Current Events > People on CE who grew up poor, how did it affect your adulthood?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Growing up poor, I never had any concept of saving money. When I had my first job, my mentality was always spend my entire check and treat myself as much as I can and buy whatever I want to make up for having nothing as a child or teen

---

I'm the opposite. My parents were cheap as hell, and a lot of that passed on to me. I'll do stuff like use half of a napkin, buy store brands, and just being very unwilling to part with my money in general.


---

i've definitely blown a lot of money on shoes and clothing i was never able to get as a kid

went to schools in richer neighborhoods, so i was always envious and stuff

---

I live in constant fear of something going wrong and it permeates into most facets of life.

When I was 12 my Grandma died and my mom started getting sick, so I constantly lived without water or electricity. The county took all my animals, and my drug addict stepdad sold anything I had that was valuable.

So now I take very little risks and live in a protective bubble where I experience very little in life.

---

Squall28 posted...

I'm the opposite. My parents were cheap as hell, and a lot of that passed on to me. I'll do stuff like use half of a napkin, buy store brands, and just being very unwilling to part with my money in general.

Pretty much same here. I knew being poor sucked, so I grew up saving as much as possible. I still live frugally even more than I really need to.

bump

---

I knew how important it was/is to save money.

---

When a census worker, or similar, came to our house and went through a list of consumer goods, and to each item my mother said 'No, we don't have one'.

I was about 10 or 11 years old and felt my face flush with shame. I don't think my mother understood the line of questioning or the data.

It was obvious it was a quality of life series of questions, in terms of household items and affluence.

---