were you rich or poor growing up? (1 Viewer)

[Todem]

We lived sort of poor, picking berries (honest to God, every other day in summer) canning salmon, trapping hunting and fishing all the time, stuff like that. We had a cabin at a great location that grandpa bought for 50 bucks in the 1950s, we spent the weekends there. I remember getting teased for having the crappiest shoes of all the kids on the basketball team. I delivered papers and had all sorts of jobs (construction, grocery store, lawnmowing, ect). We didnt have the best cars or trucks and used an old 1960 boat, not a great water skiing boat like my friends. But it was all great, I never felt I needed money to have a great standard of living, because I learned all the fun stuff in life was free.

My dad actually made 200k/year or more from the mid 70s to mid to late 1990s.

I feel like I'm missing something because this doesn't jibe with what you wrote.

I think he put 75% of his money in the bank. He's enjoying his retirement but still not spending much money other than having a new truck every few years. As long as he has his fishing pole and shotgun he doesn't need much else. I'm sure he has 10 mil in the bank and favorite hobby is picking up 10 cent Michigan returnable cans on his daily walk.

The millionaire next door.

Awesome for him man. I love hearing stories like this.

My grandfather took the bus everywhere his whole life, wore the same suits and shoes for 20 plus years, was stingy as hell. But he did not care nor did he care for fancy things. When he passed away in 1995 (one of the saddest days of my life so far along with my grandmothers passing) he left it all to his kids and grand kids. He just was not about material items. He lived quite comfortable, had a summer home in upstate NY as well. That generation is long gone.

 

[Chadstroma]

Lower middle class. Parents divorced and in lieu of child support, my mom got the equity in the house. That's fine on paper, but in day to day living, we struggled. Always good times going to the store for ketchup and pulling out your food stamps.

We were pretty solidly middle class until my step-father and mother divorced. My mother got the house but we scratched by from then on. The house payment was the biggest problem. We had basically no other expenses other than that... no cable, one basic phone which it was death to call long distance on, no need for heater, no ac in SoCal, turn off all the lights, public school, etc. But damn the house payment was a burden. I remember my mom saying more than a few times that she had wished she gave up the house. Later it ended up helping her in that she sold it and was able to buy a small townhome which keeps her monthly costs low. My mother has never really got out of the scratching by mode though.

You get real inventive on what you eat when you have to make do with whatever is left in the fridge and pantry and things don't exactly 'match'. I got use to eating a lot of oddball combo's as a kid and that carried on through when I was a bachelor. My now wife would make fun of my odd eating habits which most are gone now but when I am hungry and we haven't been shopping in a while- instead of going to the store I will put together one of my crazy poor meals. Pretty much if I have some tortillas and ranch dressing I can figure out something to put in them.

Living poor in SoCal is like living upper-middle class in most of the country.

Oh, plenty of people had it worst than me.

I had extended family that would often pitch in with buying groceries or lending my mother money or buying us clothes for school, etc.

There was only one night that I was on the verge of being homeless. A few months after leaving home because of fighting between my mother and I- the friend who I was staying with had to ask me to leave because his sister was I had been there too long (we were staying in her one bedroom apartment and it had been over a month I was there). A friend's parents had offered to help me in any way a bit before then so I went to them to ask if I could stay there. They readily agreed but because of their daughter's wedding and a few other things asked if I could move in X day. I was too proud to go home and too proud to ask anyone else for help. So, my girlfriend at the time figured out I was going to be sleeping on the street that night (when I basically couldn't give her a phone number where I was staying) and told my other friend who convinced his sister to let me be there one more night. That was a scary thought and one that I never had when I was home with my mother who was working several jobs to try to make ends meet.

 

[cstu]

We lived sort of poor, picking berries (honest to God, every other day in summer) canning salmon, trapping hunting and fishing all the time, stuff like that. We had a cabin at a great location that grandpa bought for 50 bucks in the 1950s, we spent the weekends there. I remember getting teased for having the crappiest shoes of all the kids on the basketball team. I delivered papers and had all sorts of jobs (construction, grocery store, lawnmowing, ect). We didnt have the best cars or trucks and used an old 1960 boat, not a great water skiing boat like my friends. But it was all great, I never felt I needed money to have a great standard of living, because I learned all the fun stuff in life was free.

My dad actually made 200k/year or more from the mid 70s to mid to late 1990s.

I feel like I'm missing something because this doesn't jibe with what you wrote.

I think he put 75% of his money in the bank. He's enjoying his retirement but still not spending much money other than having a new truck every few years. As long as he has his fishing pole and shotgun he doesn't need much else. I'm sure he has 10 mil in the bank and favorite hobby is picking up 10 cent Michigan returnable cans on his daily walk.

No offense, but you don't know what 'growing up poor' means.

 

[Mohawk]

Not exactly poor, we didn't miss meals because of money, but neither did we eat steaks. but definitely the lower tax brackets!

 

[xulf]

Upper middle class. My parents were frugal and never tried to keep up with the Joneses, though they could have and the community had a lot of people doing it.

 

[spreagle]

We lived sort of poor, picking berries (honest to God, every other day in summer) canning salmon, trapping hunting and fishing all the time, stuff like that. We had a cabin at a great location that grandpa bought for 50 bucks in the 1950s, we spent the weekends there. I remember getting teased for having the crappiest shoes of all the kids on the basketball team. I delivered papers and had all sorts of jobs (construction, grocery store, lawnmowing, ect). We didnt have the best cars or trucks and used an old 1960 boat, not a great water skiing boat like my friends. But it was all great, I never felt I needed money to have a great standard of living, because I learned all the fun stuff in life was free. My dad actually made 200k/year or more from the mid 70s to mid to late 1990s.

I feel like I'm missing something because this doesn't jibe with what you wrote.

I think he put 75% of his money in the bank. He's enjoying his retirement but still not spending much money other than having a new truck every few years. As long as he has his fishing pole and shotgun he doesn't need much else. I'm sure he has 10 mil in the bank and favorite hobby is picking up 10 cent Michigan returnable cans on his daily walk.

No offense, but you don't know what 'growing up poor' means.

Our lifestyle was pretty much the same as many of the genuinely poor people in the area, except that they were spending well beyond their means and we were spending well under our means. All I know I worked a lot harder than the other kids and I didn't have a lot of the stuff they did. As a kid, how can I tell who is poor and who is rich?

 

[Cold Dead Hands]

Poor. Divorced parents. Dad was a bus driver and mother was a newspaper reporter. Neither had much and we spent a lot of time in court. The divorce was very contentious. I lived in the country, had a bicycle and friends. I barely noticed until middle school when I started working to buy what I wanted. In high school I worked at a resort and earned tips. My dad often dipped into my cash to buy groceries.

 

[bentley]

Working poor family. It sucked. Happy to be able to provide opportunities for my kids that we didn't have.

 

[Gachi]

Middle class.

Mother is an RN, father is a veteran with a state job so he gets a salary + 3k a month in retirement. Were able to pay for my college education 100% out of pocket, I'm very happy because student loan debt sucks.

I'll still be 50-70k in debt from medical school, but that's better than being 250k in debt.

 

[elguapo07]

Poor. Dad left when I was 8. Mom had me at 17. Dropped out of school in 9th grade and was a single Mom waitress. Medi-Cal, food stamps. We would have really been in bad shape if it weren't for my Grandma, who is a saint to me. Fortunately I've been able to break the education/poverty cycle in my family

Something along these lines. Dad abandoned mom and her 5 kids (while pregnant with her 6th). 26 yrs old with six kids and dad never paid a cent of child support, my grandparents took us in for a few years until we got public housing. Got all the handouts but started working at age 10 and haven't stopped since. Middle middle class now and wouldn't have changed a thing as I learned a lot about life while digging oneself out of poverty.

 

[Rooster]

I had stretches of both, though I wouldn't classify it as rich. I imagine we were middle class when I was first born (but obviously don't remember), my dad had decent jobs in the car industry. He left my Mom, and we immediately became pretty poor even with child support. Living in rented rooms of other people's houses, we were super excited to upgrade to our own mobile home (but there were times we'd go to bed a bit hungry in the mobile home, not like we didn't always have a meal but sometimes it just wasn't enough ... kraft mac n' cheese most nights), eventually my Dad came back in the picture and we upgraded to what I'd consider an upper-middle-class house, he was earning near 100k in the late 80s and early 90s so it felt like we were doing really well and not really wanting for any basics and had access to a lot of luxuries (video game systems, big christmases, etc.).

I live in a place where I truly appreciate the poor part of my life, I believe it gives me a perspective and motivation to work as hard as I do, but I don't want to go back or inflict that on my family (though I often wonder how to impart the lessons I learned in that situation to my 2 daughters, who will never go to bed wishing they had just a little more mac n' cheese to fill them up). I tend to save really well, manage to do without better than most, and tend to be really fiscally conservative and risk averse with my savings (the last 2 aren't necessarily great traits, but they've worked well for me).

 

[jonessed]

Middle class to poor depending on the year.

Lived in a really nice area with great schools though. It wouldn't be remotely feasible now. Housing prices have easily tripled in that area (probably quadrupled since my parents bought).

 

[Doctor Detroit]

Lower middle class, but we had more than most kids I grew up with.

Glad I grew up the way I did, added character.

 

[Ditka Butkus]

Middle class.

Mother is an RN, father is a veteran with a state job so he gets a salary + 3k a month in retirement. Were able to pay for my college education 100% out of pocket, I'm very happy because student loan debt sucks.

I'll still be 50-70k in debt from medical school, but that's better than being 250k in debt.

I think you would be leaning towards upper middle class

 

[cstu]

We lived sort of poor, picking berries (honest to God, every other day in summer) canning salmon, trapping hunting and fishing all the time, stuff like that. We had a cabin at a great location that grandpa bought for 50 bucks in the 1950s, we spent the weekends there. I remember getting teased for having the crappiest shoes of all the kids on the basketball team. I delivered papers and had all sorts of jobs (construction, grocery store, lawnmowing, ect). We didnt have the best cars or trucks and used an old 1960 boat, not a great water skiing boat like my friends. But it was all great, I never felt I needed money to have a great standard of living, because I learned all the fun stuff in life was free. My dad actually made 200k/year or more from the mid 70s to mid to late 1990s.

I feel like I'm missing something because this doesn't jibe with what you wrote.

I think he put 75% of his money in the bank. He's enjoying his retirement but still not spending much money other than having a new truck every few years. As long as he has his fishing pole and shotgun he doesn't need much else. I'm sure he has 10 mil in the bank and favorite hobby is picking up 10 cent Michigan returnable cans on his daily walk.

No offense, but you don't know what 'growing up poor' means.

Our lifestyle was pretty much the same as many of the genuinely poor people in the area, except that they were spending well beyond their means and we were spending well under our means. All I know I worked a lot harder than the other kids and I didn't have a lot of the stuff they did. As a kid, how can I tell who is poor and who is rich?

For one, you must have known growing up that your dad had a great job. Second, you never had to worry that your parents could afford anything even if they didn't actually spend the money. Third, your friends had water skiing boats.

 

[Poncho]

My dad was a seaman (E3) in the early 70's with 3 sons at the tail end of Vietnam. We were poorer then dirt and lived with my aunt while he was over seas.