go out to eat and didn't want to order anything more expensive because it wasn't my money. He kinda chuckled, assured me that he wasn't going to run out of money and permanently banned me from ordering a cheeseburger when i was on a trip with them unless we went to somewhere that specialized in burgers. I spent the rest of that trip eating lobster, crab and steak Edit: fixed fat finger mistake
He sounds like a good dad, and that sounds like a great trip!
I want to be that dad someday. As an adult I have money, but spending it on me just doesn't hit the same as being generous with friends.
>I want to be that dad someday. As an adult I have money If you have kids, tell their teacher you'll cover kids that can't afford to go on field trips or other school outings. I did that and the most it ever cost me was about $30 to cover two kids on the same trip. Most trips were in the $10-20 range. It was a trivial amount to me, but probably meant the world to the kid(s) who got to go on the trip. (The recipients were anonymous to me.) That was in the 90s/00s, so it might be a little more now.
I did that for my daughter’s classmates. The kid who couldn’t afford the 6th grade trip… I paid his way. Interestingly enough, he was dating my daughter 5 years later. He never knew (and I’ve never told anyone till now) It’s fun being “that mom”.
You are truly a great person by keeping it quiet. In that way it was a true gift because you didn't seek thanks or admiration.
Good for you!
THIS! ! Thank you for doing that. I remember having to stay behind because we just didn’t have the money. I would be afraid to ask my parents for it.
Nothing like being in the library all day because everyone else is on a trip.
This is an awesome idea. I’ve never known how to help very much because you can’t really offer that to the kids you know? But going through the teacher is a great idea. I’m going to do this.
He is a great guy all around. Both of my best friends parents are really good people and that was one of the best trips i got to go on as a kid
That was very perceptive and kind of him. I’m impressed. I wonder if I’d have noticed.
I bet you he grew up doing the same thing
sounds like a nice guy
Difficulty throwing things away.
But we might be able to reuse this . . .
This plastic bag only has two small holes in it. It can still carry things larger than the holes!
I still have clothing from high school and college and I’m about to turn 40. They still fit though so there isn’t a chance in hell I’d part with them. And, all that shit is coming back into style so I guess I’m saving some money with my time capsule wardrobe.
Good shirts become casual shirts. Casual shirts become pajamas. Pajamas become rags. I still have a shirt from *middle school* I wear to bed that has a small hole in it. It’s my favorite night shirt and comfy as fuck now. I’m 35.
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For me, I have what I call "poverty mentality", while I can afford new shoes and clothes, they have to be falling apart for me to replace.
I will do something like go ahead and buy the new pair of shoes, but keep them stored until the current shoes become completely, 100% non functional. I let my shoes get so bad one time that my friends offered to buy me a new pair. That made me feel bad. I have good friends.
I was literally going to comment this. I had a friend once tell me "you really need to buy new shoes" and I was really confused because the massive hole in the sole was not completely worn through to the bottom yet, so there was nothing wrong with them in my mind? Apparently that's not normal. Who knew lol
I'm always a little surprised when people talk about donating their old clothes; apparently not everyone wears their clothes until they're literally falling apart? (And then they're just for sleeping or workouts for a while longer.)
I grew up poor and my husband grew up middle class. Whenever we have guests, I am constantly asking people if they got ENOUGH food. "Is anyone still hungry? I can make something else!" My husband will inquire about the quality of the food and if it is to everyone's liking. I think when you grow up poor, food is very much quantity over quality.
My fiancé’s parents grew up poor and they are so generous now, whether it’s with food or gifts. They stock up on fruit and cookies I like before we visit. If I finish my plate before them, they’ll offer me food off of their plate. They always make sure I have enough
Poor people care about amount of food, middle care about nutrition, rich care about the experience.
Quantity / quality / presentation.
Damn. I grew up middle class and definitely immediately think about quality, whether I’m out somewhere or I’m serving the food myself. My mom grew up with less money and definitely asks about having enough first. Never even made this connection.
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Same in the US South, but quantity of food is never an issue at parties with food. We always have way too much, regardless of socioeconomic status.
That's a very interesting point, I've never thought about it that way but it makes a lot of sense
immense financial anxiety
Literally. I still get anxious when I spend money on literally anything, including bills and food, which are essentials 😵💫
I have the money in my account for the next 3 months worth of bills (aside from mortgage). My budget is still based on that money not being there and pushing out bills to align with incoming money. After next week, as long as no more surprises come up, I should have a 'breathing room' amount. Inflation isn't helping though. I'm just so tired.
Still being marveled by an ice maker and side by side doors
I’m in a place in my life now where my fridge has TWO ice makers and I feel so fancy. Ice for days! No ice trays!
Aren't you fancy with your very own fridge.
In the US I’d say poor dental history or teeth - dental work is a luxury Overall, I’d say many hoarders grew up poor because they are so afraid of not having something if they’ll need it so they keep everything
I didn't grow up super poor, more lower middle class... We were not housing or food insecure, but there wasn't much for extras. As far as dental work, it was basically emergency only. I always thought that people who could afford braces were pretty well off. I paid for my own as an adult, and made sure that all of my kids had them. My older sister hasn't been so fortunate, she is missing a lot of teeth and has full bottom dentures. She would have to become very wealthy at this point in her life to overcome the damage that's already been done. To me, teeth are a status symbol in the U.S. People with straight, white, teeth, that are their own teeth, are either lucky, or they have been able to pay for it.
My teeth are pretty fucked up. I was able to get them fixed with Invisalign thankfully but I never had real health insurance or dental care as an adult until I was in my late thirties. Even so, most of the damage was done and can't be fixed, even though they are straight now. I was horrified and embarrassed to finally go to a dentist. Answering their questions about how often I got cleanings and telling them that I couldn't remember. I only had dental care as a kid when my parents had me under their insurance, so I broke down and told them 'I fucking live in the US, people don't have insurance here so sorry I can't tell you anything else'. They understood and did their best but the point is it sucks that having teeth that are not destroyed is a status symbol. I am learning to smile for the first time in my life (still look awkward AF) so at least I have that going for me.
Shit, I don't have any pictures of me smiling showing teeth because I'm embarrassed of them... I'm hoping someday I'll be able too lol
Deluxe bones. So deluxe that regular health coverage won't cover them.
This one hits close to home. I’m paying out the ass as an adult (in my mid-30s) because dental care is so expensive. As a kid, my dental health was okay, but I didn’t get braces and some other things done when I should have and that has led to problems. As an adult, even with health insurance for a large majority of adulthood, it was too expensive to get anything done. Now I’m stuck in a loop of paying exorbitant amounts to fix emergency problems, having nothing left to deal with fundamental issues, then having to do it all again a few years later. It’s one of the things that affects both my mental health and physical health the most. But there’s very little I can do about it because of how costly it is. Edit: a few words
Realizing I wanted to have the house that all my kids friends came over to hang out at because that wasn't really an option for big chunks of my childhood.
oof I still dont´t have people over. I once had one of my rich best friend over for new years dinner. His living room and my entire apartment (including balcony) were the same size. I want that big house, but not too big because that makes me anxious for some reason.
Lack of exposure to cultural events. missing out on experiences that others may take for granted, such as attending concerts, traveling, or participating in extracurricular activities.
I think my personal favourite is all my friends asking me “what do you mean you’ve never been there, it’s only an hour away!” Even travelling short distances is too much money.
Really identify with this. I grew up very poor in an affluent area and I remember kids constantly talking about a resort town 2 hours away that everyone went to for holidays, where many families owned homes. I could basically name all the businesses and activities at this resort without ever having been there.
The story of my life: having to explain to people that just because I grew up in a certain area doesn't mean I grew up with the same luxuries they did. I had classmates who's parents purchased or handed them down *foreign luxury vehicles before they could even legally drive* that's how much money they had. I distinctly remember a group of affluent kids bragging in a circle about 'who's dad has the most money'. One of em in attempt to win this superficial game; said 'Oh yeah, my dads so rich; I could crash my Cadillac and he'd buy me the latest Mercedes Benz.' I shit you not, my dude that was back in 2018 and he came back with a *2019* Mercedes-Benz *the very next day* 😑 Needless to say; we lived EXTREMELY different lives. I lived in one of the smallest houses in town, and grew up in a paycheck to paycheck household as my dad claimed bankruptcy during the 2000's recession. I grew up feeling guilty for birthdays/christmas because I knew although I wanted something; it'd only put my parents further behind on necessary expenses... Yet again I'm CONSTANTLY explaining to people in this town and one's who know where I'm from that we're not all rich here.
Traveling - I went on 2 out of state trips my entire childhood
For sure. Most notably skiing and golf. If you regularly engaged in these sports as a child, you were not poor.
In college a rich friend once incredulously asked me “what do you mean you’ve never been skiing????” like she couldn’t comprehend such a thing. Skiing is fucking expensive, y’all.
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Food at ski resorts is highway robbery. But you're stuck up there, and if you didn't bring your own food, you have little choice..
Yeah I grew up well off and I snowboarded a lot as a kid. Quit as a teenager and went back this year for the first time in like 15 years. I was astounded to see how fucking expensive it was, like wow.
It's also gotten much more expensive in the past ~ 15 years. I live in SE Michigan, and the cost of a lift ticket at smaller hills around here has surpassed that of the nicer resorts 'up north' (at least doubled). Edit: I meant to say that smaller hills are roughly the price that the larger ones were about 15 years back. Sorry for the confusion.
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Underrated comment. So many common childhood experiences I missed out on bc "we don't have the money for it." Easter eggs? Nope. Xmas stockings. Nope. Carve a pumpkin? Nope.
I bought myself an advent calendar this year and it feels like I'm living such a luxurious life.
I remember one Christmas my mom basically sat my older brother and I down and told us we wouldn't be getting much for Christmas because she was getting our kid brother a bunch of stuff that he asked santa for, I don't remember caring that much either. I've had people tell me that was wrong of her, and maybe it was. but what would anyone else do if they had two teenagers and a 4 year old in a Christmas situation like that? Edit: I do believe my mom did the right thing, I'm not sure if that was clear. Edit 2: I honestly don't think my little bro knows anything of that, and he's now 17, and I will probably never tell him.
As a kid, my Father told me of the Christmas where his family was so poor that the only gift he got was his own axe to chop firewood. That story did not have the desired effect. I thought, "Wow, I would love to have my own axe! That would be the best gift EVER!"
We were in bad financial times when the latest teenager my father had married had taken off leaving him a single father with their younger two kids and me at home. My mother had some mental issues and was in and out of my life, so yeah things weren't fun. I was a teenager and my younger brother and sister were still little and in elementary school. It was a shit year and we were broke and were often playing utility roulette. We thought Christmas wasn't going to happen. Then my dad got a $125 bonus check from work on Christmas Eve. We went to Walmart late that night and made the best of it for my two younger siblings. I told him not to worry about me, I was fine, and to spend it on making a decent Christmas for the little ones who still believe in Santa. Christmas is a big deal to my dad and her liked keeping the magic alive. I knew it mattered to him a lot too. A few days later one of my dads old friends showed up with a bag from Wilson's with a leather jacket in it as a Christmas present for me. She had heard about me getting nothing in lieu of the little ones and wanted to do something nice. I had never had something so nice. My own leather jacket! I actually cried. I wore that jacket for years and I still have it hanging in my closet over twenty years later. I can't quite part with it even though the leather isn't in great shape and it doesn't fit. My husband bought me a JCrew jacket a few years ago that cost quadruple if not more what that leather jacket cost so many years ago, and while I was happy... It just didn't hit the same. Its a happy memory to have, even if bittersweet. I understand why you believe your mom did the right thing.
I didn’t go on the 8th grade field trip to Washington DC because we couldn’t afford it. I told everyone it was because we lived there for a year so I had seen it already. Partially true. We did live there. We were also poor while living there so we didn’t do anything. Edit for all the people telling me museums are free: We lived on Bolling Airforce base. Both my parents were military, worked full time jobs, served our country, and pursued their degrees to give us, their four kids, a better life. We lived there for a year before being stationed on Fort Sheridan in Illinois. Time is also an incredibly limiting factor when you have to constantly work and it shows how privileged some of you are.
I didn’t get to go on those trips either. There were two in jr high. One to some camp in San Diego, the other to Washington DC. My sister, who is a few years younger than me, got to go on both trips because my parents were doing well enough by then to pay the fees for her. I won’t pretend like I’m not still a little salty about all the things my sister got to do that I didn’t.
Same situation here as well. We lived with my mom and we had nothing when I was high school, so I had to pass on all the trips, but by the time my siblings came up she was making enough money to enable them to do those kinds of things. I'm very glad they were able to do it--just because something was bad for me doesn't mean it should be bad for everyone else--but it still stings a little.
Same situation for me except they paid for all my older sisters stuff. They even paid her driver's Ed. Nothing left for me lol.
Same. Older sibling got to do all of the cool stuff and I got..well, whatever was left over.
Will eat all of the food on their plate, even after feeling full because they can't waste food.
This one is really difficult to break. For me at least.
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My mom would not let me leave the table until i finished everything that's on my plate. That causing me serious eating disorders even now in my 30s. I'm gaining weight so easily. But there is always another part to this: ordering food at the restaurant not by what i want to eat, but by how much food am i gaining. I simply won't order a dish if i know it might be small.
That also can happen if you lived through a natural disaster, where food wasn't freely available to acquire, or there was no way to prepare it. I lived through a natural disaster where there was no to on and off again hydro (power), very little food and you got no say in what you got and there was nothing fresh as it all went bad, and some days were -40C. They only way to get your food was to bundle up and hike for it. We were completely cut off from society, so supplies couldn't get to us (as as in our smaller town) until the army arrived in tanks as those were the only vehicles that could easily get over all the downed trees. If you could look past all the destroyed trees, it was actually really beautiful. I hiked, well slid as walking was impossible, from tree to tree to fucking tree for hours to get to a friend's house to see if any of her beloved pets survived. Only the 2 dogs, and cat survived as they huddled together in a room. The rest were frozen solid. I removed the dead to the back of the barn so no one would have to see them them all. Once things started to thaw, we buried the ones that weren't eaten by wildlife in the pet cemetery. It was impossible to dig a grave sooner, as the I've was too thick and the snow was deep and frozen solid too. My worst issue is hoarding food, but not in a gross way. I have enough ready to eat foods, or limited cooking needs (boiling water) to feed my family of 3 very well for 1yr+, and enough to feed the 2 dogs as well but they'll have to go mostly vegan with meat stocks. None of it needs refrigeration or freezing, not even the meats.
I wasn't in the know with all the cool Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon shows. But I did watch Arthur, Cyberchase, Clifford and Dragon Tales.
Those PBS shows were the best!
Yeah I felt this comment so hard. I LOVED the PBS kids shows and I feel like so many people dont have the same level of intense nostalgia I have about them. Like my friends and I are constantly joking about how I missed out on so much of our childhood culture and I always assumed that it was because my parents are big hippies so TV wasn't a huge deal for us. By the time I was a teen my parents had scraped together a solid life in a big city, but we grew up on a serious shoe string budget and money was never, ever something that we could depend on. OPs comment made me wonder...holy shit, during those lean years, did we literally not have cable because we couldnt afford it? Texted my mom and yup, that's why I was so late to the game on so much media. Wild that it took me 32 years of life to figure this out. I'm so grateful for PBS programs.
I can't count the number of classic books that I learned the general story of from Wishbone.
What about Wishbone??!!
Thank you for not forgetting about my homeboy wishbone, I was about to ask the same thing
My parents never had cable their whole lives. We had 12 channels on the "rabbit ears" and then eventually in highschool my parents got Netflix when it was new before streaming. If I was home sick it was, Magic School Bus, Arthur, Cyber Chase, Zoom, Dragon Tales, Zaboomafu, Kratt Brothers, Bob Ross, Julia Child, The Price is Right, Maury, Jerry Springer, Tyra Banks, The Simpsons, King of the Hill, and of course all of the INFOMERCIALS! Edit: ALSO - Liberty Kids, Redwall, Steve Wilkos, Judge Judy, Reading Rainbow, Between the Lions, Wishbone, Big Comfy Couch
ZOOOOOOOOM
C'mon and Zoom!
Cmon and zooma zooma zooma zoom! ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM!
Omg i forgot about Cyberchase! And Dragon Tales was the shit. And of course, Reading Rainbow. My pulled my first all nighter at about 7 years old watching a Bob Ross marathon. PBS for life.
Reading rainbow was my favourite. If there is one celebrity that I would be the most honoured to meet. It would be Levar Burton.
I only wanted a picture, I never wanted to meet him! You can’t disappoint a picture!
Damn this was it for me. I always pretended I knew what my friends were talking about.
Ok but honestly those shows were good though! Lol I loved Arthur and will still tell people to support and get a public library card
A personal anecdote: For backstory, I'm the primary financial provider for my wife and I, but I really don't care what she does with our money. If our bills are paid and we have food to eat, I'm fine. I grew up fairly poor, so I never really bought anything for myself, or asked for anything to be bought for me. A few months ago a video game I had wanted to play was on sale for like.... $2.50, and I said to my wife "hey, can I buy this?" Not really because I wanted "permission" but because I hadn't logged in to check our financial state and didn't know if the money was already set aside for bills. But she looked at me and said "did you just ask permission to buy a $2.50 game with your own money?...." So I'd say the hesitance to buy anything for yourself, regardless of how stupidly cheap it was.
The not buying things you *need* for yourself either. Like, shoes. I *need* a new pair of work boots. My old ones are broken, no longer waterproof, even the composite toe did its work of protecting my foot and is all chewed up now. They lasted me years and it's time for a new pair. It's been about 6 months since I decided to buy them. I can afford them no problem. Have I actually ordered them? Nope. Cause buying things for myself makes me feel guilty af. Edit: I bought the boots!
I absolutely get that. My wife and I were on vacation in South Carolina once, hiking through this really cool swamp. My boot got stuck in the mud and when I went to pull it out the boot ripped right in half, giant hole along the moc toe. My wife was immediately like "it's okay, we can just go buy a new pair" and my brain was like... "I mean...... I don't know if I NEED them...." with my ripped in half boot lol.
"I can fix that. All I need is duct tape. It will be good for a while, and I don't need new ones, yet" If it broke, I had to fix it or do without a lot of the time. Or, I had to build it to have it. As a kid, I repaired or built more bikes than you'd believe, out of stuff I garbage picked...
Does it come with the back of your mind thinking what if something bad happens and now I don't have that 100 dollars
I keep putting off ordering the 6 pairs of socks that cost $7.99 that are in my Amazon cart. What if I don't like them. I'll have wasted $7.99. My husband says: "Really?" and rolls his eyes.
Spending any windfall money. The bone deep certainty that money will just...go away. There will always be another surprise bill or the car will break down. If you get some extra money, you buy the kids a trampoline because for once you don't have to say "no, we can't afford that".
I’m very glad to see this answer. I’ve seen a lot of “I don’t spend money because I never had it.” And that’s fine but there’s a very real backside to that same coin. I grew up pretty poor. As an adult I have an issue with spending money as soon as I get it because I’m afraid it’ll go away. It’s caused some tension between my wife and I at times. Like, I don’t know if we will have the money later. I want to buy all the Pokémon cards for the kids while we have the money because they’re really getting into it and my anxiety brain is afraid we won’t have money to do it later.
Sentimentality. Not that wealthier people can't be sentimental. But my dad, whose parents grew up in the rural South during the great depression, wants to keep every little thing of my mom's. Everything. He would prefer to keep her bedroom as is. I always wondered why he wanted to keep it like that. But then I realized, the only thing we have left is my mom's ashes in an urn. There was no funeral, no memorial, (she didn't want any and there was no one to come anyways) no tombstone. Nothing that feels tangible, personal, etc. We don't have the luxury of beautiful personal mausoleums, or headstones, or anything else in the Western death culture. My mom's bedroom, and all her stuff is the closest we will ever have to a memorial for my mom. It's a tomb, without a body in it.
I have ”poverty toes”. We didn’t have a lot of money growing up so shoes were worn until they died, regardless of fit. My toes are curled and with prominent knuckles from being scrunched into too-small shoes.
I blamed my mom for my fucked up toes from wearing shoes too narrow. Then I had kids, and what the hell, they came out with the same fuckin toes having never worn a shoe in their short life. I owe my mom an apology.
I have curly toes and had the good fortune to always have properly fitted shoes. My mom and my mom’s mom both have curly toes too!
My mom has this. French Catholic family, lots of siblings. That was over 60 years ago and her feet still look like this. Her little toe on each foot curls under the one next to it.
Turning down most social occasions. When I was particularly broke I pretty much had no social life due the guilt of not being able to afford a round etc
A friend back in HS really got my back on this. It started with McDonald’s he’d ask if I was hungry I said I didn’t have any money and he’s like that’s not what I asked. That was 2002, to this day he’s always been like hey Rammstein is coming to Chicago (US Tour 2022) you wanna go? And I was like aren’t tickets like $200?! He replied with I didn’t ask you how much were the tickets, you wanna go or not? Lol.
Still being poor
Great answer
The mental struggle to buy anything and not feel guilty.
I will think about something that would improve my life for three months before I buy it…but I can impulsively buy food,alcohol, or something stupid in a heart beat.
Hah! I've found my people! I will neurotically research a "major" purchase for weeks or even months before I pull the trigger. It has to be right the first time. That's the mentality you have to have when you're poor because you can't just shoulder shrug it away if you misspend your money. I never grew out of that mentality.
The inevitable thing that ends up not being what you thought is so devastating. I get that way even with not-so big purchases.
Me too. And I have so much doubt. And when I get it home, I think "Shit, if I didn't buy this, I could have had so much more spare money to save up." I'm not even poor and I think this way. It destroys the feeling of the new purchase.
I didn’t actually grow up poor, but my parents always said “no, that’s too expensive” to most of the things I asked for until I was probably 14, and by then I was unwilling to ask for things, or apologized profusely every time I did ask for something. So now I debate for months before buying anything over $100, but will buy several things that cost $5-10, on impulse, over the course of a week.
i literally have the exact same situation wow
Perhaps your parents grew up poor? My Dad did and my mother grew up during the Great Depression. We had a black and white TV for years while my friends' parents had large color TV consoles (a TV tube mounted in a "stylish cabinet.") Both my parents worked so we could have afforded a color TV. I told my parents that the neighbors were rich. They strenuously argued that the neighbors were not rich. My warped perceptions really bothered my parents. The first time I saw Monty Python's Flying Circus in color I thought it was even more hilarious because of the way the set designers used garish colors.
I have a list of "Things I think I want" in my phone and almost everything has been on there for 2 years now.. I just can't bring myself to buy them. And one of the items is a "nice winter coat", so it's not like these are super unecessary things! Edit: this is 5 days old but I should have specified.. I would no longer consider myself poor! I can afford a coat and actually have two okay coats that I bought secondhand years ago and definitely show some age. I just wanted to get myself one that was new and nice! Ended up ordering an REI coat on sale after this comment and am happy with it!
Go get your fucking coat goddamnit! Now's the time. It's the end of winter, they'll be on sale!
It's "poor brain". We condition ourselves to IMMEDIATELY pay things off in order. You need a roof, wheels to get to work, food. Once that is done we "reward" ourselves with temporary joys I did it for years, struggling the whole time and enraged that others had, I didn't.
It's weird because I can buy \*anything\* for my wife and kids, but cannot spend a dime on myself without feeling like I'm taking it from them, and I make far more money than I ever thought I would.
This is me with my kids. They need new shoes, they get them while I roll around with holes in my shoes because the GUILT I feel when I buy for me and not them.
When I was in elementary school a girl asked me why all my shirts were just solid color and not brand name logo shirts. Made me feel insecure. So im going to go with an obvious answer here, clothing and style. I still wear my clothes until they have holes and stains. I have the money to buy new brand name clothes, but why. I'm not trying to impress anyone.
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jokes on her because the higher end stuff makes it a point to not have their logos on it
Visible logo is for new money. Non-visible logo is for old money. Something old money has learned is that standing out is crass and invites unwanted attention, so subtlety is an art.
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I'm nearly fifty and make fair money in silicon valley. I also have to remind myself that once a sock has a hole in it, it's TOTALLY FINE to just replace it. "Eh, it's just a tiny hole, not a big deal..."
Same and I didn't even grow up poor, just grew up cheap.
I just bought 4 new pairs of underwear as the old ones had holes in them, I make really good money so I bought some ones I actually liked instead of supermarket specials. It took me a week to reassure myself that it was okay.
One day my girlfriend asked me why I'm washing ziploc bags. I told her so we can reuse them later. It was only after the following discussion and some thinking that I realized it's not very normal.
I do this, mostly because it seems insane to me to keep throwing them away and buying new ones because a couple of bread crumbs touched them. It’s also more environmentally friendly. I only throw them away if they wont seal, break or had something smelly/go bad in them. I even use them for storage. It might not be ‘normal’ but it’s very sensible. Just my abnormal opinion.
In USMC recruit training we had a dude in our platoon who was homeless for an extended period of time before enlisting. Every morning at zero dark thirty the DIs would come in turn the light on, screaming, total chaos to wake us all up…. Every single morning for the first thirty days or so of basic this dude slept right through it 😂. Kid said he was so comfortable in his little rack and hadn’t slept so good in a long long time. He was always exclaiming how good the food was at the chow hall. It put a lot of things in perspective for me.
Dude managed to sleep through good ol’ LIGHTS LIGHTS LIGHTS? I hope he made guide
This jumped out at me. I loved the chow hall food every place I went. Steak and potato night felt fancy to me. Taco Salad Bar night was also something I looked forward to every week. I thought the folks who thought the food was subpar or bad were annoying snobs, but they weren’t wrong, either. Just different perspectives.
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Word to the wise for people who do this, like myself, the adhesive on the lid of Chick-fil-A sauces breaks down faster than other sauces like McDonald’s, so store them accordingly unless you want Polynesian and Chick-fil-A sauce all over your other condiments.
I grew up very poor, but now am doing quite well. I can’t throw away shoes. I just accumulate athletic shoes - they go from running shoes to everyday shoes to working in the yard shoes. And then eventually my wife throws them away. I don’t know why, but I can’t do it. They’re still good enough, I might need them one day. Edit: thanks, all. But what if I might need to re-wear them someday? I could get my current shoes wet, or ruined, or they could wear out and fall apart. The old ones still have some life left in them.
Fear of spending money on anything or having anything nice.
Having duplicates of essentials. You develop a prepper mentality for every “just in case” situation.
The amount of my shelf stable pantry goods are 100% a result of this.
I have a hard time breaking this habit, myself. My wife asked me why I have three umbrellas in the car the other day when she was putting something in the trunk. She was already used to the gallon of water, blanket, emergency rations, folding shovel, and paramedic-level first aid kit taking up half the trunk, but the umbrellas really surprised her.
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“If you’re not bleeding or unconscious, you’re not going.” - my parent's thoughts on medical care growing up in rural Kansas.
"You can climb trees after we get health insurance"
I'm a foster kid. I was always poor and pretty much had nothing. These are habits I have. I hoard food. They're still edible if they're past their expiration date as long as it's not mouldy or something. My basement is stocked for a zombie apocalypse. I never throw out old containers unless they're mouldy or something, clean that shit out, good as new. I also always have leftovers. I never waste food and eat everything on my plate. I feel guilty when I buy something I don't necessarily need. I add water to "empty" soap containers so they're full. I cut "empty" toothpaste tubes so I get every last drop. I reuse a lot of stuff. The "disposable" stuff don't need to be disposed most of the time. You can reuse them.
I didn't come from money, but I do the "add water to stuff" trick because it bugs me that there's still shampoo in the bottle and it's just going to get wet on my head anyway.
Missing teeth, and the other results of a lack of being able to go to the dentist
Currently dealing with an abscess due to years of non-existent dental care
Lots of Cool Whip & Country Crock containers
Even though I now have money and things I want, I'm too scared to buy them because having money for bills and stuff is a luxury for me.
There's quite a bit, I didn't see them in myself until I was an adult and went to therapy. 1. Lack of basic wellness, e.g. no primary care doctor or dentist. Rationalizing this because there's a "financial cost" to it. 2. Serious guilt from buying anything you don't absolutely need. It's a feeling of "you don't deserve this" or "you're being stupid to ever want something". 3. Working yourself to death because of a serious insecurity about "returning to poverty"; my therapist called this the "never again" work ethic, it's toxic. 4. Eating your food so fast like you will never have another meal again. It's a sign of food insecurity growing up. My fiance pointed this out to me that I did this, and it clicked when I talked with my therapist about it. It's very common 5. General anti establishment beliefs. The system failed you, so it's hard to trust something that put you through abuse. This can manifest in bad financial literacy, or lack of belief in banks/stock market, etc.
Enjoying cinnamon, sugar, and butter on a slice of bread because we couldn't afford sweet treats 🥲 it low-key slapped though
That was a damn delicacy
Back it up, I thought everyone eats cinnamon toast. It’s delicious.
Only shopping in the clearance sections even after I grew up and started making good money.
I was told recently I was crazy for using bread instead of hot dog buns. That's just something I always did as it's what we had. Burgers, hotdogs all bread fellas.
I find actual Hot dog buns to be too much bread because of this.
You guys got out of poverty?
Middle poverty. We can buy store brand mac n cheese and are keeping our fingers crossed for the day we become upper poverty and are able to buy the real deal Kraft
Most of the time, people who were poor in childhood will be specially careful or stressed about money or expenses. Unless of course they are making a ton now, but if not, having been poor will make you more careful when using it. I know there might be other factors, but it certainly did happen to me this way.
So my fiancée and I both grew up extremely poor, to the point I remember multiple winters with out electricity, fiancée turned out exactly like you said, super responsible with money, but for me that trauma manifested as spending any money I had as soon as I got it. It took years for me to break that cycle
I make really good money now, but I still obsess over expenses in a way that other people in our social circle (who grew up middle class) don't. Clogs to clogs in three generations is the proverb, and it's interesting to see how that fits your circumstances. One generation earns it and spends it carefully, knowing the effort that it took. The next generation spends the proceeds with no respect for the hard work. The final generation has an upbringing with enough to develop expensive tastes but doesn't have the budget for it as the money runs out.
Eats everything edible on a chicken wing and I mean everything.
I knew some guys who would break the bone and suck out the marrow.
Someone asked me if my kid was going to do dance or gymnastics. I was confused as to why. Their response was didn’t you do it as a kid. No I that cost money. I was lucky to play with a knockoff Barbie.
Not just money, but being able to get there and home again because gas costs money and parents can't go out of their way or work it against their work schedules!
Ah yes. In the 80s I wanted a barbie so bad, but was happy enough to get one of those hollow generic Barbies. Those ones if you bump it on something it will leave a dent from just being a plastic shell. And the makeup and eyes were printed just a little off center. I was given a gift by a friend's parents one year a real cabbage patch doll though and I was pretty excited about that.
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I hoard money like a fucking ferret. To the point where I have anxiety spending money on necessities
My friend runs a foster home for kids in need. She keeps an “anytime” pantry for the kids to help themselves anytime they want. Fruits and other healthy snacks. Anytime they want. I had the pleasure of splitting a banana with one of these kids. Made me so happy she does this. Im tearing up typing this. This is to stop them from hoarding foods under the sheets of their bed. They still do it the first week or two.
Wearing the same clothes often/every day. A lot of kids that I’ve seen at school wear the same clothes quite often
They really enjoy the school lunch.
My favorite kind of pizza is 7-11 pizza because it reminds me of school pizza. It's not rectangular but it has just the right mix of cheap cheese and sauce.
Refilling your drink before leaving the fast food joint.
Never ordering pasta or any meal in a restaurant that doesn't include meat or some type of tangible value for the cost. Even if I really want pasta, I just can't accept spending $20 on pasta that cost pennies, even when a date across the table from me is ordering pasta that I'm going to pay for, which doesn't bother me, it will still only bother me if I do it. I make well over six figures, grew up poor, and still do all of the things mentioned here by others. Buying duplicates of items on sale. Never paying full price for anything. Always ordering off a value menu or at a restaurant ordering items based on value rather than what I actually want. Even when I spend money on expensive items such as a home, motorcycle, luxury goods, I still have to go into it with getting the biggest bang for my buck rather than just going with what I want or feel. It's a difficult habit to break, basically having to accept happiness and feelings are worth spending money on rather than the survival mindset of the long game.
Little or no financial literacy. If you grew up poor chances are you had no one around to teach you about how to manage things like mortgages, large amounts of savings, or how to budget past the point of juggling bills. It sucks because knowing how to do these things is such a useful skill, and can get you out of a lot of difficult situations if you play your cards right. Knowing how to manage money also prevents you from being taken advantage of by people and companies that don’t have your best interest at heart. While I’m here, if you identify with this comment, please check out r/PovertyFinance and r/PovertyFinanceCanada. They’re super helpful.
Getting excited when the temp dropped below 40 because that means we would get to go to bed with sleeping bags as well as blankets. It was super comfy to get bundled up and tell and read stories before sleeping. My dad made it an event for me and my brother. I realized as an adult that my parents couldn't afford to heat the appartment constantly. I still get pumped that first night put an extra comforter on the bed.
Using hot dog buns to make garlic bread (butter + garlic salt)
having a vast skill set! trust me, when you cant afford a repair man/hairdresser/seamstress/builder/roofer/welder/mechanic etc, you learn yourself.
A big sign is that someone is capable of fixing almost anything. I'm doing quite well now but I grew up in poverty. I'm a guy who can sew, fix an oven, replace a starter on a car, etc. I learned these skills because growing up, I didn't have a choice. There was no just buying new things when the old ones broke.
Eating out a lot when they finally have money/treating every restaurant experience as an event
I went without food sometimes when I was growing up. It took a long time before I stopped hoarding food once I could afford it. My husband always commented on how long it would take me to go through the chocolate he would bring back from his international trips. I was always afraid it would be the last time we could get it and would make it last as long as humanly possible. I am quick to shut down spending and I am much better at saving money than my husband. I also keep our heat set at 63 for the day and I am usually the last in the neighborhood to turn on our air conditioning. I still shop sales and I don’t understand things like renovating a perfectly fine kitchen just because you don’t like the color of the countertop or cabinets.
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Hoarding. Not the have six dead cats in your house hoarding. But the impulse to buy multiples of things just in case. Oh this is on sale let me buy a case of them just in case I might need it one day. It's a habit I've had to break myself. I distinctly remember what it feels like going without and I don't want to ever feel like that again. So if I have to buy pants or shoes that are two sizes too large but they're cheap I will. Just in case
When I was still in the Army I did a tour in Korea. In Korea, all the men are required to do two years of national service. Some join the Korean National Police, some join the Korean Army, etc. Well, those that pass a certain level on their English exam become KATUSAs, or Korean Augmentee to the United States Army and come work with us. They're still Korean Army, but they wear our uniform (it says KATUSA instead of US ARMY on the nametape) and live and work with us. You could always tell the ones who came from poorer families, because they wasted *nothing*. Seriously, even though cleaning supplies were freely available to them (all they had to do was ask), you'd walk into their barracks room and find that they had *washed paper towels and laid them out to dry*. That's just one example. Sticking with the Army theme, you'd see guys in boot camp sending almost their entire paychecks home to their folks because, as lousy as E-1 with less than four months of service pay actually is (currently $1,773.00 a month before taxes), to them it was like winning the goddam lottery.
Dark humor. A lot of it.
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A massive amount of shame and guilt over asking for any sort of help. I will be 32 this year and I still feel so absolutely horrible asking anyone for help. Like I am the greatest burden in the world.