So except that 1 year he rotted at home all day my dads always been a general manager with good pay. We also had properties. So we werent CEO level but still nowhere near poor. So I dont know what being poor is like.

I made poor friends in HS whose fathers were construction workers, warehouse workers etc but never got close enough to understand their living.

Poor brahs aware me.

Edit: I had this friend in elementary whose father was the mayor of the town we lived (dude owned 5 hotels also). His home had like 3 living rooms, more than 15 bedrooms, tons of toilets, also had 2 small houses for servants outside and land to farm and two swimming pools.

Then I took my friends in HS to my home they called it a castle (4 bedrooms, 1 living room, 4 4 floors (including garage) and a small garden. I wonder what they would have said if they went to the mayors house

in for answers. semi srs. grew up having everything handed to me pretty much as long as i was doing well in school (brand new car every other year since 16 srs).

i have never been a dik head/show off about my stuff though because i know i didn't do anything to deserve it and just got lucky being born into a wealthier family and i'm grateful every day, srs.

Pizza hut was a treat growing up (srs)


Take that into consideration

you actually go outside and hang out with the other kids from the neighborhood

Didn't grow up dirt poor, but we weren't well off either. A lot of stress, mom has broke out crying a few times. Rarely went on a trip somewhere, almost never went out for dinner. As the poster above said, fast food was a treat. However I think because we didn't have much to spend , we became closer to each other, because we weren't hooked on material things. Also it gave me a high drive to succeed to get my family out of this situation. Your endurance for stress also becomes high; friends will panick over things you consider meaningless.

This is one of the things I notice the most when I consider the differences between me and my friends who grew up richer than me. My friends are easily stressed, and often have sub-par problem solving skills when it comes to everyday life stuff.

Lol this

Restaurants in general were for birthdays only

Pretty much my story. Like you, I've never been dirt poor. We were probably low middle class or high low class (if there is such a category) and grew from there. We were solidly in the middle class by the time I graduated high school. I could never have the "brand name" things growing up. Fast food was a treat, and actually going to a sit down restaurant was a 2-3 times a year type treat. To actually sit down to a meal, and come away "stuffed" was like heaven.

I wouldn't have it any other way. It makes me really appreciate the things I have now. What was really cool was my mom would send me up to visit family during the summers when I was young. My grandma wasn't poor, but the aunts and uncles, etc she took me to spend time with (and spend the night with) definitely were. People can't really be that poor anymore. There are too many programs and too much welfare. Poor people today live on their own, have air conditioning, TVs, cable, internet, cell phones...heck even cars.

Now, my parents grew up dirt poor. Like, sharing beans with 6 siblings for dinner type poor.

Coming from a well off family fast food was still a treat for me as well as going out to eat.
Either cheap as chit parents from my side or that's how you're actually supposed to spend money.

Its like flying economy class but the flight is your whole life

Same and coming from a 200k/year dad

Bananas were a treat crew.

Yep birthday's and special occasions, and my family is very well off and we live in a large house. My dad has always been cheap as fuk lol

I should mention my misperception about "rich" people when I went to college. All I ever really knew growing up were poor to middle class people. My entire town was basically poor to middle class, with very, very few "rich" people...and they went to private school so we didn't really get to know them all that well...and they kind of stuck to their own as well. I was brainwashed into thinking the rich kids were so different from us, and how they had such poor life skills and how they'd get a "shock" in the real world when they don't have their parents money anymore. Boy was that pure BS.

Its funny because when I went to Michigan State, I ended up hanging with a group of people (guys and girls). None of us knew eachother before college, we just happened to meet in and around the dorms and slowly grew "the group." We were all just college kids, living the same college lifestyle. It actually wasn't until spring break came that I realized that I was the only middle class person in the group. We decided to go on a "tour" to spend a day at everyone's house. My god did they have money. And yet, in a college environment where none of these people ever mentioned they had money, I couldn't really tell them apart from the middle class people I had grown up with. Don't get me wrong, there WERE differences. Like when we all ran up huge credit card debt as freshman...I spent years paying that off while their parents gave them a slap on the wrist and paid it off for them. Small stuff like that. But the biggest slap in the face to what I was told was when it was time for everyone to get into the "real world." Being wealthy means being connected in many cases. So while I toiled in low end jobs trying to find my niche and work my way up, their parents used their connections for them to jump right into good jobs after college. I also realized that their schools growing up and parents had spent time teaching them how to be a leader, while my schools and parents had taught me how to be a follower. So I had to learn how to be a leader on my own.

I grew up fairly poor.

I have a genius level IQ. I am very artistically talented, athletic, and have a very nice personality.

I grew up in a rural environment.

My parents were nice but they were extreme Spartans having ground up poor too, but in respectable families, so there was no substance abuse or anything.

1. Parents wouldn't allow me to hang a poster on the wall, might have to fix the wall.
2. Music was unnecessary, so no music in the house. No device to play any music. There was a radio, listening was considered indulgent.
3. No art lessons. Family would put me down for doing art. Teachers would give me paints and stuff because I was so talented. Parents thought it weird.
4. I would beg for books to read. Parents caved in because reading books sounds good. Still it was like asking them to buy me gold bricks.
5. Never went anywhere on vacation.
6. Massive struggle and logical arguments needed to obtain nice or trendy clothes.
7. Imagination is king because there is nothing else. No cable TV, antenna used in the woods which means terrible reception.

Basically, you have nothing but yourself.

Today, although I have money I am very Spartan in my attitude. I find it semi uncomfortable to be in fun environments, and so on.

I passionately hate rich and advantaged people.

I was pretty poor when we first moved into America and it sucked as a kid. Rarely going places, parents dont want to buy you games because priorities, and all our rich relatives treat us like we just came down from the Caucasians mountains(they still do this)
Now we arent CEO 50K a day but any means but we are much better off and have our own place and stuff so everything is good.
Also if you are poor it always kind of sticks with you. You dont start spending money like its nothing once you're doing better because to you money has more value. Either way being poor sucks balls. We never actually went on vocations either. Year round my parents just worked and we did nothing the whole summer.

And? So did I. We lived in a housing estate with football fields and chit

Mostly just my dad being under a lot of pressure, losing his temper if an unexpected cost came up. A lot of it was his own fault choosing a lower-stress career path after the divorce, couldn't see that it just made things worse.

He was a good dad and taught me to work hard, but I have hard memories of him being upset about money, and we didn't have health insurance. He really worked his ass off to make sure we got to go to Disney World once and I remember how happy he was to get to make that happen for me.

yep this ^

Im comfortable living without heating, will make makeshift solutions to problems to avoid having contractors fleece me.

mayo sandwiches

my parents income combined never made more than 100k a year, we weren't "poor" but as a family we were pretty frugal.

that being said, tfw no brand name clothing, and if i was lucky enough to get one as a child/teen i would wear the chit out of it, wore them down to the point of wreckage lol.


looking back now name brand clothing is retarded, plain shirts FTW

Banquet Pot pies and Salisbury Steaks every night growing up. There are still some foods I can't eat because we ate them so much.

high class checking in

no hate but im mindblown how many people decided to have kids when they were poor

One of my friends parents struggle to make ends meet but his Dad has good job..the reason they have no money is because they have 7 KIDS!!

"Decided" lol More like weak pull out game.

to sum it up; it sux pretty bad especially depending on your situation.

edit: I'll give some details
-chity stinky clothes that I wore for weeks on end to school
- pretty much ate nothing but Ramen noodles/cup noodles
-always late to school and got punishes for it even though it was my mother's fault
- teachers in elementary school treated me like chit because I smelled bad.
-poor oral health/over all health had some wicked bad cavities for months on end. unimaginable pain not even kidding.

ama

Condoms are expensive. Poor people must learn how to use allday things like socks, napkins as condoms

Poor as phuck checking in.

Free school lunches.
Parents fighting ALL the time about money.
I make well over 100k a year now, and yet I get massive amounts of anxiety when I buy myself things. Deeply ingrained into me, and I save as much money as possible now for dat dere buffer between me and my former life.
Grew up in trailer park until 3rd grade. My parents weren't the typical trailer trash, they were more of the dirty hippy breed. Still just as poor, and for similar reasons. My dad spent most of his money on beer and pot.

I am both thankful and resentful for my upbringing. There are pros and cons. I see now how important it is to provide for a nourishing environment for your kids, but at the same time, I see why rich kids can end up really ****ty and just live off their parents' wealth. The odds of being independently successful I think are much higher if you grow up poor, and wanting 'more'. Just my theory.

There are lots of examples of poor people who became rich later in life and became massive douches

Lol me too. I remember going to a friends house and I wanted a banana really bad but was too embarrassed to ask to have one.

I don't know if that's why but now I have a banana every day first thing in the morning.