I was thinking this morning about perceptions and perceptions of money and possessions in particular.

In my family, we never had a lot of money and that point was driven home to me. However, we also never really lacked for anything essential and I never felt deprived really. I was never really jealous or anything of people who had big houses, a lot of stuff, or had huge Christmas.

Then, in Jr High, my dad quit his job, we moved to a new state, and we literally had no extra cash for anything. We were never without food, but we had very little clothing and it was clear that we were very poor. My dad went through a year of depression. We had my Grandparents that provided a lot of extra meals for us and would buy food when they went to the grocery. This period of famine lasted about 2-3 years before my parents found more stable and secure jobs.

So, based on my life, keeping simple isn't too hard for me. However, I tend overspend on little stuff because my family never did. While I never really felt deprived, I was in shock to find out that my entire childhood I lived 3 hours from the Grand Canyon and we never went there once except for 1/2 hour on the way to MO to visit my Grandparents. Travel is so important to me. If I had extra money, I would travel as much as possible.

Also, I had an issue with spending money on large purchases even when they are necessary. Whenever dh gets a raise, I go into "hoard" mode and "simple" mode. I think I am afraid of being in a bad situation again like I was in Jr. High. Even now, I find my dh making more money than he ever has and I feel all sorts of anxiety when I go to pay the bills. I also find myself wringing my hands over what might potentially break. However, I'll still go to target and buy useless crap without a thought.

So, how far have you come? How difficult is it for you be simple and thrifty?

Pretty much everything you said, only where you said "parents", I would say "single mom" and "deadbeat dad" (I love him, mind you, but he royally screwed up when it came to providing for us). Anyway, we had periods in life when we were on free lunch, and even when we were doing "better", mom was trying to pay off student loan debt, etc.

My sisters and I developed a fondness for thrift stores and garage sales to stretch our clothing allowances. Mom went through a particularly odd phase where she gave us food allowances (rather than letting us contribute to the menu planning and be more involved), and we learned how to eat on a pretty meager budget.

I used to get pretty jittery around bill paying time, but doing a zero-based budget really helps me feel in control of finances, and I enjoy it (believe it or not) now.

I do have a tendency to stockpile food. And my neighbor (also grew up poor) and I are on a mission to save the planet one trash day at a time (we'll grab the perfectly usable stuff and freecycle it if we don't need it ourselves).

My perception of wealth has changed. First, I know that money doesn't go as far as I once thought. I also know that the ones with money aren't usually the ones flaunting it. I have a couple of friends who are beyond comfortable, but they're still in their middle class homes, driving their used cars, and saving for early retirement because family time is their priority, not the BMW. And they still buy clothes at garage sales.

I'm working hard on the not-buying-useless-crap-at-Target thing. Interesting how much more room there is in the budget lately. And how much further the food budget's going, I might add. I'm actually trying to come in $100 below budget for food - and I already shaved off 25% off what I was spending last fall - which was less than when we ate out.

What if something did break? Would it devastate you financially? I think with your careful ways it most certainly wouldn't. My washing machine broke over a year ago, right around xmas - you know, the season of travel and houseguests and the budget already being stretched plenty. I bought a used frontloader on craigslist for $200 - which has paid for itself in water savings as of this month. I freaked out for a few hours, then the old brain kicked in and calmed the emotional reaction. Now I have "sinking funds" where I save a little every month for repairs/replacement. And I know I'm fine with used for most things, so long as they're good quality.

I will feel better about money when my 6 month emergency fund is in the bank. We once had a 3 month EF, but we needed a 5 month one. And we've been a little slow to replace it.

well i am a loong way from the tree, and trying to get closer, lol. my parents were EXTREMELY frugal, to the point that i only got new clothes for my birthday, christmas, and maybe 1 new outfit for starting school-- even if i needed clothes. My mom was a garage sale shopper, and much of the time I was in outdated clothes, which I was made fun of for, esp in jr high. I DID develop my own sense of style because of it, but man it was a hard road. I think I have had a hard time being a grownup about money-- when we have it, I want to make up for all of the time that we have not bought or done something because we didnt have it, and I justify it. I need to become a better budgeter, and better at deciding between a want and a need. I also spend WAY too much money at the grocery-- to the point food goes to waste. I feel like we don't have anything to eat if the cabinets, fridge and freezer arent bulging. I also think I have been through a bit of a depression since Si was born, which we all know makes us spend.

Anyway, I need to find a happy medium for our family. I need to learn that it isnt necessary to buy so much for the kids, and that it is ok to buy for me once in awhile. Christmas was a glaring example of this mindset.

I grew up very poor. We always had food but we lived in a very run down trailer, didn't get much in the way of new clothes, wore our shoes until there were holes in them, always got free school lunch, etc... When I was old enough to start babysitting I started buying all of my own essentials as well as non essentials.

From my experience as a child I am a very frugal person. We always shopped garage sales, clipped coupons, rebated, etc... To this day I cannot bring myself to pay retail for anything. It doesn't bother me to be frugal and I actually think of it as a game.

My parents on the other hand are completely different. My dad got a much better job right after I moved out (and just in time to ruin any college grants I could have gotten) and within 4 years time their yearly income went up by $40-60G a year depending on how many jobs were available in a particular year. My parents do not know how to handle their finances and spend like there is no tomorrow. Maybe it is from feeling deprived for so long but it is out of control. So out of control that they have re-financed there house several times in the last 6 years to roll their consumer debt into it. My guess is at this point they owe more on the home than what it is worth. Sad because my mom is in her 50's and still has over 28 years to pay on her first house:drop:

They think it is insane that dh and I have a small house, that dh drives an older car, and that we don't buy alot of things. To them happiness means things and to me it is just the opposite. Of course they also think that our non vaxxing, childrearing, and just about every other choice is a joke as well so we are getting pretty used to being the black (or rather white) sheep of the family.

So to answer your question. I think some bird must have swallowed my seed and then pooped me out very far from the tree that I was born from:lol:

I've gone back & forth LOL

Growing up we didn't have a lot of $ - plenty of food, but I was the girl wearing the same pr of jeans several days in a row With a jacket that came from the unclaimed lost & found at the school grandma worked at & it was totally outdated. We had just what we needed & not much more (as in even as a teen friends were shocked to come in my room & find nothing on the walls, no decor, just a bed & table.

Now that I am a parent I have a strong drive to have my kids with full closets. Sometimes those closets are full of nice things from thrift stores, sometimes I cave to the call of the new.(I get particularly crazy about it all when pregnant. My need to aquire becomes all encompassing & irrational) I also really obsess with my home decor. I'm never happy til I have it decorated perfectly. I recently spent $ I couldn't afford to have my home painted inside because I was miserable in my home with the dirty white walls. The change in my happiness with this home now is huge!

I was actually far more simple & eco-minded before I discovered the internet ( and Amity's in particular!) buying gorgeous wahm stuff for my family is hard to pass up for me! Now, I ebb & flow. Compared to most people's standards we are very simple. We are still too extravagent by *my* standards though. Now that I have 5 kids though the desire for a clean,clutter free home without being a slave to chores is a greater thrill than wahm anything! LOL

My dh is also amazed by my money saving finesse. LOL When necessary I can feed our family on very,very little & still eat like royalty. LOL He says I'm cheap - but that I am willing to spend $ where it counts. Then I get the best for the least amount possible. :) My ability to milk coupons & deals for all they are worth boggles his mind LOL

lol yes, i meant to add that I am always on the lookout for a deal. The problem is, I can't always pass up a deal, even if I really should. I also have a hard time purging for the same reason-- that I came by honestly-- my dad never gets rid of ANYTHING lol. The good thing for him is that he rarely buys anything either, lol. I am always afraid I will need someting that I got rid of though, and that I wont be able to find the deal that I found on it the first time. I don't really spend ot excess (except when it comes to food-- I really do need coaching here), but because I always think, hey, I can't get rid of that, I may need it again, I have way way too much clutter.

I'll have to think about this one. Gotta analyze the heck outta myself for a day or so, ya know. lol.

Without giving it too much thought....I do know that a lot of what's already been mentioned resonates true for me. The shopping at target for nothing and such. I also used my children as an excuse to buy things we don't need. "oh it's for the children" some how diminished the guilt of retail therapy.

I'll be back to this...

The interesting thing for me is that my grandparents grew up working poor - lived in a tenement in Brooklyn, my grandmother's sister had to quit school at 12 to work in a sweatshop when her mother died (that had been her mother's job) and my grandmother, who was 14, had to basically take care of the entire family. My grandmother was a fairly frugal woman, your basic Italian immigrant, Depression-era stock.

My mom grew up working class; my grandfather was an oil heater repairman and my grandmother was a bookkeeper but mostly stayed home. They grew up frugal - my mom says she remembers being so excited about new shoes that she slept with them near her head in bed the first night! However she also tells stories that make it sound like she was pretty traumatized by not having enough money. They always had enough food, but not much extra for anything else.

We grew up middle class, with my mom a teacher and my dad an electrician. My parents always spent out of their means, esp my mom, who has a bit of a shopping obsession. Nothing extravagant, just the attitude that if you want it you should buy it, and you should be able to afford to go buy thousands of dollars of clothing for the family every season. Yes, shop the sales and deals, but she would never, ever, EVER consider buying anything used from a thrift store or garage sale unless it was basically new, and even then it'd be suspect.

Her attitude has been that there's something wrong with saving and being frugal. That it's tacky, basically. I remember lots of stories about frugal coworkers and how gross it was that they were wearing outdated clothes from the 70s (although this woman was really an extreme example of frugality, I have to admit!) and so on and so forth...

So I am quite far from the tree. My mom has woken up to a lot of new ideas since I've become an adult and expressed my own thoughts about things, which is great. But I still think she thinks there's something wrong with me for not taking Katie shopping for new clothes every season. Oh well.

I grew up at first with instability, and then with the reality of a 24 year old man's income being the sole support for a family that included a wife, a 16YO, a 13YO, an 8YO (me), and a 3YO. My mother remarried quickly after her divorce from our biological father, however, she most definitely married for love when she married a man 12 years younger than she.

I don't remember the really young years. I know that biological father went from job to job, and blew money on cars he couldn't afford, beer, drugs, etc. My paternal grandparents made sure I had enough clothing, and I don't recall ever being hungry. My mom says there was always trouble paying bills, but I was too young to be aware. There was abuse, and though I don't remember all of it I do remember some, and of course it affected my entire childhood and even my early adulthood, and I suppose guided many of my parenting choices. Abuse in my opinion is worse than poverty, and when they occur in tandem it is a double tragedy. Whenever I get angry with mother about something I try to reach back and remember, and in that I find compassion.

It was supposed to be cheaper to live in Washington State, so he moved us up there, didn't work steadily, left within 6 months to look for work in So Cal again. He was supposed to get a job and bmove us back, be he called when we'd been there 9 months total to say he wanted a divorce because he'd found someone else; not really something new, he'd just never wanted to marry any of the other women. He didn't even come get us.

We got back. We rented 1/3 of a house in Santa Ana, in an extremely poor area. Our house was furnished with cast offs from friends and families; our clothing was provided the same way. We lived on welfare and food stamps, we had free lunch (we'd had reduced lunch in Washington), we lived across the street from the Salvation Army and would run across the street and grab the old bread that the trucks would dump for the SA to feed the hungry (well, we were hungry).

Santa brought us a cat for Christmas that year, because when you sat in the living room you could here the rats and mice rattling the dishes in the kitchen cupboards (that was also a time when cats were free from the shelter). Our family was "adopted" that year and we received a food basket and gifts for Christmas. A friend gave my mom $20 to buy Christmas gifts, and my sister and I each got a Thumbellina doll and my brothers each got a red skateboard. The memories of that Christmas are crystal clear.

Really, the whole year is this extremely detailed picture in my mind. My 3 siblings and I sharing a bedroom while my mother slept on a small bed in the hall. Stepping over "winos" on the way to the bus stop. The joy at finding walnuts fallen to the sidewalk. The kind clerk at the liquor store who would let my sister "purchase" a candy bar with play money. Popcorn for dinner when the food ran out. Our dog being mangy and painfully thin because food stamps couldn't buy him food so he had to eat the cheapest we could get, and not much of it. My mom knew that keeping the dog had to happen, not only for safety, but because he was a stable thing in our lives and my troubled brother's best friend.

Understanding that new clothing meant hand-me-downs and that shopping at the thrift store was a big deal reserved for important needs. My paternal grandparents made sure we had new underwear and pajamas.

I understand now why people commit welfare fraud (things like getting someone to help you buy your food stamps back then). I know that is isn't common or stereotypical to have another baby to get an AFDC raise. I know how hard it is for a mother to "get a job" when her youngest has to go to a state run day care/preschool, and of course the toddler is sick all of the time because she's underfed and lives in a cold, damp house (and her immune system is low because of it so she catches every cold), so mom has to keep her home a lot.

My mom got engaged, and then got diagnosed with stage 4 cervical cancer. She says she lived because there was no way she'd let the biological scum have us back. He wanted my brothers too, who aren't his biologically, and she said he'd have to kill her himself before he'd get them (of course, he most likely was the source of her cervical cancer as he did have HPV/gential warts. so he did almost kill her, as he had threatened throughout their married years).

We were still poor after she got remarried, but in a different way. There were yard sale clothes and gifts, but sometimes something new. We had enough to eat, but not too much. My parents returned some of their wedding gifts to get things like warm blankets for our beds. The dog got to go to the vet, and to eat more food.

They even bought a house, and my dad commuted too far, but we had a big yard and trees to climb. I lived in that house almost 10 years, which was the longest I had ever lived anywhere. Eventually we didn't get free or reduced lunch, although we packed from home because it was cheaper. Our clothing still came from yard sales and other bargain shops.

Things would get tough; we'd pay utility bills in person on the very last day, the mortgage would always be late, the creditors would call. My mother pawned things like her class ring when we didn't have grocery money. I knew there were things that I just couldn't ask for, like dance classes, gymnastics, a class ring of my own. I don't have a yearbook for every year I was in high school because I knew we couldn't afford them. I wore my dad's old boy scout jacket for a couple of years because I didn't have anything warm.

Birthdays and Christmas were so important, because friends and family would give us clothing and toys as gifts.

My parents don't live that way now. They have a lot of income. They don't really save it though; it's as if they've never gotten away from the mentality that there is nothing to save.

We spent a lot of money in our early married years, or I should say we "borrowed" a lot of money because it was all on credit cards and student loans. We always thought it was fine because we were never late with the payments. Slowly though, we pulled away from it, and paid off the student loans and then credit cards, and started saving.

Some skills and values had never left me. I never owned 10 pairs of shoes or bought my clothes at Macy's. I learned to cook from scratch and eat better food for less than the prepackaged junk that so many poor families think is their only option. We are careful with utility usage.

I've always bought my boys used clothing, and sometimes new things if I can get a great deal. They never have more than just the shoes they need. I would buy my clothes places like Kmart, and now I thrift store shop for my clothing too.

We aren't poor. I know poor and I know we aren't even close. We don't have as much saved as we would like, and we shudder at the money that was squandered before we had children and started thinking beyond our current wants. Most people would probably think us rich because we take nice vacations, but even those are mostly because we sold our condo at a profit and bought a cheap timeshare and a nice pop-up trailer. I think we have a nice house, but it's no mansion and is probably small by today's standards (I think it's huge).

I'm not a miser; we buy organic food and also organic underthings when we can. We homeschool and I've bought the things that I wanted (although I also utilize the library). My boys have good bikes and they race.

I think some of my skills came from my experiences growing up, however a lot of them I had to learn myself. Some came about more because of vegetarianism and environmentalism than being frugal, although I am a diehard Amy D. fan. Some things that I do I know many families wouldn't, such as having my boys share a room and a bed, having only one car, wearing Halloween costumes for as many years as they fit, owning only one TV (but it's a nice TV), etc. I make a lot of our things, and I love to imporvise.

These days my dad (he adopted us 2 years after my mom remarried) is a junk man, an honest-to-goodness junk man; he hauls scrap, dismantles appliances and A/Cs, recycles cardboard, etc. He always did it on the side to make ends meet, and eventually made it a real business. So I've had that example and I know that people throw away things that have value if you just look for it.

Okay, a huge novel from me today.

I think I am pretty similar to my folks. My dad was a teacher, and my mom stayed home. Although we had enough to get by on, we never had many frills. However, I never felt deprived either. While we never took any big vacations, we went to the beach every weekend and once a summer, we traveled north to stay at a convent with some sisters my mom knew. We always drove old cars, but we had two vehicles. While most of our clothes were second hand, once a year before school started, our folks would take us to Montgomery Wards and let us buy whatever clothes we wanted with $100. We ate out for each birthday and rarely had fast food. So I picked up a lot of good habits from my folks, but comparing their spending habits then with mine now, I'd have to say that my folks were more self-disciplined than I am.

However, I did pick up a bad credit card habit from my parents. While they didn't buy a lot of stuff, they didn't seem to have a problem using the credit cards when needed. My dad always said that money wasn't everything in life. For example, when I wanted to participate in the Close Up program in Washington DC as a high schooler, I think that ended up on the credit card. My dad didn't think money should stand in the way of doing something that might be a once in a lifetime opportunity. And when we first married, I took that line of reasoning to the extreme (i.e. money shouldn't stand in the way of me having new furniture or eating out once a week, etc.) which caused a lot of financial problems.

I think the other thing that my folks impressed upon me was the religious/spiritual aspect of money. That it is not an ends unto itself and should be shared freely with others. Growing up, my parents never held a garage sale or sold anything that I can remember. They believed that it was not right to sell something for money when it could be donated to someone less fortunate.

Anyway, that's my long way of saying that my parents are pretty thrifty, simple people, and most of my money habits (good and bad) come from them.

Wow Kimberly, what a heartbreaking post. :( You have had such a hard road to travel. {{{hugs}}}

Wow Kimberly, what a heartbreaking post. :( You have had such a hard road to travel. {{{hugs}}}

I suppose it was, Maryalene, but I do know that it could have been much worse. There are children living through those same things today, or even homeless, and with less of a safety net than we had, and of course throughout the world there are children dying because of poverty. The extreme poverty we experienced was short-lived (about a year), but we were poor for a long time after that.

It took having my own children to bring me to a place where I could heal myself and forgive my mother (she wasn't the abuser, but for a long time I didn't truly understand why she didn't leave). Now my oldest is 8, and I can hardly believe my good fortune. Not because we do okay financially, but because I am the only one of my siblings that hasn't battled alcoholism and drug addiction, the only one who got an education, the only one who isn't in trouble with credit cards, the only one whose spouse has held a steady job for our entire marriage (I worked for many years also). I married a man who doesn't abuse alcohol, drugs, me, or the children. He doesn't gamble, doesn't mess with pornography, doesn't raise his voice to me, and doesn't play mind games. He loves us and wants to be with us. He's good to his parents. Overall, he is a good, kind man.

He also goes along with all of my "wacky" ideas, which in time usually turn out to be right on.

It isn't perfect: there is no such thing. We deal with health issues and developmental/behavioral issues, as well as really messed-up extended families. But sometimes I can hardly believe that I lived the early childhood that I did. That when I was my son's age I lived in such a place, with never enough food, and my mom had horrible cancer, and bio-jerk was threatening to kidnap us so we'd have to hide, and yet that transitional time started a slow climb out and away. Bio-jerk actually chose to give us up a couple of years later to get out of paying child support, and in the end it was probably the best thing he ever did for us.

Oh yeah...his parent's (his father and step-mother...my grandparents) are awesome frugal examples, and they stayed in our lives

DAAMN Kimbermama...
your post made me weep.

I grew up poor as well. When I was really young ( like first grade or so) my mom would sometimes skip dinner cause there woudl only be enough for my sister and I.
My grandparents would bring us groceries and paid for our daycare so my mom could work (she was on welfare too).
My dad was a drug addict and was of no help at all, and up until I was about 15 or 16, I only saw him a handful of times and it was arranging a lunch visit through my grandma that I saw him (his mom).

For a few years, my mom had a boyfriend that had a ton of money, so we had the latest coolest toys and never went hungry (from a 3rd grader's perspective this is what I observed). They broke up and we went back to poorer than dirt poor, living in a totally ghetto apartment, my mom went back on aid.
For my 9th birthday, I got a set of sheets. They were very pretty, and to be honest, I was excited to get them.

My mom remarried the month I turned 10.
We were not as poor, but definately not keeping up with the Jones's.
My grandparents helped us out by taking us back to school shopping, my Papa loved to spend money and spoil us.
My Grandma was the most frugal woman I have ever met! I have learned a lot from her.
When I was 14, my Papa died.
By high school, my parents were having financial struggles, and my step-dad drank too much.
It was pretty bad. So bad one year that stands out, my sister and I had to "borrow" period products from the school nurse every month (if I had known about cloth pads I woudl have used them!!), and steal toilet paper from the public bathrooms, and pawn ourselves off on any of our friends and stay the night anywhere we could in a warm house with food and no arguing.
A friend of mine and I used to dig through the lost and found box in our P.E. class daily for new-to-us clothes (she was so poor her parents had no electricity for 2 years).
I babysat whenever I could to buy myself clothes from the thrift stores. I asked the lunch lady nearly everyday if there were any leftover lunches I could have. Many days I ate an apple and a milk for lunch.
I traded and borrowed clothes from my friends.
Fortunately for me, when I was in high school, some hippyish stuff was coming back into style as well as the "grunge" style was popular so it made wearing crappy ripped stuff easy. I wore a lot of tie dye with holes in it, my step-dad's XXL thermals with grease stains and my boyfriend's baggy jeans.
Lol at some of my clothes...if only I had pics.

I am still fairly frugal, mostly out of neccessity. I definately did not marry for money! And now as a single parent, I scrimp and save wherever I can, rarely buy my kids toys, yard sale or thrift shop for stuff they need (except undies, socks and tights, never can find that stuff used in decent shape), and we are not too big into large consumer items. We have one tv. one stereo. one couch, etc.
Without being too much of a tightwad, I try to let my kids know that we dont have money for everything they want as well as things I want.

ok, I typed too much forgot what my point was....

My grandma was a serious penny pincher, from the Depression and all.
My uncle, my grandma's son, used to own a hauling business and he has a houseful of slavaged furniture, antiques, beautiful, all in great shape.
He used to hold yard sales with the stuff that was not actual trash and make a decent amount of money ( lives in the bay area, CA).
My step-dad's mom is also from the depression era and hits yard sales and thrift stores constantly.

I would say that I have learned a lot from my elders as far as frugal living goes.


ETA- I frequently can be found dumpster diving behind one of the thrift stores....they know people do it and they throw away so many useful items...I scored a great, no 2 great winter coats over the summer, one I wear daily!
it irks me that they dont put the stuff in easy to reach boxes but whatever.

My grandma was a serious penny pincher, from the Depression and all.
My uncle, my grandma's son, used to own a hauling business and he has a houseful of slavaged furniture, antiques, beautiful, all in great shape.
He used to hold yard sales with the stuff that was not actual trash and make a decent amount of money ( lives in the bay area, CA).
My step-dad's mom is also from the depression era and hits yard sales and thrift stores constantly.



My dad and his friend did some hauling/scrounging/reselling at times. And my grandpa and his brother. And, well, it's sort of a family hobby. I'm notorious for trash picking. ;)




I know we were never in dire straits, and seeing what some of you went through truly drives that home. The occasional singlewide or free lunch year dotted my life, but in the end, my mother got her PhD and my dad finally grew up and turned out alright.

:hug: for all of you who had it hard.

I was raised by a poor single mom. I remember free lunches and dorky clothes but never was a time going without a meal. We had electricity, lived in a safe neighborhood and I went to a good school. I always wanted back to school clothes it never really happend except a few times my step mom took me to get a few things but it's funny how a kid can look forward to clothing.

Today I live very simply dial up internet, no cable, I don't care much for shopping to buy new things. I read a lot so the library is great for that. I wish I had money to go on vacation that was another thing I never experienced growing up. I would love to take my kids on small trips and see new places, but when you can barely afford the basics, that sort of thing just doesn't happen.

nt

some of you have come from such a difficult place. :(

I'm sorry to see that so many of us have struggled.

It does give you a different perspective. Leaving abuse out of the equation, you definitely learn the difference between "we can't afford cable" poor and "we can't afford food" poor. My mother was another one who often went without meals so that there would be more for the rest of us.

I think though, that most of us can pinpoint mistakes that were made. Our year of extreme poverty was the result of divorce, and that is really common. The poor years before that were the result of addiction. I hate to say that bio-jerk was repeating was he was raised with, because I love my grandfather dearly, but he was an alcoholic and an abuser. I think it is only in the past 30 years or so that people have really made the decision to stop the abuse and not accept it as normal. I hate to say that I think most don't break the cycle, even now.

The years after were full of mistakes as well. My mom had some good skills, like buying from yard sales, finding great bargains places, etc. as well as some "skills" that are dubious in my mind, like using coupons and sales to buy cold cereal, Hamburger Helper, etc. Her mother was of an age that convenience was amazing and a sign of wealth, and she never learned to cook from scratch. They spent too much on groceries because scratch cooking was an unknown skill as well as an unacquired taste.

Of course, I believe there is a domino effect. We spent a lot on health care because we were sick a lot. Well, if you eat Trix for breakfast, bologna and processed cheese on white bread for lunch, and Kraft macaroni and cheese for dinner with a side of canned peas, and this is a typical day for you, it's hard to be healthy. Especially if the other dinners served that week are hot dogs on white buns (cheapest available) with a can of beans, Hamburger Helper, TV dinners, frozen pot pies, fish sticks and frozen fries, and real hamburgers as your special weekend meal. Salad was served so infrequently that we thought it was a special treat! The only fruit available was bananas and the small, cheap, mealy apples, which of course we hated. When the income was good, the food added to our lunches were things like Twinkies and Ding Dongs and individual bags of chips.

I think most people don't realize that poverty becomes a hard to break cycle. You don't have a working vehicle, you can't afford to fix the vehicle, you can't afford to pay cash for a vehicle, so you end up paying too much at a used car lot and you get a high interest rate. You need a car to drive to work because the only place you could afford to live was 60 miles from your place of employment. Your monthly income decreases because of the car payment, you put more on credit, you get behind. You get a second mortgage to consolidate the debt and lower your monthly outgo, only to slowly charge all the credit cards back up to their limits.

You probably didn't know much about interest rates anyway, because it just isn't taught in public school, and of course the car lot selling you the car only talked about what your monthly payment would be. Car companies and credit card companies don't realistically look at whether or not you can pay back the debt. They approve the card, then zing you with a 30% interest rate the first time you are late, with a $30 late charge to boot, and then perhaps a $30 overlimit fee. It was all in the fine print, of course.

I think that most large companies are morally bankrupt.

I can't remember who posted awhile back about "poor" being a mindset (I think it was Stacy); I absolutely agree. I know people who get by in similar circumstances but seem to have more because they have better skills as well as a different mindset.

But I didn't starve as a child, and always had shelter, and almost always utilities, and I had clothing, and some toys to play with. So being poor wasn't the worst of it, and most people I know can sort it out and find the good lessons that came from being poor. It's harder to believe that anything good came from the abuse; we can make the best of it, but the scars are ugly and rip open from time to time.

Very well said Kimberly.

But I didn't starve as a child, and always had shelter, and almost always utilities, and I had clothing, and some toys to play with. So being poor wasn't the worst of it, and most people I know can sort it out and find the good lessons that came from being poor. It's harder to believe that anything good came from the abuse; we can make the best of it, but the scars are ugly and rip open from time to time.


i agree

I too was abused very severely (sexually, emotionally, and by having some of my basic needs be neglected) as a child along with the whole living in poverty aspect. I think that the poverty portion of my life was much much less detrimental. The abuse on the other hand effects everything I do and feel in one way or another.

Kind of a funny way to look at it but in a way the abuse has helped me because by rebelling against it and the ways of my upbringing it has made me a wonderful (if I do say so myself:lol: parent). I chose to make my parents as examples of how not to treat children and how not to live ones life and that thinking is what has helped me become the mother and spouse that I am today.