I grew up on the low end of the middle class and looking back, im glad i did and wouldnt change a fuking thing.

I'm going to rant.

I grew up very poor, my mom was on welfare several times, single parent, but now i graduated college and am pretty well off. I'm the only one of my generation of cousins to graduate college, or even have their life together for that matter, everyone else has been struggling in dead end jobs for years or drug problems. My sis is 25 doesnt have a job, no license and just had a kid, cousin died of O/D, three other cousins involved in heroin/meth. Out of the 11 who have been to college or are college age, i'm the only one who makes over 40k a year (i'm 2X+ times it).

Its eye opening when i look at the rest of my family, noone knows how to do simple things, like save money, or not buy things they dont need when they get money, save it, or budget it. Or even know how to plan for the future, noone else has a long term plan, my parents didnt, none of my aunts/uncles did, and everyone just winged it. We didnt eat out, my biggest vacation was going to the jersey shore, never went anywhere. I caught my mom stealing money from me in my early teens, and she would blatantly lie about the most pointless things, i dont know why. She past 6 years ago, she did love me though, she had drug problems which ****ed with her a lot.

I had no guidence for financial things and took out too many loans, while this is my fault, i should have researched it more myself, i was just 18-19 and not mature and shouldnt have been in a position to take out loans. After college i still did not know how to budget and lived paycheck to paycheck just buying pointless ****. I got laid off and was ****ed two years ago, i completely changed my spending habits now, budget very well, and try to help out the other members of my family, but none listen.

One thing I notice that is different between me and my family, is they just accept they cant do something, and dont try to learn. Where if i want to do something or I want to achieve something I have the ability to find out what i need to do and what needs to be done. I feel that me being a better learner is why I'm in a better situation than everyone else.

Feels.

Was so poor my brother and I had reduced lunch at school. When people found out, they made fun of me. When we got older they became jelly cause I would only spend 30c for lunch.

No snacks around he house. No vacations. No shopping. No traveling. One year I asked for potato chips as my birthday gift and got plain lays. Was so happy.

Eat rice or ramen only certain days. Maybe with an egg.

Had to share a twin size mattress for a year with my brother.

Toys were from garage sales. No cell phone until I was in high school. Cable didn't exist until high school too.

Edit forgot. Never had too much family time since the parents were working some chitty job. That's life son.

nobody in family had a car
nobody in family owned a house
brb getting evicted 20 times and having to move schools
brb child protective services taking me out of class and talking to me at the school office
brb poor nutrition growing up
brb no money for bus fare today.. youre not going to school.
brb asking my mom for things at the store.. 99% of the time I got nothing.. not even a chocolate bar..but she sure as hell could always afford cigarettes and a bottle of wine..

etc etc

I didn't mention it in my earlier post but I had similar experiences with losing our house and having to move to a crappy apartment in a bad area. Happened a couple of times, then eventually we had to move in with relatives until my parents got their footing.

I can't even imagine how it would feel to be parent with young kids and not able to afford to pay the bills, then having to move out to a poor area.

Nobody ITT knows what it's like to be poor unless they immigrated from a genuine chithole.

The "poverty" that the poorest Americans experience is an absolute walk in the park compared to the norm in many 3rd world countries.

I grew up relatively poor by US standards. Lived with Grandma who was on a fixed income. I'm pretty sure the black mold has been detrimental to my health, but other than that I can't complain and sometimes miss the simplicity of life back then.

Damn TFW a bag of chips cost 25 cents

My girlfriend in college was one of the people in my group, and I went home with her on Xmas break for a couple of days while I waited on my flight back home for break. Again, all of my friends in college were wealthy, even though I didn't know that when I met them. We go upstairs to the bedrooms so she can show me the guest room where I will be staying. I notice there is a stocking on all 3 of the "kids" doors. She had a brother and sister that were all in college as well, and home for the holiday. I said "did anyone look in the stockings?" Nope, not a single one had even looked into the stocking that their parents put on their bedroom door. I reached in...and pulled out $600. Next door, $600. Next door, $600. The parents had thrown each kid a random $600 in a stocking before Xmas, and none of them even blinked an eye. They took the money from me when I pulled it out, and it was "no big deal" to them.

If you are wealthy, I'm sure you say "so what's the big deal?" But if you grew up like many of the people in this thread, its mind boggling that $600 per kid is just pocket change leading up to Xmas.

I was raised by my grandparents, and they had money, but many of my friends were poor. Judged by the things we got and the clothes we wore, you would have thought I was the poor one.

lmao or those times you go to some kid's house and he has piles of toys or the living room floor has video games lying all over the place. I remember one kid told me his mom opened a bank account for him and put $1500 in there for his bday. Didn't even know what to make of it.

We have some land and grew about 75% of what we ate
You've never eaten veggies until you have them straight out of the ground hnnnnnngggggg

Wore Payless shoes up until age 16 when I was legally able to work and earn my own money for brand name shoes. Shared a room with 2 other siblings right up until high school. I can recall being in 1st grade and sharing a mattress with 3 other siblings; thankfully we were all small enough to have made it work. Survived off of ramen, boiled eggs, Mac and Cheese and ham sandwiches.

Growing up as a poor refugee in the US was tough but I wouldn't have changed a thing. I'm glad to be at a point in my life where I don't think twice about buying $600 shoes but I still make sure to volunteer and donate whenever possible for the less fortunate.

I can definitely relate to a number of folks ITT. Grew up in a family of 6 with a household annual income <$12k. Parents relied heavily upon food stamps, WIC, section 8 housing, and charity from the church. We knew we were poor, and our parents didn't ever let us forget it.

Clothes were usually hand me downs from an older cousin 3x my size and certainly nothing "in style", with winter coats donated by the school from lost & found, or yardsales. Xmas gifts were usually from the church. One year, I was privileged enough to receive a package of adult male's athletic socks, and, although I raised my eyebrow at the time, I actually wore them.

Food was restricted to items eligible under WIC (that block cheese, smh) or anything that could be purchased cheap in bulk (no Sams/Costco's). Lots of peanut butter, hot dogs, bologna, and spaghetti. Oh, and powdered milk? Yech. Free school breakfast and lunch helped considerably. Like others, McDonalds was an occasional treat, and we hit up the Shoney's buffet on birthdays (kids eat free). Hell, we got excited to receive gas station polish sausages.

We lived in the "projects" until I was in middle school when we somehow managed to move into a house, which we were evicted from. Moved into another house, which we also were evicted from. At this point, we briefly stayed in a car until one of the family friends allowed us to stay in his dilapidated hunting shack in the middle of nowhere. Only possessions allowed had to fit in a small suitcase and our backpacks. Slept in the attic with my siblings and a gazillion rodents, cobwebs, various insects, and who knows what else. Tried not to look too closely. No hot water, so it was either cold showers or heat the water in a metal tub on the stove. (Not that this was too much of an adjustment since our utilities were frequently shut off anyway.) We finally upgraded to a tiny rundown trailer where there wasn't nearly adequate room for everyone but one of my mother's friends and her daughter moved in with us. Place ended up severely damaged after a tornado hit it, water heater blew up and caught one of the rooms on fire, but no where else to go, lol.

I started working as soon as I was able and usually ended up contributing a large portion of my paycheck to help pay rent, groceries, etc. I was accepted into our state's (residential) math & science school but dropped out after a semester and transferred back to my local high school because you weren't allowed to work, and expenses started racking up for what they considered necessary. My family couldn't afford it, and the only time I ever had money is when I worked for it. So I worked a helluva lot of overtime despite those pesky labor laws designed to protect teens. Given that we grew up latchkey kids from kindergarten, we rarely saw our parents anyway and just sort of assumed you were supposed to work all the time. If I wasn't working, I was taking care of the younger siblings.

I received an interview invite for an ivy and begged my mother to let me go. Nope, no can do, there's no point "because we can't afford it" (it being any college), and it would be a waste of money since I'm supposed to stay at home and take care of a husband/kids anyway. Sort of put a damper on my college plans. I opted to attend a local university because I received the most scholarship money from them to cover all tuition, expenses, and then some. Never even knew about other forms of financial assistance (grants/loans) 'til much later. Certainly wasn't discussed at my school.

Growing up poor sucks balls, but as bad as we had it, I knew kids who were worse off (e.g., digging for food out of dumpsters sort of worse), and our parents always used those kids as ammo when child protective services came knocking. "If you say anything, we'll beat the crap out of you, and you'll end up even worse off when they take you away and dump all of you on the streets." Ahhh, the good ole' days!

I consider myself fairly darned fortunate that I am of above average intelligence; otherwise, I would still be in that cursed place, if not dead already.
Agreed with this 1000%.

I chuckle and shake my head when I hear people complain that they're too broke to take their fourth quarter international vacation or some such nonsense. Sorry, buddy, but I don't feel badly for you in the slightest.

I grew up selling lottery tickets on the streets of Nairobi by the age of 6. My mother whored herself out at the local tavern to buy us green papayas for dinner.

It all came crumbling down by the time I was 12 when she overdosed on adulterated ******* at the orgy of our local warlord. He threw her body into the local dump after he disfigured it seven ways till sunday. I was too chicken chit to do anything about it and so I ran away to the closest orphanage.

My luck was supposed to pick up when I was adopted by 2 white women from Iowa. This not only did not happen but I actually was abused by the butch of the pair on a daily basis after I hit puberty. She was bi-sexual and obsessed with the African genetics that I grew into. Raped every day in every which way.

After 12 years in ****lia, I actually turned out to develop PTSD from the sexual smothering at the hands of lesbianic Iowan dykes hell bent on bringing their privilege on my head.

Now that is true poverty. Felt like a bag of sand.

Its funny how the world has turned on its head.

In the past, houses were cheap, stuff was expensive, so no one bought chit, but everyone could buy houses.

Now, houses are expensive as fuk, but stuff is cheap, so people buy lots of chit, but can't buy houses.

When you look at the povo kids of today, they usually have chit tons of stuff, but follows a certain pattern of chit items. Xbox, monster energy drinks, tapout clothing, junk food, tatts (when older), but they're usually renting in a dog box built in the 1950s.

Now its the rich kids that don't have lots of stuff, but live in a baller house.



As for me, parents lost a chit ton in the share market, was well to do till 4, then its the typical no sodas, hand me down clothes, hand me down toys, hand me down all sorts of chit. I hated going to family trips as my water bottle was chit tier, fill it up, and it'll leak all over me, and empty out in 30 mins. They didn't allow me to buy water, so I had to walk around thirsty for the whole day. My prized possession was a $30 no fear t-shirt I wore till it was literally rags. Shoes are bought 3 sizes too big for you, so that you could "grow into it", so I couldn't do well in athletics till older. School supply are chit tier, paints came in these lead tubes that had no labels, and you could only check the colour by opening the cap. Glasses were taped up and super-glued for months till they could afford new ones. Lots of fights over money, till both were violent. Dad used o pee in the sink to save money on water, disgusting as fuk. Anything I needed, I needed to pay with 50% of my pocket money, and 50% from them, and these are things like a school bag. Kept borrowing money from friends till I owed a chit ton of people money, as I couldn't afford lunch.

The thing that chits me to this day is that they were both in decent jobs earning decent coin, but kept pumping everything into the share market, timeshares, scam investments and other assorted chit as "investment", and say we need to live poor till they made it, then we could live like kings. Has been 27 years since then, and they're poorer than the day they started.

My house is nearly a million dollars today, but I can't afford a coffee table, so times has certainly changed.

Muahahaha. This is a horrid tendency I still possess decades later.

Try something on.
Hmm, this doesn't quite fit.
Oh, well, gives me more room to grow.

Still waiting on that next growth spurt. <chuckle>

tfw i never got any of my birthday money from relatives cuz my parents took it to pay bills

i'd literally get like 10-20 bucks a year, and they needed it apparently

It's more fun. My neighborhood had like 25 kids my age running around getting into trouble and playing pick up sports games and stuff every single day. Rich neighborhoods have like 2 kids per square mile lmao would be boring af. The other thing I didn't realize was weird until I got older is we never ate at restaurants maybe 1 or 2 times per year. We were more lower middle class not poor but I have 5 siblings so we lived really frugal. Also we never bought an article of clothing, all hand me downs from another family that had 11 older kids, a lot of my clothes were over 20 yrs old but I thought they were cool so didn't care.

Why didn't people look into thrift stores and second hand? You could have landed top quality brands for really cheap. Thrift stores in rich neighborhoods.

But still.... Plenty of feels itt. Happy y'all grew up and got into better financial positions

I didn't know it as a young child, but my dad had a huge gambling problem when my brothers and I were growing up. We were poor because of how bad he was with money. He staged a robbery once or twice so he could steal some spare cash my brothers and I would save away. Other than that, the usual growing up poor stuff:

-No vacations, cable TV
-Never going out to eat
-Had to stop playing hockey as a kid because of how expensive it was
-Heat/utilities had been shut off numerous times

Very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low-grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a 15-year-old French prostitute named Chlo with webbed feet. My father would womanize; he would drink; he would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark.

Sometimes, he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical: summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring, we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds - pretty standard, really.

At the age of 12, I received my first scribe. At the age of 14, a Zoroastrian named Vilmer ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum - it's breathtaking. I suggest you try it.

To answer your first question, we got hand-me-downs instead, and we did use thrift shop if things are too expensive.

As for your second statement, is that for those who turned their lives around, things are still exactly the same. The past had cheap houses, expensive goods, so you grew up in an ok house (if you were not entirely povo), but you have expensive houses, cheap goods, so you live in an ok house, but can't spend on goods due to insane mortgage.

I go to the povo areas these days, and its full of fat kids drinking monster, talking about COD on xbox (cos they're too poor to afford PC), tapout shirts, and full sleeves for the older kids (plus lots of drugs across), renting in some bumshack.

Middle class houses are million dollar semi-old houses, sprasely furnished with ikea/second hand junk.

Here's a question, if all of you had such horrible upbringings, why the hell did your parents choose to have children they could barely afford to feed?

I was poor growing up, but I mean like I still had a PS2 and Gamecube poor, not we couldn't afford bananas poor. I did grow up in Newark, NJ, and that was bad, but overall I didn't want for much.

My parents came to the US in their mid 30s with nothing to their name, they retired in their early 50s.

Sorry, bruh. Fuark.

I laughed so hard and was surprised too.

That was awesome.

Because poor people don't have the opportunity to think about the future and plan for things. **** just happens as everything is taking place in the present. You live paycheck to paycheck, you work long hours, you don't think about broad questions like about things you can afford, plans for the future.

Being poor means a lot of people don't have the thoughts of where they'll be in a year or two. It's day to day living, that's it.

If you haven't been poor, it's quite a different way of looking at things.

Don't know man, my mother grew up dirt poor, no running water or electricity poor, she had two planned children, and had them while she had the financial means to raise them properly.

That's why your family is very well off.

Even making 6 figures eating out too often is enough to lose most of that money.

Uhhhhh, I think I might know why they're poor...

Excellent question.

Only speaking for my family, but both my parents came from large families and expected the same. Being extremely religious/conservative, they also didn't believe in/use birth control or some such nonsense. Woman's job was at home taking care of the house, kids, etc. This doesn't work out so well on a meager household income, so they eventually had to take whatever job they could find. Thankfully, someone finally decided more children was probably not a good idea, and my mother got herself fixed (i.e., tubal) before popping out 12+ kids like my grandparents.

Cliffs:
- Poor decisions and no foresight/planning