Yesterday I wrote about the difference between being rich and poor. It all started with MEG from World of Wealth talking about coming from a wealth family. She followed up that post by talking about the effects of not having to struggle financially ever. This spawned a lot of interesting follow up posts by bloggers like Done to Zen, Dog Ate My Finances, My Open Wallet, GracefulRetirement, and now me.
It appears that the majority of PF bloggers were not well off. Meg’s the only PF blogger I’ve seen admit she’s from a rich family. But maybe other PF bloggers aren’t so honest. Most were likely middle class and trying to improve their situation. Some were likely lower middle class or poor. But Meg’s post showed us the differences between rags and riches. She admits to never having to worry where her next meal was coming from, or needing to save as much because it was done for her. Yet she’s still very responsible with her finances.
I believe that in any socio-economic class there are people who are responsible and those who are irresponsible with their financial choices. Thus family money doesn’t guarantee sucess anymore than not having money does. It depends on the individual.
For me? Well I’ve lived both I think. I lived the first part of my life poor, well maybe not as poor as most but relatively poor. As defined yesterday as not having any family or friends able to help, that was my mom and I. We didn’t have any help because everyone was struggling. But we were still better off than how my mom was raised. I had food, shelter, and clothes. What more is there really?
I learned recently my mom had me alone. Her, the nurse, and the doctor welcome me into the world. Then she left to go home alone and we started our lives together. My mom worked 7 days a week and often late into the nights. She kicked my biological dad (BD) out immediately after I was born because he gambled away money, drank, and left me home alone while she worked. Seriously what did we need the leech for?
My grandparents helped us out a lot non-financially by watching me while my mom worked. She basically came home ate dinner, and then worked at home. My grandparents lived in a shack. I know many people think I’m joking, but I bathed in a tub where you boiled water and poured it in, used an outhouse, and there was two bedrooms. My grandparents did not own this place either. Still it was an upgrade from my great-grandmothers house where the bathhouse was outside and we used wood to boil the water for the bath. Anyway I had no idea this was “poor” until I got older and realize people normally don’t live like this. Honestly I thought it normal.
So my grandparents adored coming to our house to stay because we had indoor plumbing and a garage. My mom was born under a lucky star. She entered a lottery with people who were low income (section 8), and given a chance to buy a home for $21k, no closing costs, and fixed interest. She was the FIRST name drawn and we won a house! OMG. There was only 30 low income homes and many people were trying to get it.
Anyway my mom tried to not use credit to survive. She told me the day she kicked my BD out she cut up all her credit cards. We might have been okay if I hadn’t gotten sick at around 18 months with grand mal seizures. The hospital bills really beat us down. But my mom managed without declaring bankruptcy, though we did have to use credit cards to make ends meet with our hospital bills, etc.
We drove a beater car, never bought stuff, often my aunts and uncles who were struggling invited us over for dinner to help us out. My mom was thin because at the end of the month, she made sure I ate if we didn’t have much food left. I only wore boy clothes until around age 10 because I had a male cousin 8 months older and the hand me downs were free.
And then she met a really nice man. A guy with a job, older, stable, and very supportive. Our lives changed 180 degrees and suddenly we were rich. Well it felt “rich”. We had a newer car, could go on vacation, moved to a new home, got clothes, etc. My grandparents were able to leave their rental and move to our old home, they’ve lived there ever since.
I got to take music lessons, extra curricular activities, my mom worked a lot less, and I had help with college. Things I know I never would have gotten like going away on band trips, debate, student government were now possible. I had so much more than so many others.
But during this “rich” period my mom really preached being financially responsible. We discussed how credit cards could sink a person from the interest. My mom said she used them and paid interest because we didn’t have any other money, but she cut them up the moment she could. I cannot believe that my mom did so much with so little.
Thus, I’m definitely spoiled, how can I not be? I’ve had everything I wanted for nearly 20 years. What can I say? I agree that not struggling has made me more spendthrift. I think I spend more than others on traveling and fun because I am used to a better life. My DH accuses me of being “rich” and thinking we’re millionaires. That I don’t get what it’s like to be poor like him. Truth is my DH has no idea what it’s like to be poor, he’s always been solidly middle class.
So just because you were poor doesn’t mean that you are frugal or a responsible person. Don’t get me wrong, I save, clip coupons, and am pretty responsible with my money. But I could definitely be more so. Perhaps if I had struggled more and for longer I’d be even more responsible with money. Who knows?
But right now my goal is to be like Meg’s grandparents, wealthy enough to pass on the wealth and know I’ve provided for my family. I’d also like to be wealthy enough to help my grandmother out more money and give my mom anything she desires.
What do you think? Has being poor or rich affected you? Are you a rags to riches story as well? Or were you middle class and still middle class like my DH?
16 responses so far ↓
1 Kristy // Jan 13, 2009 at 10:36 am
I was born and raised poor. I can still remember having no car and walking with my mom and sister to the grocery store and carrying the groceries home. Being poor is one reason that I do not like mac n’ cheese and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I was the oldest and I was responsible for the other two kids while my mom worked in the summer (this wasn’t until I was a little bit older, around 12 I think).
We were not dirt poor, but we were on welfare and it sure felt like we couldn’t afford to do anything. When my mom started dating my stepdad, I remember what a treat it was for him to bring us pizza for dinner! Eventually they got married and our lives improved a bit, but with three kids there wasn’t a whole lot of room for extras.
I am the only one that has put myself through college and had made something out of myself. I would now be consider upper-middle class, though to my family I am “rich”.
2 fengshui // Jan 13, 2009 at 11:43 am
“Still it was an upgrade from my great-grandmothers house where the bathhouse was outside and we used wood to boil the water for the bath. Anyway I had no idea this was “poor” until I got older and realize people normally don’t live like this. Honestly I thought it normal.
”
I speculate that this is why my MIL is so frugal and feels the need to stash cash in the house because the “banks going to collapse”. She had 15 brothers and sisters, and they all lived in a 3 bedroom farm house and didn’t have indoor plumbing until she was 16. Around here, I didn’t think that this type of thing still happened. I guess that it does. And living that poorly, usually, people end up 1 of 2 ways. They end up being extreme penny pinchers, or they end up being spenders because being that poor made them feel like they always need to have “stuff”.
I grew up poor. My parents got pregnant with me (major oops) while 17 and still in HS. They both droppped out to work because they had to support me. I have always felt guilty about this, like I kept them from a better life.
I am very generous with my money, even though I have no “wealth”. I bailed my DH out of thousands of dollars of debt when we first married. Could I afford to do this? Well, I made enough per hour to justify it, but I had my own debt too. So, technically, I couldn’t afford to do it. I felt that I needed to do it because it was past due amounts and I knew that we would never be able to start rebuilding his credit until the debts were paid.
I also recently gave a beater car to my uncle because he had no way to get to work anymore. He only makes $10 an hour and lives paycheck to paycheck. Could I afford this? Not really. DH and I are just now paying our property taxes from 2007. We didn’t escrow. So, no, I didn’t have the money to help him, but I felt that I needed to. I’m the “rock” of my family. No one in my family makes even close to what I do, even though I’m not working FT until May.
I’ve never been a saver. I’m feeling jaded because no one ever taught me to save. I watched my parents always buy a new car every 3-5 years with no money down and financed. My parents have ALWAYS had a car payment. And a house payment, and a motorcycle payment, and a HELOC to fix the house up. Everything was always “financed”, so I thought that this was normal. You work, and you make your “payments”. This was of course, when credit started coming easier. We (my parents and I) didn’t actually OWN our home until I was 15, because during the 80’s it was hard to get credit for anything, even credit cards. I got ZERO financial help for college. Not even $ for food, etc. I had to get a job. Thankfully I always had good jobs. I was a CNA right out of HS and made $10 while going to school. I got my AS as an LPN 2 years after I graduated HS so I made decent money working as an LPN, like $15 (this was in 97), and then I kept laddering up to AD RN, then BSN, then MSN….. etc, etc. so luckily I was always making a good salary to support myself. I’ve always been very driven. But…… I’ve always been a spender. Unfortunatley.
Anyway, to make a long story short, I feel like I didn’t have anyone to teach me to be smart with money. My dad has a union pension and that is it. No ROTH, no CDs, no mutual funds or stocks. He thinks that the annuity from his pension and social security will provide him with the $ he needs to retire. My mom has a 401k with around $75k. They have $15k in an EF. Thats it. That is their retirment. No $250k nest egg, no nothing.
I on the other hand, DESIRE for my life to be different. I’m just really struggling with the discipline aspect of it. I desire to have the $cto send my future child to college. To retire with more that. To have no debt. I STRUGGLE with budgets. I LOVE to spoil myself, and I LOVE to buy things for my home. I think that I need to be hypnotised or something. DH and I have the income to do some good amounts of saving, but it seems like we are poor planners. We didn’t excrow. WHY? I can’t answer that. Well, there is a little more to it, and it has caused some marital strife, but I won’t get into that…..
Now it is crunch time and I have to take a large chunk of our EF and my scholarship $vfor this semester to pay 2007 and 2008 property taxes. We are stupid. I’m just having a bad day already, I guess. Thanks for listening y’all.
3 LAL // Jan 13, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Kristy, I feel you. A treat was one hamburger at McDonalds and my mom never bought anything else. Just one for me. And we would have qualified for welfare, but my mom was too proud. Instead she just charged up credit cards and paid them off later as she worked and earned more. It’s probably why she hates credit cards and always talks about not spending more than you have.
But credit cards can be necessary, I do not care what anyone says. Until you are living on credit cards and trying to avoid welfare don’t knock it.
Fengshui, I think it happens. And you sort of have the money to help because you can take out loans to afford it. My grandparents were always in debt to loan sharks from the gambling, so money to help wasn’t available. My aunts and uncles were struggling to make ends meet, helping my grandparents, their own problems.
So sometimes though family wants to help they just can’t. My mom’s younger sisters were still in college working 2-3 jobs to pay for it. My uncle had worked from age 12 picking pineapples for money to feed the family. In case the paycheck was gambled or drank away. So it’s not like they were slacking.
And he took a long time finishing his bachelor’s because he was supporting his wife, parents, one son, helping my mom and her sisters and his wife’s family of 4 girls all younger. Their parents died so his wife was raising her sisters. It was food on table or paying the bills. I know everyone hate credit, but sometimes they used it.
I think as long as you can put food on the table you can help out. Payments aren’t so bad. I would do it if I needed to help my parents out. I would offer them money and take on debt. I’d prefer not to, but I’m okay with it.
It’s when you have to pick food, electric, water, mortgage.
By the way in our house the priority was medication, mortgage, food, utilities, then everything else. I know collectors came by looking for money but we were broke. No money. And we certainly didn’t look like we could afford to pay .
4 Christine // Jan 13, 2009 at 2:18 pm
I always had 3 outfits for school and 1 for church, food and a roof over my head. Still, the rich children at the cutting end magnet school I attended teased me mercilessly. They always financed a new car ever 4-5 years. They still do to this day. They paid off my childhood home after 30 years when I was 32. I had worked my way through college at a hotel call center. The tension hung in the air there as I knew if I didn’t make my quota for a couple of weeks, I would be gone. They did this without hesitation. I graduated college without any debt and a small moveout fund. I left my parents home as soon as I had graduated and found a real job paying enough to survive.
I was brining home about $900 a month, rent was $300. I lived simply. Liability only car, no cable and very little partying. I worked my way up the ladder at work and earned more. I never ever broke $30k and that’s with a bachelor’s degree. I changed jobs and took a little paycut. I was convinced the time was right to buy a house. I decided on something 4 miles from my job as I was always oncall. Everything went well until I started hearing voices. I lost my job because I became delusional/paranoid and did something stupid while my judgement was impaired. They would hear no excuses. I tried going to school but the constant voices kept me from understanding the lecture fully. I flunked out. I have held a few part-time jobs, been fired for a few because I failed to perferm up to expectations. I am living on disability right now. I am just able to afford the house payment. I have paid off the credit cards and saved up a little money while I was working. I am hoping to lose a massive amount of weight to see if it will make the medication more effective. Wish me luck!
5 LivingAlmostLarge // Jan 13, 2009 at 8:35 pm
Good luck and I hope things work out!
6 fengshui // Jan 13, 2009 at 9:08 pm
Christine, your situation must be very hard. I hope that you and your healthcare provider find a way for you to be healthy again. As far as losing weight to make your medication work better, that may help you some. The dosage of medications are based upon the “average” person. Drug efficacy can be greatly decreased for those with a high body mass index.
7 Fabulously Broke // Jan 14, 2009 at 9:02 am
I am writing a response to this tomorrow.. to tell my story..
I really, really loved this post. I had no idea! My parents went through the same thing, well.. more my mom than my dad.
Fabulously Broke in the City
“Just a girl trying to find a balance between being a Shopaholic and a Saver.“
8 BlueEyedJoy // Jan 15, 2009 at 7:42 am
Very impressive. I loved the story, and enjoyed every word of it!
9 momthing1 // Jan 15, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Your mom is amazing! Good for her for being strong enough to boot out a jerk and take on parenthood alone. With a newborn and few financial resources, it could not have been easy.
It is nice to read that she later found happiness and now has a better life (economically). She also seems to have done a good job raising a well-adjusted child.
Thanks for sharing your story.
10 Fabulously Broke // Jan 15, 2009 at 2:13 pm
My dad won the money betting on horses.
Ironically, our middle-class life in Canada was funded by gambling.
I am loving the new spirit in the blogosphere. I am so happy Meg came out and sparked the discussions.
These are some of the best posts I’ve read in PF for a long time
11 LivingAlmostLarge // Jan 15, 2009 at 8:28 pm
Thank you blue eye joy and momthing1.
FB that is ironic that he won money gambling. Sigh, it doesn’t make people learn that gambling is bad.
12 Slinky // Jan 21, 2009 at 5:38 pm
It’s nice to hear a story from someone who wasn’t always middle-upper class. I keep wanting to tell my own story, but for me there’s a lot of bitterness and regret and bad feelings all tied up in it.
13 LivingAlmostLarge // Jan 21, 2009 at 8:26 pm
I have always perceived myself as upper middle class. Mostly because that’s how I like to remember my childhood.
Truth is that it likely was a lot worse than I recall. I remember most of the good parts with my mom. We were and are VERY close.
I never felt really poor because I had clothes, food, and shelter. And my mom’s attention 100%. I was never abused and completely spoiled in love by my grandparents. I had tons of attention and tons of fun.
My mom definitely I can tell bore the brunt of it. I know till today she still sometimes gets a strained look on her face when she’s worrying about money. I don’t think it can every go away.
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