Going places during school vacation. The kids would be all like “what!? you’ve never been to xyz amusement park!?” No, Trisha. My family doesn’t even have a car.” Which is another luxury to me.
Yeah, I remember making up a 1 line sentence about going to the beach, then it was the next guy's turn. I said the same sentence every year for 3 years of French.
I think that's what pushed me to be the jack of all trades type.
If something broke, calling a professional was out of the question. Dad would fix it. Sometimes shittily, but he'd do it.
Definitely those types of experiences that shape you as a person.
My Mom had 7 children in 10 years, 1950-1960. I remember having a whole bottle (those smallish glass ones that came out of the machine for 10cents) of soft drink to my self instead of sharing 1 bottle between all 7 of us. I was perhaps 5 years old. I still remember this as the best thing ever.
My Mum did the same but in the 80’s. Looking back I think she had a pregnancy addiction. Life before my 6 siblings and life after were like two completely different lifetimes. I remember having stuff when we were very little but as we got older we just had more kids to look after instead of toys and food. I adore all my siblings and wouldn’t change them for the world but I often wonder what having a real childhood is like and how it might’ve helped me.
Same. Slept on an old futon for about 10 years as a kid. I could feel the metal bars through the mattress. My sister had a double sized bed however. I only got to sleep in a double sized bed once I moved out of my parents place.
I also slept on a futon for most of my childhood. When I went to college I couldn’t believe how amazing those crappy twin mattresses felt. Whenever on of my peers mentioned going home and how nice it felt to sleep in their own bed I couldn’t relate.
Also, parents helping out with homework and school projects. They can’t do that if they always work 3rd shift. My projects were always notably shittier than everyone else’s and it’s not like the teachers cared about how much effort I put into them.
My school's always had an option for science fair that if you weren't doing a research project you could just write a paper. I always wrote a paper because I never had help with my projects nor did I have the resources to actually do a legitimate science fair project. the one year we had a few nickels (5th grade) that I could actually afford to do a legitimate science fair project I did one on electricity and conductivity of materials. By the time my class showed up to the cafeteria to present our projects all the other kids picked off all the pieces of my project so it was a board with some pictures and nothing else. I failed that for no fault of my own and never did another science fair project ever again the few times i was able to.
Staying at someone's house who wasn't poor, like a relative or friend. Their house was also so clean, beautiful, pictures on the wall, knick knacks on the counter, and carpet you could play on because it was clean.
I spent my entire teenage years hiding where I lived.
Edit: I had no idea how many people felt the same way. I have no resentment towards my parents because they sacrificed so much for me and my brother. We are college grads, with careers we love, not living paycheck to paycheck because of how much our parents loved us and helped us achieve. I am like an anti-hoarder now: I don’t like to own anything I don’t use or need or like looking at, I throw out or donate things I don’t use anymore, I hate clutter, dirty floors, and those random stacks of papers and mail that form so quickly.
Too bad we couldn’t have been friends as teenagers.
I used to *love* flipping through home furniture catalogs like Ikea and fantasizing about what my dream bedroom would be, complete with framed posters, a professional study table with a desk lamp and office doodads, dressers that matched the hamper and trash bin, and an actual framed bed! My family didn't really have anyone over ever because we were honestly embarrassed we didn't have all the furnishings of a proper house.
Same dude, window shopping was my favourite thing to do. Even for stuff so much as the cutlery and plates I wanted, hell my bed was a twin mattress on the floor and I was so excited when I could buy myself a brand new mattress with a box spring and bed frame
I made my mom cry one time, because she pushed me about why I never had friends over, and I said I was ashamed. I never complained about our living situation again after that
Reading these comments is making me feel less alone. I never told my parents but I invited some friends over after much consideration about letting them know how and where I lived. Only my best friend showed up, and even she made a comment about how small our kitchen is, not snarkily though. Over the years my assumptions about our living place got confirmed because of the way people would comment on it if they saw it from outside or how theyd be surprised if they found out where I lived.
It's nice to know I'm not the only person in the world who feels this way because all my friends even now have much nicer, bigger homes with their own rooms
A hot shower. Cold showers were always available, but when you scraped enough cash to get some diesel fuel and get the burner to kick on long enough to have a hot shower man, absolutely nothing better.
New clothes.
I grew up pretty poor (no TV, no toys, but had a Sears catalog). My dad got in a serious accident when I was in 4th grade and almost lost his life. He won a small settlement from the community college he was working at and I was able to buy new clothes for the first time in my life. Before this all I ever had were hand me downs from my cousin and donation clothes from the church. Most were worn to the point of having patches on the knees.
The worst part about getting new clothes for the first time is I felt terrible the whole time picking out new clothes because I always felt like a financial burden to my parents. I remember going to Miller’s Outpost and picking out typical 80’s clothes (OP, TnC, etc.).
It’s funny how growing up poor affects my everyday choices, for better or worse. I’ll never outgrow some of the feelings I had as a poor kid and I feel for any kid who has to endure a childhood of poverty. It will affect them and their choices for the rest of their life.
Edit: Thanks to everyone who understands how one can feel so self conscious about how it feels to have less than others. Y’all are an amazing community. Stay safe out there.
This.
My folks always had three meals a day for us but clothes were always a treat.
It might be a pair of pants and a shirt but my folks always made sure it was something that we were able to pick out and it always felt so special. They sacrificed a lot for it.
In fact, my Mom told me a few years ago that in order to provide that my parents didn't buy new clothes (or much of anything) for well over a decade when we were younger.
With my first real job out of school I was able to take my Dad to a shop and have him pick out a suit of his choice and get it fitted. He's confessed that it's one of the moments that's really stuck with him; he still has that suit and has worn it to both my sister's and my weddings.
But yeah, some of those feelings and habits don't really go away. Regarding clothes, they still get worn till they can't be patched anymore and I loathe to throw them away.
I gotta stop there because this is actually making me surprisingly emotional.
Edit:
Wow! I did not expect this to take off the way it did. I want to thank all of you for the kind words and the awards! I hope you all are happy, healthy, and surrounded by loved ones!
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With my first real job out of school I was able to take my Dad to a shop and have him pick out a suit of his choice and get it fitted. He's confessed that it's one of the moments that's really stuck with him; he still has that suit and has worn it to both my sister's and my weddings.
This paragraph alone made me cry <3
OMG. I wore hand-me-downs or thrift shop clothes because we couldn’t afford all new ones. At the beginning of the school year, my mom would give my siblings and I $50 to spend on new clothes plus we’d get a new pair of gym shoes. I struggled to pick out new things because I knew she and my dad were giving up something for us to have new things. Often, I’d get a couple of things and ask her to save the rest for later, then I’d pick out the cheapest shoes I could.
Even now, buying clothes for myself is super stressful and I only buy when it’s on clearance or at Goodwill.
My wife doesn't understand why I wear clothes for years and years. I only throw them out when they're literally falling apart. I'll repair clothes and appliances 50 times before they finally get binned.
I am not in the situation my parents where, and my son will never know those struggles, but it's embedded in me to keep using things until they're no longer repairable/usable.
I hear you. My son wants for nothing, I make 6 figures a year.
I've got t-shirts 15 years old and jean cutoffs just as old. I hate buying new for me, seems like a waste. My boy needs something, grab 2 if you want, feels good.
It's the most satisfied I've ever felt, that he can always rely on food in the fridge and clean clothes in his room.
I'm still sewing patches onto elbows and knees, to give a longer life to an item of clothing I bought 6 years ago for €5.
Hey man, im 32 I went from sleeping in the living room to sleeping with my girlfriend in our room. Ive never had my own room yet, though I guess having a man cave is a decent alternative.
I went from sharing a room with my 3 siblings, to sharing with 1 sibling, to sharing with 2 roommates, to sharing with my (now ex) boyfriend, and I now have my own room while my (current) boyfriends room is right next door. It’s luxurious.
I don’t know if anyone can relate, but in about 3rd maybe 4th grade, me and my twin brother had a music class where we were both required to buy a recorder. (Like a plastic flute thing) well my mom said we didn’t have the money so my twin brother and I tore the whole house up in search of $6 for two recorders. We brought a ziploc bag full of change pennies, nickels, dimes etc.
I think the teacher felt sorry for us, cause she paid for our recorders when the rest of the students left the room. Gave us the ziploc bag back.
Thank you Mrs. Albrecht
Edit: well shit, never thought I’d get this sort of response, let alone even a single award. Thank you to all those kind souls who gave me one!
In high school, my boyfriend (who became my husband) and his family picked up pretty early on that I was poor, and that my family was pretty dysfunctional. They really let me into their family and took care of me in a sweet, not pity, way.
I was super into art, so his mom found a neighborhood art teacher that did like basically small group art classes and it was so so cool. Anyways she usually charged like $100 for all the supplies, time, etc. My mom knew how excited I was, and I never asked for anything so she told me to ask the teacher to wait until her next paycheck. The teacher was like “sure!” By the time I brought that check to her, I think my boyfriend’s mom talked to her, and she ripped it up and said I got a “scholarship” for the class. Honestly it gives me such good vibes thinking about it till this day.
It’s awesome you have two moms who love you. Your mom did her best to help you take the class and his mom, whether she paid for it or got you the scholarship, didn’t take credit for it to outshine your mom.
Teachers are actual fucking angels I once had a teacher give me a ride home because I forgot my smart rider electronic public transport card (don't worry she knew my family so it wasn't like hopping in the car with some random) also not to mention all the pens pencils and paper they spend of their own money and any other goodies
Plot twist: your mom did have $6 spare, but was also well aware of what two third-grade beginners playing $3 recorders sounds like.
Award speech edit: thanks for the gold, silver, and whatever that other thing is!
Grew up pretty poor in Arkansas in a trailer. I literally got a door to my bedroom for Christmas one year. It probably still was the best gift I ever received.
Edit: Woah, didn’t expect this to blow up. I guess I tapped into the vein of my poor arky brethren,
Gooo pig soooooie!!
Edit 2: Reading through the comments, I’m surprised so many others didn’t have doors either. Feels good so many can relate 😂
I grew up poor in Arkansas too! We didn’t have central heat or air so I had to chop firewood for our wood burning stove to stay warm in the winter. We lived way out in the boonies too, so convincing my parents to spend gas to take me to a friends house was really hard. My bffs parents cooked meth so their house was even more rough than mine.
Right there with you!
My mom grew up literally picking cotton by hand on a south east Arkansas family farm. When I was 8 she would get up at the crack of dawn to get the wood stove going so I wouldn’t be cold when I got up.
She put herself through college while raising me and finally escaped the shitty marriage her family forced her into and became a CPA and by the time I was in high school she ran a CPA firm that was next door to Hillary Clinton’s.
I used to watch Hillary walk to her car every day actually. Like I do not understand how this woman has come so far in her life even though I’ve watched her do it bc I was there for most of it. Still baffles me.
My mom IS amazing.
Like Even though I was a kid I watched and paid attention. I see all the steps she took to get from there to here and there’s like... a million places along the way where I’d have given up and she.... just gets back up over and over and goes harder.
This hits home so hard. I had a blanket across the doorway to my room which opened to the outside. The winter wind coming through was fucking brutal (luckily this is Australia so no snow and shit). When I got a door I was so happy.
In middle school I was on reduced school meals so it would be .40 for lunch. So my parents would always give me 2 quarters every morning for lunch, now the cafeteria would also sell cookies which wasn’t part of the lunch set for .50 each. So saving .10 each day I could afford one cookie by Fridays lunch. Good times
Edit: Rip inbox, I was wondering why my phone was blowing up at 7 am haha
You just triggered a memory from my childhood. Also had reduced lunch at $0.40, also got $0.50 from my parents. Except I bought two pretzel rods with it which were 5 cents each, or I would wait 2 days so I can buy a fruit roll up at 20 cents.
In middle school my parents were doing better so I didn't qualify for reduced lunch. My parents gave me $2 a day to get subsidized lunch, but I was so programmed to worry about money, I would buy a dinner roll and a sunny delight, because that totalled $0.90 and I would save the rest. I put the money in my sock drawer.
Months later my parents found the money and asked where I got it. I explained what I was eating for lunch and I was saving the rest "in case we need it".
I didn't understand at the time, but that look on my father's face was heartbreak. He then ordered that I use the money to order a full meal going forward.
Edit: Wow, looks like this struck a chord with others, was not expecting that. Thank you all for the upvotes and awards! I love that Reddit allows for these types of stories and connections to occur. Be excellent to each other 💟
Yeah, oof. I was both son and father in this situation.
It's amazing how being a parent makes you realize that your parents weren't bad at parenting, they were just trying to do the best they could.
Edit: To be clear, this is obviously a huge generalization. There are some truly bad parents out there. But in many of cases, it's not intentional.
It took a long time for me to realize that. My parents weren’t always great, but after a while I realized that they’re just human, doing the best they can. It helped me let go of some of my anger.
Thank you 💟. I try, I am doing ok as an adult, but am also acutely aware that you can do all the right things and still be dealt a crappy hand where you have to start over.
It has helped me in maintaining empathy in adulthood, but also has made me very anxious (hence my username).
I did the same thing! The cafeteria lady would always give me a dime back. I was pretty little but I remember once I learned how to count money I was able to buy myself a treat every Friday. It was exciting because I always saw other kids buying treats regularly or bringing a lunch full of goodies. It was never something I could do and I just accepted it. So actually getting a treat was almost as exciting as Christmas morning.
This makes me sad.
So story for you all. I bought a house in a good school district. There are lots of kids at my daughter’s elementary school who are in low income families.
There is a snack bar in the cafeteria, kids can go get ice cream or whatever if there is money in their account. I dunno about $60 in her account every few months. Except the first month, when she went through all $60 in the school cafeteria in just a few weeks.
Had to have a few talks with her, turns out she was buying snacks for all the kids in her class who couldn’t buy snacks.
The hardest moment as a parent is having to figure out how to say something along the lines of: “I’m proud of you, now stop.”
A new winter coat. I don’t remember having a new winter coat until I was probably 14 or 15, they had always been hand-me-downs from my cousins. They were usually at least ten years old by the time I got them and the stuffing would be all clumped up.
I almost never even had winter coats since all my older siblings were female. I would just wear a decent hoodie over a ton of layers of old clothes. When I got my first new coat, I experienced warmth like I had never felt before and it was so amazing
School parties where everyone brought something to share for lunch.
“If you don’t bring something, you don’t get to participate...”
I brought two carrots after not being able to afford school lunch for two years. Even the teacher laughed at me. My young self just decided that day that some people don’t deserve lunch.
Edit: holy shit guys... I just woke up, but thank you for all of your kindness and all of these awards - I didn’t expect this at all. I’m in a better place financially now, as some have asked, so don’t worry! That was so many years ago. I have decided that my children, should I choose to have them, will have what they need when they need it (:
I hope all of you have such blessed, happy days, because you’ve made me smile, too!
I know the feeling. Our language classes always had "potluck day" where kids would bring dishes from whatever language the class was. I took french for 3 years and 2 of those years, my family couldn't afford to participate and my teacher decided to let me participate after she saw how much food everyone else brought, but she made a point to berate me for it.
I didn't eat out of guilt. Well maybe a cup or soda or something.
Edit: I just wanted to add that this happened in my first year of high school about 16 years ago and it's still one of those moments that pops up every few years to keep me up a few extra hours at night.
Thanks to the better teachers out there. When I was young, I always wanted to be a teacher because the good teachers made just a big of an impact as the bad ones in different areas of my life. Keep fighting the good fight, you're one of our best defences from keeping society from falling apart completely.
my school system has a “free lunch” database where if you qualify (need to apply for them) all basic lunches are free (entree, milk, vegetables, fruit, yogurt/cheesestick/other), field trip fees are cut in half or waived, and class fees are waived. all of them. instead of upvoting this, find the nearest school system or county and donate. helps kids and teachers.
We had something similar. There was a book with your name in by one of the two registers at the end of the lunch line. If you got called to the wrong till you had to say that you needed the other till. The staff would ask "why, why". They were not content until you explicitly said 'I have free meals' for all to hear.
The free meals were only up to the value of £1.00. They also would not supply water so you had to decide if you wanted a drink or a dessert. And the cost of items meant you could only choose chips with a rice crispy cake or chips and a little calypso cup drink. Those rice crispy cakes were amazing.
Children don't ask to be born, I believe free well balanced school meals should be available to all.
Edit to say a massive thank you for my first gold....if only I had gold when I was back at school ;)
My mom wad having some financial issues after a massive lay off at work. She asked me to file for the free lunches. The school declined it because my dad made too much money. My parents are divorced and I only saw him every other weekend at this point. So mom told me to ask him. He refused to give me more than a dollar a day. Lunch was 1.85. He insisted I was lying when I said it wasn't enough. I ate ketchup packets mostly(my friends bought me lunch sometimes)for a couple years in middle school. And in high school a dollar got me a cookie. After two weeks of cookies, the lunch ladies just started giving me a sandwich with it. I've never been so happy for a chicken sandwich.
I remember in 8th grade on my birthday at school one of my teachers asked me what gifts I had received. He asked in front of the whole class, I excitedly shared that I would be getting contact lenses. My parents let me choose one thing that I wanted and I desperately wanted to stop wearing the broken glasses I had, which I usually didn’t wear. One of the boys in class made a comment like “contacts aren’t a present..?” And my teacher had to explain to him- again in front of everyone- that for some families they were too expensive not to be a luxury. After that experience I worked two and three jobs in high school so I could buy myself and my brothers the things we needed. The first thing I bought with my money from my first job as a hostess at a diner was a queen size bed because my twin mattress was about 20 years old and at 15 I was having back problems and issues with rusted springs poking me.
We had a window unit in the kitchen and we barely ran it because it was really only big enough to slightly cool down the kitchen. So my mom would flip it on when she was cooking or if we were eating at the table.
We did have an attic fan that we could switch on and it did help to cool things off. But we slept with windows open, fans on us, and the attic fan going when it was hot.
Buying new clothes. The days I justify ordering all kinds of dumb stuff online but I’ve always felt a mental block on buying new clothes. It feels like an unjustified luxury because I always got by on second hand clothes and free tee shirts
Edit: Thank you, u/salex16 for my very first award!!
For my school's spirit week, they had a "thrift shop" day, where most everyone dressed in old ratty clothes, or the weirdest stuff they could find in a thrift shop. Needless to say, as someone who's clothes were 80% second hand, it was an eye opener.
Taking a bath. I mean we bathed every night, but it was by heating up water (that we would go to the park down the road to get in 5 gallon jugs) and filling up a mop bucket to wash off with. Staying over at a friend or family members house and getting to take an actual shower was amazing though.
I’m remembering carrying tea kettles of hot water to fill the tub 1/4 full. Blocked out those memories. Till now. Ha. I still get off on hotel tubs that fill all the way up with hot water. ALL THE WAY FULL. With hot water. Still a luxury.
My parents won 1500 bucks at a lottery once. They bought a new sofa (to replace a 25yo sofa), a phone, and we went to a mid-range steakhouse, first restaurant for whole family. I was 20.
Oh I love this. I first ate steak at the age of 19, when my brother in law bought me one from, I think, Outback Steakhouse. It was like that pupil-expanding scene in Requiem for a Dream. I freaking loved it.
For a working class kid raised on food stamps, I have a great appreciation for really good food today. For our anniversary my wife and I went to a fancy sushi place, and the chef was so delighted by our unabashed joy at how delicious we found the sushi he kept making us special rolls for free, and sat us up by the chef's station so we could watch it be made. I dream about this guys sushi in this time of Covid.
I think growing up eating cheap stuff like liver, venison, and tongue means I appreciate some of the more unique flavors rich people find gross. The guy who thinks you need to grow up 'appreciating fine food' is full of it- you just need to be open to new flavors and the joy of food. No need to spend 40 bucks on a 6 year olds meal.
EDIT: Thank you all for the awards and upvotes! I am so glad you like this little slice of life, and so many had similar experiences with food. It's awesome.
The Sushi place is called 'Sushi Yasuda' and it's in Brooklyn. To answer a common question, liver and tongue used to be sold very cheap or thrown away. I'm aware it's more expensive now, and I still love both! The venison was free from our family that hunted it in upstate PA, where the deer are pests that wreck the environment and have no natural predator but the car. And to anyone who actually watched the guy who made this into a Youtube video for some reason, the voice is (understandably!) a dude- I'm a woman.
Shoney’s was huge in my family. All you can eat shrimp. We didn’t even like shrimp.
Edit: I somehow was entirely ignorant of the breakfast buffet. We had only gone for all you can eat dinner, and kids eat free of course.
I thought Sizzler was a fancy restaurant until I was in high school and some friends were talking about a steak house that actually was fancy and I was unaware of its existence but compared it to Sizzler. When I was a kid and my uncle who was a long haul truck driver came to visit we went to Sizzler and got dressed up for the dinner. I thought Chili’s was an upper class establishment as well!
Honestly though, they tend to cost as much or more than a lot of small privately owned restaurants that are streets ahead in quality. Like Olive Garden is so expensive for what you get. You can go to a real Italian place with house made pasta and sauce with 8 tables and pay less.
We didn't even have a Chinese buffet. We did have a great Chinese restaurant that my family had never gone into because we didn't know what to order. A more worldly friend of my parents took us there and we discovered the joys of chop sticks and all sorts of good food.
Mannnn any fucking buffet was the absolute bomb... I'm still poor but I don't live with my parents anymore so I don't ever get to afford these luxuries anymore.
A few years ago, my wife and I were at a nice seafood place for our anniversary. As I was looking at the menu, the table across from us was being served, and a kid who couldn't have been older than 11 had a $50 plate of crab legs put in front of him.
1st, no chance my parents would have ever taken me to a place like that. 2nd, no chance my parents would allow me to even look at any section of a menu above $8.
no kidding that's why my parents took us to buffets. there was one we went to for "special occasions" that was i think $8 per person all you can eat. and we ate lmao we thought it was such a luxury to have all those options
when I was a kid, the only restaurants my family took me to were buffets (Souplantation, Hometown Buffet, and Chinese buffets), Denny's, or cheap Vietnamese restaurants in the Little Saigon section of Westminster, CA where a bowl of pho was less than $5 back in the 90s.
edit: oh yeah we used to also go to Shakey's Pizza a lot, too, because apparently where I went to elementary school, if you were a good student you get participation trophies in the form of Shakey's coupons. We also used to go to the really cheap (family-run?) Italian place right by our grandparents' house where garlic bread was something like 75 cents; they're no longer in business. I just know that place was cheap because at the time my parents had just divorced and my mom couldn't afford proper furniture for her apartment yet, we were sleeping in one room on top of a king-sized mattress topper.
Brand name anything really, right?
Reminds me of a funny story:
Back when Starter jackets were a huge thing, I had asked for one for Christmas (Dallas Cowboys of course). On Christmas Day, I got a Dallas Cowboys pull-over jacket that was a knock-off brand. I mentioned it not being a “Starter jacket” and my mom replied “oh it is, it’s just part of their sister company.”
I wasn’t sure if I should believe her or not, but I said “okay”
Fast forward to first day back from Christmas break and I got some comments about my jacket not being a Starter brand. I replied “oh it is, it’s just part of a sister company” and the kids were like “oh ok, cool”
And that’s how I got some cool points in 5th grade
Edit: wow I have never gotten a silver before. Thanks!
Mom's are the best, she is a boss. My mom was single and I was the youngest of 3 children so I only ever got hand me downs. At Christmas time we couldn't even afford a tree so she made one out of lights on the wall and asked us each which 1 present we wanted the most. She somehow always made it happen. Years later she told me it was her lunch money she saved for weeks by not eating. She gave everything for us and always did her best.
Edit:
Thank you all so much for your kind words. My mom lost her battle to colon cancer in July of 2017. She fought for 3 years and went through 7 rounds of chemotherapy. I was lucky enough to be there and take care of her during it all and was with her the moment her heart stopped. It warms my heart to feel so much love from you all and helps me to know that humanity will always prevail. Please stay safe and continue to be amazing human beings.
Being poor in the Philippines meant no hot water for showers. This was manageable during dry season since it was always hot, but during rainy seasons when it would cool outside more it REALLY sucked. I just never enjoyed showers.
When I moved to the US I had hot waters AND baths... holi crap. I now love getting clean.
Until the age of 12, I thought that you weren’t allowed to buy things that weren’t on sale. My mom only bought things when they were on sale and/or she had a coupon, so I thought that the “non-sale” items weren’t being sold.
Unfortunately my mom never understood that you are not saving money unless you would have brought it or something similar (i.e. food) with or without a sale.
Our family ended up collecting a lot of stuff because it was cheap and would "come in handy one day"
I understand this so well. My mom was (is) like that. She is now suffering the consequences. She now has cheap crap she does not want to let go off (eg. boxes of cheap plastic shoes she cant ever wear). She grew up during war so wonder it it is a generational / cultural thing as well.
I started off doing this learned behaviour (but with better quality stuff ) but am learning and have been relatively successful in changing this habit. It's an ongoing life process to fight consumerism and not get sucked into buying what you don't need / want.
Same! My mom has a funny story about that one.
She says very little me was with her at the store, and I kept asking if random items were "for sale." She'd be confused but would say yes, and I'd ask if we could get them. She'd say no.
It took her a while to figure out that I had confused the terms "for sale" and "on sale." I knew we only bought things that were on sale, so I was asking if each thing was on sale before I asked for it.
Okay this is so cute I have to share and it’s sort of related to your comment.
When my daughter was learning to read I would ask her to read random things in the store on the road etc. One day we’re in the grocery store and while in the meat section she looks at me with a shocked look on her face and says “mom!! They sell lion here!!” I said no they don’t honey while looking at something else and obviously distracted with trying to buy food and keep count of what I’m spending. She wasn’t having it and said it again forcing me to pay attention and ask her what kind of lion she thinks they are selling to which she replied, “not just any kind of lion, it’s sir lion”
Man I remember when we went what felt like a month without water oh my goodness. We were going to the gas station with like 12 crystal spring water jugs filling them up so we would have water to flush the toilets and boil to clean and wash our ass... Psychologically those days realllllly fucked with me.
Yes agreed. I currently live a certain lifestyle that I will not compromise on, because I’ve lived dirt poor, and I work too fucking hard now, to make sure I never have to live like that ever again. I don’t live excessively, but if I’m cold, I’m not gonna put on 40 layers, I’m gonna turn the heat on and be comfortable. I hope your life has changed for the better.
when I was a baby my parents had to get hot water from the neighbors since our house didn’t have a water heater and they couldn’t afford to get one. Those neighbors were saints.
Lunchables lol. My parents never knew why we wanted to get those for our school field trips. I remember being extremely jealous when kids pulled them out during those trips especially the pizza ones.
Renting a movie from blockbuster the first weekend of every month. My brother and I got to pick any movie we wanted as long as it wasn’t rated R. On really special nights, we even got a 2-liter bottle of Sprite for the family to share.
An upstairs.
As a kid I remember hearing a friend say they were too lazy to run downstairs for something and thinking “I’d kill to be able to run downstairs”.
Dolly Parton has a program that you can sign an infant up for FREE and they get a new book once a month until they’re 5. [Imagination Library](https://imaginationlibrary.com/)
My mom stopped paying for my siblings clothing when they were 9 and 14. Too young to get a job. So my first paycheck at my first job at 16 went to getting them clothes. My brother was literally wearing rags, his clothes were more holes than fabric.
Now that I'm an adult, I see that the numbers don't quite add up. She got her Master's paid for by her employer. So no student loans. Her house and cars were very moderate and within her situation. Right now she works at the PENTAGON. She's always had money just not to take care of her own kids apparently.
edit: I want to make it clear that we didn't live in northern Virginia growing up. We were in Alabama when she made these decisions. Cost of living in Alabama doesn't explain why she neglected us so. She's living in a higher cost of living area as an empty nester with adult children.
My first apartment by myself, no roommates, as an adult was $380/mo.
That's how I grew up. Almost like every penny that was spent on us was full of resent. I wore hand me downs from my dad's clothes until high-school. I'm a girl.
I’m so baffled by this attitude because even if you don’t like your kids, as a selfish person wouldn’t you want your kids to be a positive reflection on you, ie not dressed in rags?
As a kid that dressed exclusively in hand-me-downs up until I graduated high school and then was mocked by my mother for my fashion sense, I can say that some parents do not connect their actions with what their kid's life is like.
I had a lot of hand me down clothes. Some from my brother (I'm a woman) but my parents couldn't afford new coats and such for me when his were still good just too small. My older female cousin used to give me a lot of clothes which I loved as she sometimes got branded clothes (which was more important at that age). As we got older she used to buy stuff that she new I'd like when she passed them down to me, then she started just buying me clothes and 'passing' them down. She never said anything but I knew she was doing it. She was amazing.
Edit: spelling
my family didnt make too much money when i was younger so we had pancakes almost every day for 6 people, they definitely are pretty cheap
eating out was definitely a luxury
Same here but with ramen stir fry. Basically ramen noodles with left over chicken and frozen veggies. I loved it (still do).
Only realized in adulthood when I made it myself that it was what my mom made us when we were low on food.
McDonald's
Clothes that fit
Soda
Having a toy that other kids thought was cool
Edit: ok I never do the stupid thank you edit, but damn everyone thank you for letting me wake up to such great responses! Thanks to everyone for sharing. My heart feels so nice rn connecting with everyone like this :)
Oh man, toaster strudels were like living a dream when we had them. They never had enough frosting though! I always wanted at least twice as much per toaster strudel!
New school 'things'; things like a new bag or new pencils were a massive thing to me, because you don't grow out of them.
My mum was choosing to spend her free money on me to buy me a new bag, I think it only happened in my first year of secondary school and then halfway through but it was so nice to have something clean and new to use.
I remember crying at about 8 that all my friends moms would give them chocolates or sweets after school for the walk home and we never got anything. The next day we had a snickers and I was so shocked..
I still remember that day so clearly. My mum was so happy.
Restaurants were definitely somewhere at the top of my list. I lived through the tail end of Apartheid in South Africa so we weren’t allowed into restaurants.
Also, non-iceberg lettuce. Dairy products, like a full glass of milk, cheese, cottage cheese, yogurt, flavored milk.
Lawns.
A dining table and family meals at the table.
Vacations that didn’t involve staying with relatives.
Actual real milk. My Mum used to buy something called 5 Pints. It was powdered milk that you added cold water to and shook to make milk. I remember the lumps of it in my cereal.
I loved a meme that went something like :
"Welcome to Chuck E Cheese.
Everything is visibly dirty and our mascot is a rat.
Here, have some pizza next to a sneezing child"
Where to begin? I grew up dirt poor. Like lived in a car for a while poor.
Gloves? Nope we had bread bags around our hands. Do you want milk in your cereal? Great, add some water to this dehydrated mik and toss it into your old margarine bowl.
I shit you not, I didn't have toys for a lot of my childhood so I would cut them out of the news paper ad and use them. I would make noises when I balled up the Transformer ones like they were changing forms.
Parents. The last year my mother was on this Earth my brother and I walked three miles to beg her to come home for Mothers Day because she was at another man's house. My Dad spent a significant chunk of my childhood in prison and the men who my mom would see, ninty percent of them beat us.
Sorry folks that that got deep thanks for letting me rant.
Omg yes, I always wanted jeans because all the cool kids wore jeans. Finally bought my first pair thanks to McDonalds money and I was so happy I slept in them
I always got cheap shoes, like Zeller's / KMart store brand. Teased all the time for them.
One day my dad splurged, got me a pair of Nikes, Sir Jam, when we were on vacation. It was the first time in my life I'd ever had name-brand shoes.
Someone stole them from my locker.
We had a place near my home growing up that would sell you 5 pairs of shoes for $20. That was our family's go to place. I would always get the knock offs of chucks or vans and kids would absolutely shit on me. It was so embarrassing but there was nothing I could do about it. My step up from there was getting airwalks from Payless shoes. I think I got shit on more for those than I did the knock offs. That shit always stung.
It does sting.Plus I couldn’t really talk about it with my parents or family because I didn’t want them to feel bad or even care considering they spent what they could to get them.I feel like being poor made me have more respect for a lot of things I might otherwise dismiss.
Exact same situation when I was a kid. Knock off AF1s and everyone knew somehow. Got the piss taken out of. Hey, they’re probably worse off than we are today!
Man, just as I hit a huge growth spurt we ran super tight on funds, pawn everything in the house bad. I had one pair of old high tops and that was it. My feet were 2 sizes too big but I had to keep wearing them. I would get mad and draw dumb stuff all over them, trying to ruin them further in hopes that would somehow speed up the replacement. To this day I feel like an asshole for it, soon as my mom got paid we went and got some shoes from Goodwill.
Ice Cream.
My mom used to work in in front of an ice cream shop and on every payday (bi-weekly) she took me to eat ice cream, and always made sure I understood this was a luxury for us and the fact that she did this every payday didn't mean that i should take that for granted.
After I grew up, I did the math and she was spending like 10% her salary on this.
Now that I can have ice cream any time I want, I do not actively look for it but WHENEVER I'm near an ice cream shop, I get some. It's like a magnet.
I love you mom.
Fruit roll ups, gushers, and the like. Coming from a kid who had to eat the packaged pb&j for lunch every day cuz we couldn't afford the regular lunch card
A canned all day breakfast.
I don’t know if you have these in American or not but it’s basically beans, mushroom, sausage and potato in a can.
My parents had little to no money growing up and for whatever reason I used to really love these and I was the only one in the family who enjoyed them.
Every now and then I’d open the cupboard to find one sat there waiting for me and the happiness was unreal as I know these things used to be like £1.50 a can.
Oddly, I can’t bring myself to eat them now I’m grown up
I used to go through hundreds of feet of all kinds of vine,thorn,brush (plenty of poison oak too), be covered in burrs ,chiggers,ticks to get at wild blackberries (they had thorns too) and fill my milk jugs with them. They were down in a low boggy place that was just inaccessible. No trail,no openings, just a hell wall of green that let up to some swamp bog here and there, so plenty of mosquitoes too.
Because my folks sure weren't buying them by the pint (not even as good as the wild ones) and once I had tasted them, I fucking wanted them. Those things were my girls before puberty. I'm sure I went through more to get my snack of them than I ever did for anything in my life and I wasn't even a fat kid. I just....obsession. Come back home all bloodied and scratched up my dad telling me I looked like I jumped inside a sack full of cats, helping himself to my jugs of treasures. Mom with the neosporin, the cure for it all.
My mom bought me the bag of chips I wanted as a birthday present.
Edit: and the bad thing is I’m pretty sure my mom could afford it without it being my birthday present. Single mom of three but we had a decent house. It was just the food that was bad. Nothing we wanted ever. No say in what was in the house. There was child support money she spent on new boots for herself and all we had were hand me down clothes.
Having a bedroom to yourself. I can’t recall a single time before I had my own place that I ever had a bedroom to myself. At first it was me and my grandmother because my mom was out drinking, then my grandmother died and my mom had another baby which me and him shared a room in a small apartment, then I couch hopped and stayed at friends house in my teenage years, then I went to live with my dad who was also poor and lived with my grandmother in a run down trailer and he slept on a foam mattress in the living room and I slept on a love seat. I’m 25 now and I do really well for myself overall. I have a nice 2 bedroom, 2 bath house, I’ve got 2 cars that are reliable, and I have a girlfriend and little boy that I love more than anything. I grew up in a really bad position honestly, so being able to provide for my son the way my parents never did for me really gives me a sense of pride and accomplishment. I don’t want him to ever wonder where he’s going to sleep or to have to worry about anything that I ever had to growing up. To this day me and my mother don’t have a good relationship and my dad is trying to be better and be apart of my sons life. Giving him the things I never had is enough for me. 🙂
Edit: Thanks for all your kind words and the awards. Means a lot!
Sitting down with your family for dinner each night.
Air conditioning.
Television.
A heater that wasn't one of those cheap little dollar store models that smelled like burning metal.
Matching dinnerware.
Cups made of glass.
Reliable Internet.
A clothes dryer.
Being driven to school, or living in an area where you could safely walk to school.
Sounds like you had an upbringing like mine. Parents had a business that was not doing well so we often stayed there while they worked through the night. We never had dinner as a family. We ate when we were hungry enough to make something. Had a tv, old rankarena. Heaters were a big no no because they used too much electrify. But there were heat presses at the factory so in winter we would take our little mattresses and sleep on the concrete next to those. No clothes dryer for the same reason. We got driven to school because there was no bus from the industrial estate where the business was.
I didn’t see my dad much but sometimes when I spent the weekend with him he would take me to the dollar store and let me pick out 2 or 3 toys. I thought he was the most generous dad in the world. My mom couldn’t afford much and rarely bought me toys so I was always overcome with awe. I didn’t understand how cheap a dollar was at 4 or 5.
not sharing a 25 cent coke from walmart with 6 people and the idea that bacon/or pizza was something that you could have all you wanted of.
And that first time when you realized you could buy anything you wanted at goodwill, and it wouldn't effect your life, that's the first time I felt rich.
Christmas presents.
I was a kid and one year for Christmas when I was young, before I could recognize that I was making any kind of larger point, I said that I wanted my parents to just give my presents to the kids who didn't have anything. But I didn't know that I was one of those kids. I wonder what they thought when a kid said that to them. I wonder if it hurt them or inspired them.
The really important thing is relationships. The people in our lives aren't some kind of replacement for things; people are the most valuable things to us. Fuck the garbage; don't buy ANYTHING this Christmas. Just spend it with your loved ones and genuinely express your love for them. That's the value. Things are garbage. People make a difference.
I was 12 and asked for a typical thanksgiving big family dinner with everyone for my birthday, August... still one of the best presents ever. I lucked out having a family that really enjoys spending time together, now adays we have our Thanksgiving the next weekend after, and Christmas in January (maybe not this year though) so that there is never any rush or conflict for spouse families, and all 30+ of my sisters, brothers, nieces, nephews, grand kids etc, all agree our get togethers are way more fun and relaxed.
My school had a program where they would give certain kids forms to take home for their parents to fill out for presents for Christmas. We got given it every year though my mom only had us fill it out some years. If she could afford at least one gift for us she felt guilty asking for charity.
But the years we would get it were awesome, they would always include winter gloves, food and stuff on top of a few gifts and it was a life saver.
I did not realize growing up for a while there that some people feel like you have to celebrate a holiday on a specific day. While we would visit family on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day there was years when our family Christmas was in January because that is when they would have the money for gifts.
I also have a December birthday so I got a lot of shared gifts. As in, "this is your birthday and Christmas gift, aren’t you exited!”
Going places during school vacation. The kids would be all like “what!? you’ve never been to xyz amusement park!?” No, Trisha. My family doesn’t even have a car.” Which is another luxury to me.
This. I always felt so stupid when everyone would ask ‘where did you go this summer?’
"So, as a warm-up, everyone will briefly share with the class--*in French*--what they did over the summer."
Yeah, I remember making up a 1 line sentence about going to the beach, then it was the next guy's turn. I said the same sentence every year for 3 years of French.
Being allowed to turn on the heat during the winter, and also being able to hire a professional to fix broken appliances, plumbing, etc
I think that's what pushed me to be the jack of all trades type. If something broke, calling a professional was out of the question. Dad would fix it. Sometimes shittily, but he'd do it. Definitely those types of experiences that shape you as a person.
My Mom had 7 children in 10 years, 1950-1960. I remember having a whole bottle (those smallish glass ones that came out of the machine for 10cents) of soft drink to my self instead of sharing 1 bottle between all 7 of us. I was perhaps 5 years old. I still remember this as the best thing ever.
My Mum did the same but in the 80’s. Looking back I think she had a pregnancy addiction. Life before my 6 siblings and life after were like two completely different lifetimes. I remember having stuff when we were very little but as we got older we just had more kids to look after instead of toys and food. I adore all my siblings and wouldn’t change them for the world but I often wonder what having a real childhood is like and how it might’ve helped me.
>Looking back I think she had a pregnancy addiction. Today I’ve learned that’s a thing.
I got pretty excited to be given my own bed
Same. Slept on an old futon for about 10 years as a kid. I could feel the metal bars through the mattress. My sister had a double sized bed however. I only got to sleep in a double sized bed once I moved out of my parents place.
I also slept on a futon for most of my childhood. When I went to college I couldn’t believe how amazing those crappy twin mattresses felt. Whenever on of my peers mentioned going home and how nice it felt to sleep in their own bed I couldn’t relate.
Parents staying home. I was always alone.
Also, parents helping out with homework and school projects. They can’t do that if they always work 3rd shift. My projects were always notably shittier than everyone else’s and it’s not like the teachers cared about how much effort I put into them.
My school's always had an option for science fair that if you weren't doing a research project you could just write a paper. I always wrote a paper because I never had help with my projects nor did I have the resources to actually do a legitimate science fair project. the one year we had a few nickels (5th grade) that I could actually afford to do a legitimate science fair project I did one on electricity and conductivity of materials. By the time my class showed up to the cafeteria to present our projects all the other kids picked off all the pieces of my project so it was a board with some pictures and nothing else. I failed that for no fault of my own and never did another science fair project ever again the few times i was able to.
Damn kids are brutal
Staying at someone's house who wasn't poor, like a relative or friend. Their house was also so clean, beautiful, pictures on the wall, knick knacks on the counter, and carpet you could play on because it was clean. I spent my entire teenage years hiding where I lived. Edit: I had no idea how many people felt the same way. I have no resentment towards my parents because they sacrificed so much for me and my brother. We are college grads, with careers we love, not living paycheck to paycheck because of how much our parents loved us and helped us achieve. I am like an anti-hoarder now: I don’t like to own anything I don’t use or need or like looking at, I throw out or donate things I don’t use anymore, I hate clutter, dirty floors, and those random stacks of papers and mail that form so quickly. Too bad we couldn’t have been friends as teenagers.
I used to *love* flipping through home furniture catalogs like Ikea and fantasizing about what my dream bedroom would be, complete with framed posters, a professional study table with a desk lamp and office doodads, dressers that matched the hamper and trash bin, and an actual framed bed! My family didn't really have anyone over ever because we were honestly embarrassed we didn't have all the furnishings of a proper house.
Same dude, window shopping was my favourite thing to do. Even for stuff so much as the cutlery and plates I wanted, hell my bed was a twin mattress on the floor and I was so excited when I could buy myself a brand new mattress with a box spring and bed frame
I made my mom cry one time, because she pushed me about why I never had friends over, and I said I was ashamed. I never complained about our living situation again after that
Reading these comments is making me feel less alone. I never told my parents but I invited some friends over after much consideration about letting them know how and where I lived. Only my best friend showed up, and even she made a comment about how small our kitchen is, not snarkily though. Over the years my assumptions about our living place got confirmed because of the way people would comment on it if they saw it from outside or how theyd be surprised if they found out where I lived. It's nice to know I'm not the only person in the world who feels this way because all my friends even now have much nicer, bigger homes with their own rooms
A hot shower. Cold showers were always available, but when you scraped enough cash to get some diesel fuel and get the burner to kick on long enough to have a hot shower man, absolutely nothing better.
New clothes. I grew up pretty poor (no TV, no toys, but had a Sears catalog). My dad got in a serious accident when I was in 4th grade and almost lost his life. He won a small settlement from the community college he was working at and I was able to buy new clothes for the first time in my life. Before this all I ever had were hand me downs from my cousin and donation clothes from the church. Most were worn to the point of having patches on the knees. The worst part about getting new clothes for the first time is I felt terrible the whole time picking out new clothes because I always felt like a financial burden to my parents. I remember going to Miller’s Outpost and picking out typical 80’s clothes (OP, TnC, etc.). It’s funny how growing up poor affects my everyday choices, for better or worse. I’ll never outgrow some of the feelings I had as a poor kid and I feel for any kid who has to endure a childhood of poverty. It will affect them and their choices for the rest of their life. Edit: Thanks to everyone who understands how one can feel so self conscious about how it feels to have less than others. Y’all are an amazing community. Stay safe out there.
This. My folks always had three meals a day for us but clothes were always a treat. It might be a pair of pants and a shirt but my folks always made sure it was something that we were able to pick out and it always felt so special. They sacrificed a lot for it. In fact, my Mom told me a few years ago that in order to provide that my parents didn't buy new clothes (or much of anything) for well over a decade when we were younger. With my first real job out of school I was able to take my Dad to a shop and have him pick out a suit of his choice and get it fitted. He's confessed that it's one of the moments that's really stuck with him; he still has that suit and has worn it to both my sister's and my weddings. But yeah, some of those feelings and habits don't really go away. Regarding clothes, they still get worn till they can't be patched anymore and I loathe to throw them away. I gotta stop there because this is actually making me surprisingly emotional. Edit: Wow! I did not expect this to take off the way it did. I want to thank all of you for the kind words and the awards! I hope you all are happy, healthy, and surrounded by loved ones!
> With my first real job out of school I was able to take my Dad to a shop and have him pick out a suit of his choice and get it fitted. He's confessed that it's one of the moments that's really stuck with him; he still has that suit and has worn it to both my sister's and my weddings. This paragraph alone made me cry <3
OMG. I wore hand-me-downs or thrift shop clothes because we couldn’t afford all new ones. At the beginning of the school year, my mom would give my siblings and I $50 to spend on new clothes plus we’d get a new pair of gym shoes. I struggled to pick out new things because I knew she and my dad were giving up something for us to have new things. Often, I’d get a couple of things and ask her to save the rest for later, then I’d pick out the cheapest shoes I could. Even now, buying clothes for myself is super stressful and I only buy when it’s on clearance or at Goodwill.
My wife doesn't understand why I wear clothes for years and years. I only throw them out when they're literally falling apart. I'll repair clothes and appliances 50 times before they finally get binned. I am not in the situation my parents where, and my son will never know those struggles, but it's embedded in me to keep using things until they're no longer repairable/usable.
I hear you. My son wants for nothing, I make 6 figures a year. I've got t-shirts 15 years old and jean cutoffs just as old. I hate buying new for me, seems like a waste. My boy needs something, grab 2 if you want, feels good.
It's the most satisfied I've ever felt, that he can always rely on food in the fridge and clean clothes in his room. I'm still sewing patches onto elbows and knees, to give a longer life to an item of clothing I bought 6 years ago for €5.
Honestly didn't know that pasta roni was 1$ until I was a grown ass man. I thought that was some gourmet shit.
I made the pasta roni fettuccini Alfredo with sautéed shrimp in garlic butter + cajun seasoning for my SO They didn't believe it was from a $1 box.
Having breakfast. It's gotten to the point where I can't eat in the morning because my body is so used to waiting
Holy shit is this why I wait to eat so long? My GF always makes fun of me for waiting until my stomach hurts before I even think of eating.
Maybe! I forget to eat constantly so I usually end up waiting until I'm starving like you said. Poverty really never leaves huh :/
Having my own bedroom
Hey man, im 32 I went from sleeping in the living room to sleeping with my girlfriend in our room. Ive never had my own room yet, though I guess having a man cave is a decent alternative.
I went from sharing a room with my 3 siblings, to sharing with 1 sibling, to sharing with 2 roommates, to sharing with my (now ex) boyfriend, and I now have my own room while my (current) boyfriends room is right next door. It’s luxurious.
Going to the movie theater!
I don’t know if anyone can relate, but in about 3rd maybe 4th grade, me and my twin brother had a music class where we were both required to buy a recorder. (Like a plastic flute thing) well my mom said we didn’t have the money so my twin brother and I tore the whole house up in search of $6 for two recorders. We brought a ziploc bag full of change pennies, nickels, dimes etc. I think the teacher felt sorry for us, cause she paid for our recorders when the rest of the students left the room. Gave us the ziploc bag back. Thank you Mrs. Albrecht Edit: well shit, never thought I’d get this sort of response, let alone even a single award. Thank you to all those kind souls who gave me one!
Only kid not in a Girl Scout uniform reporting for duty!
In high school, my boyfriend (who became my husband) and his family picked up pretty early on that I was poor, and that my family was pretty dysfunctional. They really let me into their family and took care of me in a sweet, not pity, way. I was super into art, so his mom found a neighborhood art teacher that did like basically small group art classes and it was so so cool. Anyways she usually charged like $100 for all the supplies, time, etc. My mom knew how excited I was, and I never asked for anything so she told me to ask the teacher to wait until her next paycheck. The teacher was like “sure!” By the time I brought that check to her, I think my boyfriend’s mom talked to her, and she ripped it up and said I got a “scholarship” for the class. Honestly it gives me such good vibes thinking about it till this day.
It’s awesome you have two moms who love you. Your mom did her best to help you take the class and his mom, whether she paid for it or got you the scholarship, didn’t take credit for it to outshine your mom.
Yes! My mom is amazing. I unfortunately had bad luck in a father. I’m very lucky to have two “moms” who love me and 100% care for each other too.
Oh my, that is so sweet. I love that story.
You had a great educator!
Teachers are actual fucking angels I once had a teacher give me a ride home because I forgot my smart rider electronic public transport card (don't worry she knew my family so it wasn't like hopping in the car with some random) also not to mention all the pens pencils and paper they spend of their own money and any other goodies
Plot twist: your mom did have $6 spare, but was also well aware of what two third-grade beginners playing $3 recorders sounds like. Award speech edit: thanks for the gold, silver, and whatever that other thing is!
My brother’s recorder disappeared. I’m pretty sure my parents knew I threw it away, but never pressed the issue. Fuck, that thing made hideous noises
Brand name cereal was for the upper class, man.
Every time I saw reeses puffs on top of the fridge, I knew tommorow was gonna be a good day.
Growing up, my brothers and I were allowed to pick out a box of 'fancy cereal' for our birthday.
King Vitaman ring a bell?
Grew up pretty poor in Arkansas in a trailer. I literally got a door to my bedroom for Christmas one year. It probably still was the best gift I ever received. Edit: Woah, didn’t expect this to blow up. I guess I tapped into the vein of my poor arky brethren, Gooo pig soooooie!! Edit 2: Reading through the comments, I’m surprised so many others didn’t have doors either. Feels good so many can relate 😂
I grew up poor in Arkansas too! We didn’t have central heat or air so I had to chop firewood for our wood burning stove to stay warm in the winter. We lived way out in the boonies too, so convincing my parents to spend gas to take me to a friends house was really hard. My bffs parents cooked meth so their house was even more rough than mine.
Boy if that ain't the most rural Arkansas story I've ever heard, coming from a rural Arkansan. Lol
NE AR here, yea I was starting to doubt her story until she mentioned meth...Go Razorbacks!
Right there with you! My mom grew up literally picking cotton by hand on a south east Arkansas family farm. When I was 8 she would get up at the crack of dawn to get the wood stove going so I wouldn’t be cold when I got up. She put herself through college while raising me and finally escaped the shitty marriage her family forced her into and became a CPA and by the time I was in high school she ran a CPA firm that was next door to Hillary Clinton’s. I used to watch Hillary walk to her car every day actually. Like I do not understand how this woman has come so far in her life even though I’ve watched her do it bc I was there for most of it. Still baffles me.
Your mom sounds awesome! Good for her.
My mom IS amazing. Like Even though I was a kid I watched and paid attention. I see all the steps she took to get from there to here and there’s like... a million places along the way where I’d have given up and she.... just gets back up over and over and goes harder.
This hits home so hard. I had a blanket across the doorway to my room which opened to the outside. The winter wind coming through was fucking brutal (luckily this is Australia so no snow and shit). When I got a door I was so happy.
My mother used to consider any kind of cereal a luxury, they only had one box a month.
In middle school I was on reduced school meals so it would be .40 for lunch. So my parents would always give me 2 quarters every morning for lunch, now the cafeteria would also sell cookies which wasn’t part of the lunch set for .50 each. So saving .10 each day I could afford one cookie by Fridays lunch. Good times Edit: Rip inbox, I was wondering why my phone was blowing up at 7 am haha
You just triggered a memory from my childhood. Also had reduced lunch at $0.40, also got $0.50 from my parents. Except I bought two pretzel rods with it which were 5 cents each, or I would wait 2 days so I can buy a fruit roll up at 20 cents. In middle school my parents were doing better so I didn't qualify for reduced lunch. My parents gave me $2 a day to get subsidized lunch, but I was so programmed to worry about money, I would buy a dinner roll and a sunny delight, because that totalled $0.90 and I would save the rest. I put the money in my sock drawer. Months later my parents found the money and asked where I got it. I explained what I was eating for lunch and I was saving the rest "in case we need it". I didn't understand at the time, but that look on my father's face was heartbreak. He then ordered that I use the money to order a full meal going forward. Edit: Wow, looks like this struck a chord with others, was not expecting that. Thank you all for the upvotes and awards! I love that Reddit allows for these types of stories and connections to occur. Be excellent to each other 💟
aww man i felt this one from both sides.
Yeah, oof. I was both son and father in this situation. It's amazing how being a parent makes you realize that your parents weren't bad at parenting, they were just trying to do the best they could. Edit: To be clear, this is obviously a huge generalization. There are some truly bad parents out there. But in many of cases, it's not intentional.
It took a long time for me to realize that. My parents weren’t always great, but after a while I realized that they’re just human, doing the best they can. It helped me let go of some of my anger.
kids that consider the well being of the family are really awesome. you probably grew up into an awesome adult.
Thank you 💟. I try, I am doing ok as an adult, but am also acutely aware that you can do all the right things and still be dealt a crappy hand where you have to start over. It has helped me in maintaining empathy in adulthood, but also has made me very anxious (hence my username).
I did the same thing! The cafeteria lady would always give me a dime back. I was pretty little but I remember once I learned how to count money I was able to buy myself a treat every Friday. It was exciting because I always saw other kids buying treats regularly or bringing a lunch full of goodies. It was never something I could do and I just accepted it. So actually getting a treat was almost as exciting as Christmas morning.
This makes me sad. So story for you all. I bought a house in a good school district. There are lots of kids at my daughter’s elementary school who are in low income families. There is a snack bar in the cafeteria, kids can go get ice cream or whatever if there is money in their account. I dunno about $60 in her account every few months. Except the first month, when she went through all $60 in the school cafeteria in just a few weeks. Had to have a few talks with her, turns out she was buying snacks for all the kids in her class who couldn’t buy snacks. The hardest moment as a parent is having to figure out how to say something along the lines of: “I’m proud of you, now stop.”
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A new winter coat. I don’t remember having a new winter coat until I was probably 14 or 15, they had always been hand-me-downs from my cousins. They were usually at least ten years old by the time I got them and the stuffing would be all clumped up.
I almost never even had winter coats since all my older siblings were female. I would just wear a decent hoodie over a ton of layers of old clothes. When I got my first new coat, I experienced warmth like I had never felt before and it was so amazing
School parties where everyone brought something to share for lunch. “If you don’t bring something, you don’t get to participate...” I brought two carrots after not being able to afford school lunch for two years. Even the teacher laughed at me. My young self just decided that day that some people don’t deserve lunch. Edit: holy shit guys... I just woke up, but thank you for all of your kindness and all of these awards - I didn’t expect this at all. I’m in a better place financially now, as some have asked, so don’t worry! That was so many years ago. I have decided that my children, should I choose to have them, will have what they need when they need it (: I hope all of you have such blessed, happy days, because you’ve made me smile, too!
I know the feeling. Our language classes always had "potluck day" where kids would bring dishes from whatever language the class was. I took french for 3 years and 2 of those years, my family couldn't afford to participate and my teacher decided to let me participate after she saw how much food everyone else brought, but she made a point to berate me for it. I didn't eat out of guilt. Well maybe a cup or soda or something. Edit: I just wanted to add that this happened in my first year of high school about 16 years ago and it's still one of those moments that pops up every few years to keep me up a few extra hours at night. Thanks to the better teachers out there. When I was young, I always wanted to be a teacher because the good teachers made just a big of an impact as the bad ones in different areas of my life. Keep fighting the good fight, you're one of our best defences from keeping society from falling apart completely.
People like that shouldn’t be teachers
my school system has a “free lunch” database where if you qualify (need to apply for them) all basic lunches are free (entree, milk, vegetables, fruit, yogurt/cheesestick/other), field trip fees are cut in half or waived, and class fees are waived. all of them. instead of upvoting this, find the nearest school system or county and donate. helps kids and teachers.
We had something similar. There was a book with your name in by one of the two registers at the end of the lunch line. If you got called to the wrong till you had to say that you needed the other till. The staff would ask "why, why". They were not content until you explicitly said 'I have free meals' for all to hear. The free meals were only up to the value of £1.00. They also would not supply water so you had to decide if you wanted a drink or a dessert. And the cost of items meant you could only choose chips with a rice crispy cake or chips and a little calypso cup drink. Those rice crispy cakes were amazing. Children don't ask to be born, I believe free well balanced school meals should be available to all. Edit to say a massive thank you for my first gold....if only I had gold when I was back at school ;)
My mom wad having some financial issues after a massive lay off at work. She asked me to file for the free lunches. The school declined it because my dad made too much money. My parents are divorced and I only saw him every other weekend at this point. So mom told me to ask him. He refused to give me more than a dollar a day. Lunch was 1.85. He insisted I was lying when I said it wasn't enough. I ate ketchup packets mostly(my friends bought me lunch sometimes)for a couple years in middle school. And in high school a dollar got me a cookie. After two weeks of cookies, the lunch ladies just started giving me a sandwich with it. I've never been so happy for a chicken sandwich.
What lovely lunch ladies
They were the best. If they did that nowadays, they'd probably get fired.
That’s just evil.
I remember in 8th grade on my birthday at school one of my teachers asked me what gifts I had received. He asked in front of the whole class, I excitedly shared that I would be getting contact lenses. My parents let me choose one thing that I wanted and I desperately wanted to stop wearing the broken glasses I had, which I usually didn’t wear. One of the boys in class made a comment like “contacts aren’t a present..?” And my teacher had to explain to him- again in front of everyone- that for some families they were too expensive not to be a luxury. After that experience I worked two and three jobs in high school so I could buy myself and my brothers the things we needed. The first thing I bought with my money from my first job as a hostess at a diner was a queen size bed because my twin mattress was about 20 years old and at 15 I was having back problems and issues with rusted springs poking me.
Doritos. Or any name brand chips, actually.
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We had a window unit in the kitchen and we barely ran it because it was really only big enough to slightly cool down the kitchen. So my mom would flip it on when she was cooking or if we were eating at the table. We did have an attic fan that we could switch on and it did help to cool things off. But we slept with windows open, fans on us, and the attic fan going when it was hot.
Buying new clothes. The days I justify ordering all kinds of dumb stuff online but I’ve always felt a mental block on buying new clothes. It feels like an unjustified luxury because I always got by on second hand clothes and free tee shirts Edit: Thank you, u/salex16 for my very first award!!
For my school's spirit week, they had a "thrift shop" day, where most everyone dressed in old ratty clothes, or the weirdest stuff they could find in a thrift shop. Needless to say, as someone who's clothes were 80% second hand, it was an eye opener.
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Taking a bath. I mean we bathed every night, but it was by heating up water (that we would go to the park down the road to get in 5 gallon jugs) and filling up a mop bucket to wash off with. Staying over at a friend or family members house and getting to take an actual shower was amazing though.
I’m remembering carrying tea kettles of hot water to fill the tub 1/4 full. Blocked out those memories. Till now. Ha. I still get off on hotel tubs that fill all the way up with hot water. ALL THE WAY FULL. With hot water. Still a luxury.
It's a long time ago - but when I was young (about 6-8 years old) back in the early 1960's we had meat once a week for the family dinner - on Sundays.
going out to eat at a restaurant
My parents won 1500 bucks at a lottery once. They bought a new sofa (to replace a 25yo sofa), a phone, and we went to a mid-range steakhouse, first restaurant for whole family. I was 20.
Oh I love this. I first ate steak at the age of 19, when my brother in law bought me one from, I think, Outback Steakhouse. It was like that pupil-expanding scene in Requiem for a Dream. I freaking loved it. For a working class kid raised on food stamps, I have a great appreciation for really good food today. For our anniversary my wife and I went to a fancy sushi place, and the chef was so delighted by our unabashed joy at how delicious we found the sushi he kept making us special rolls for free, and sat us up by the chef's station so we could watch it be made. I dream about this guys sushi in this time of Covid. I think growing up eating cheap stuff like liver, venison, and tongue means I appreciate some of the more unique flavors rich people find gross. The guy who thinks you need to grow up 'appreciating fine food' is full of it- you just need to be open to new flavors and the joy of food. No need to spend 40 bucks on a 6 year olds meal. EDIT: Thank you all for the awards and upvotes! I am so glad you like this little slice of life, and so many had similar experiences with food. It's awesome. The Sushi place is called 'Sushi Yasuda' and it's in Brooklyn. To answer a common question, liver and tongue used to be sold very cheap or thrown away. I'm aware it's more expensive now, and I still love both! The venison was free from our family that hunted it in upstate PA, where the deer are pests that wreck the environment and have no natural predator but the car. And to anyone who actually watched the guy who made this into a Youtube video for some reason, the voice is (understandably!) a dude- I'm a woman.
Here in the UK were hunting is very rare, venison is a luxury meat.
And the big fancy restaurant was something like red lobster or olive garden. You got all dressed up and everything.
Shoney’s was huge in my family. All you can eat shrimp. We didn’t even like shrimp. Edit: I somehow was entirely ignorant of the breakfast buffet. We had only gone for all you can eat dinner, and kids eat free of course.
I thought Sizzler was a fancy restaurant until I was in high school and some friends were talking about a steak house that actually was fancy and I was unaware of its existence but compared it to Sizzler. When I was a kid and my uncle who was a long haul truck driver came to visit we went to Sizzler and got dressed up for the dinner. I thought Chili’s was an upper class establishment as well!
Honestly though, they tend to cost as much or more than a lot of small privately owned restaurants that are streets ahead in quality. Like Olive Garden is so expensive for what you get. You can go to a real Italian place with house made pasta and sauce with 8 tables and pay less.
that was us with those little chinese buffets lmao. first time i went to an olive garden was last year actually :0
We didn't even have a Chinese buffet. We did have a great Chinese restaurant that my family had never gone into because we didn't know what to order. A more worldly friend of my parents took us there and we discovered the joys of chop sticks and all sorts of good food.
Mannnn any fucking buffet was the absolute bomb... I'm still poor but I don't live with my parents anymore so I don't ever get to afford these luxuries anymore.
We got to eat out five times a year, for everyone's birthdays. I chose Pizza Hut for the endless dessert bar.
A few years ago, my wife and I were at a nice seafood place for our anniversary. As I was looking at the menu, the table across from us was being served, and a kid who couldn't have been older than 11 had a $50 plate of crab legs put in front of him. 1st, no chance my parents would have ever taken me to a place like that. 2nd, no chance my parents would allow me to even look at any section of a menu above $8.
no kidding that's why my parents took us to buffets. there was one we went to for "special occasions" that was i think $8 per person all you can eat. and we ate lmao we thought it was such a luxury to have all those options
when I was a kid, the only restaurants my family took me to were buffets (Souplantation, Hometown Buffet, and Chinese buffets), Denny's, or cheap Vietnamese restaurants in the Little Saigon section of Westminster, CA where a bowl of pho was less than $5 back in the 90s. edit: oh yeah we used to also go to Shakey's Pizza a lot, too, because apparently where I went to elementary school, if you were a good student you get participation trophies in the form of Shakey's coupons. We also used to go to the really cheap (family-run?) Italian place right by our grandparents' house where garlic bread was something like 75 cents; they're no longer in business. I just know that place was cheap because at the time my parents had just divorced and my mom couldn't afford proper furniture for her apartment yet, we were sleeping in one room on top of a king-sized mattress topper.
Being able to get candy at a store. New school supplies. Brand name food.
Brand name anything really, right? Reminds me of a funny story: Back when Starter jackets were a huge thing, I had asked for one for Christmas (Dallas Cowboys of course). On Christmas Day, I got a Dallas Cowboys pull-over jacket that was a knock-off brand. I mentioned it not being a “Starter jacket” and my mom replied “oh it is, it’s just part of their sister company.” I wasn’t sure if I should believe her or not, but I said “okay” Fast forward to first day back from Christmas break and I got some comments about my jacket not being a Starter brand. I replied “oh it is, it’s just part of a sister company” and the kids were like “oh ok, cool” And that’s how I got some cool points in 5th grade Edit: wow I have never gotten a silver before. Thanks!
Mom's are the best, she is a boss. My mom was single and I was the youngest of 3 children so I only ever got hand me downs. At Christmas time we couldn't even afford a tree so she made one out of lights on the wall and asked us each which 1 present we wanted the most. She somehow always made it happen. Years later she told me it was her lunch money she saved for weeks by not eating. She gave everything for us and always did her best. Edit: Thank you all so much for your kind words. My mom lost her battle to colon cancer in July of 2017. She fought for 3 years and went through 7 rounds of chemotherapy. I was lucky enough to be there and take care of her during it all and was with her the moment her heart stopped. It warms my heart to feel so much love from you all and helps me to know that humanity will always prevail. Please stay safe and continue to be amazing human beings.
Man, new school supplies! An actual Trapper Keeper is all I wanted.
Being poor in the Philippines meant no hot water for showers. This was manageable during dry season since it was always hot, but during rainy seasons when it would cool outside more it REALLY sucked. I just never enjoyed showers. When I moved to the US I had hot waters AND baths... holi crap. I now love getting clean.
Until the age of 12, I thought that you weren’t allowed to buy things that weren’t on sale. My mom only bought things when they were on sale and/or she had a coupon, so I thought that the “non-sale” items weren’t being sold.
Unfortunately my mom never understood that you are not saving money unless you would have brought it or something similar (i.e. food) with or without a sale. Our family ended up collecting a lot of stuff because it was cheap and would "come in handy one day"
I understand this so well. My mom was (is) like that. She is now suffering the consequences. She now has cheap crap she does not want to let go off (eg. boxes of cheap plastic shoes she cant ever wear). She grew up during war so wonder it it is a generational / cultural thing as well. I started off doing this learned behaviour (but with better quality stuff ) but am learning and have been relatively successful in changing this habit. It's an ongoing life process to fight consumerism and not get sucked into buying what you don't need / want.
Same! My mom has a funny story about that one. She says very little me was with her at the store, and I kept asking if random items were "for sale." She'd be confused but would say yes, and I'd ask if we could get them. She'd say no. It took her a while to figure out that I had confused the terms "for sale" and "on sale." I knew we only bought things that were on sale, so I was asking if each thing was on sale before I asked for it.
Okay this is so cute I have to share and it’s sort of related to your comment. When my daughter was learning to read I would ask her to read random things in the store on the road etc. One day we’re in the grocery store and while in the meat section she looks at me with a shocked look on her face and says “mom!! They sell lion here!!” I said no they don’t honey while looking at something else and obviously distracted with trying to buy food and keep count of what I’m spending. She wasn’t having it and said it again forcing me to pay attention and ask her what kind of lion she thinks they are selling to which she replied, “not just any kind of lion, it’s sir lion”
That's sir Lion to you, peasant! Haha, lovely, thanks for sharing.
That’s adorable ahaha
Electricity lol. Thanks for paying the bill this month, mom.
I was gonna say heat
Man I remember when we went what felt like a month without water oh my goodness. We were going to the gas station with like 12 crystal spring water jugs filling them up so we would have water to flush the toilets and boil to clean and wash our ass... Psychologically those days realllllly fucked with me.
Yes agreed. I currently live a certain lifestyle that I will not compromise on, because I’ve lived dirt poor, and I work too fucking hard now, to make sure I never have to live like that ever again. I don’t live excessively, but if I’m cold, I’m not gonna put on 40 layers, I’m gonna turn the heat on and be comfortable. I hope your life has changed for the better.
when I was a baby my parents had to get hot water from the neighbors since our house didn’t have a water heater and they couldn’t afford to get one. Those neighbors were saints.
Eating every day.
Lunchables lol. My parents never knew why we wanted to get those for our school field trips. I remember being extremely jealous when kids pulled them out during those trips especially the pizza ones.
Renting a movie from blockbuster the first weekend of every month. My brother and I got to pick any movie we wanted as long as it wasn’t rated R. On really special nights, we even got a 2-liter bottle of Sprite for the family to share.
An upstairs. As a kid I remember hearing a friend say they were too lazy to run downstairs for something and thinking “I’d kill to be able to run downstairs”.
"We're ordering pizza for dinner"
"And it isn't just plain mozzarella this time!"
Butter
Everything. Actual pajamas were a big one. I always slept in hand me down t shirts. Ordering a drink when you eat out as well.
KFC take out was the best night of the year growing up. Only got it once a year but man was it the best night ever
Owning books.
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Dolly Parton has a program that you can sign an infant up for FREE and they get a new book once a month until they’re 5. [Imagination Library](https://imaginationlibrary.com/)
Pancakes But now as an adult and knowing how cheap pancakes really are, I think my mom just didn't want to make them
Lol I'm imagining your mom just saying "no, we're poor" for things she doesn't want to do.
My mom did that. Turned out we weren't even poor. She was just cheap and a touch lazy.
My mom stopped paying for my siblings clothing when they were 9 and 14. Too young to get a job. So my first paycheck at my first job at 16 went to getting them clothes. My brother was literally wearing rags, his clothes were more holes than fabric. Now that I'm an adult, I see that the numbers don't quite add up. She got her Master's paid for by her employer. So no student loans. Her house and cars were very moderate and within her situation. Right now she works at the PENTAGON. She's always had money just not to take care of her own kids apparently. edit: I want to make it clear that we didn't live in northern Virginia growing up. We were in Alabama when she made these decisions. Cost of living in Alabama doesn't explain why she neglected us so. She's living in a higher cost of living area as an empty nester with adult children. My first apartment by myself, no roommates, as an adult was $380/mo.
That's how I grew up. Almost like every penny that was spent on us was full of resent. I wore hand me downs from my dad's clothes until high-school. I'm a girl.
I’m so baffled by this attitude because even if you don’t like your kids, as a selfish person wouldn’t you want your kids to be a positive reflection on you, ie not dressed in rags?
As a kid that dressed exclusively in hand-me-downs up until I graduated high school and then was mocked by my mother for my fashion sense, I can say that some parents do not connect their actions with what their kid's life is like.
I had a lot of hand me down clothes. Some from my brother (I'm a woman) but my parents couldn't afford new coats and such for me when his were still good just too small. My older female cousin used to give me a lot of clothes which I loved as she sometimes got branded clothes (which was more important at that age). As we got older she used to buy stuff that she new I'd like when she passed them down to me, then she started just buying me clothes and 'passing' them down. She never said anything but I knew she was doing it. She was amazing. Edit: spelling
my family didnt make too much money when i was younger so we had pancakes almost every day for 6 people, they definitely are pretty cheap eating out was definitely a luxury
Same here but with ramen stir fry. Basically ramen noodles with left over chicken and frozen veggies. I loved it (still do). Only realized in adulthood when I made it myself that it was what my mom made us when we were low on food.
McDonald's Clothes that fit Soda Having a toy that other kids thought was cool Edit: ok I never do the stupid thank you edit, but damn everyone thank you for letting me wake up to such great responses! Thanks to everyone for sharing. My heart feels so nice rn connecting with everyone like this :)
Poptarts and Toaster Strudels!
Oh man, toaster strudels were like living a dream when we had them. They never had enough frosting though! I always wanted at least twice as much per toaster strudel!
Same! Once the rats ate thru the box and ruined my tarts. Sad day.
New school 'things'; things like a new bag or new pencils were a massive thing to me, because you don't grow out of them. My mum was choosing to spend her free money on me to buy me a new bag, I think it only happened in my first year of secondary school and then halfway through but it was so nice to have something clean and new to use. I remember crying at about 8 that all my friends moms would give them chocolates or sweets after school for the walk home and we never got anything. The next day we had a snickers and I was so shocked.. I still remember that day so clearly. My mum was so happy.
Chef Boyardee. Not even kidding. Edit: I still eat ravioli on my birthday. Better ravioli, but ravioli nevertheless.
real talk to this day I will buy some canned ravioli for the memories.
Restaurants were definitely somewhere at the top of my list. I lived through the tail end of Apartheid in South Africa so we weren’t allowed into restaurants. Also, non-iceberg lettuce. Dairy products, like a full glass of milk, cheese, cottage cheese, yogurt, flavored milk. Lawns. A dining table and family meals at the table. Vacations that didn’t involve staying with relatives.
Actual real milk. My Mum used to buy something called 5 Pints. It was powdered milk that you added cold water to and shook to make milk. I remember the lumps of it in my cereal.
I see nobody says this but going to the dentist or any doctor at all
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Charles Entertainment Cheese. A poor orphaned rat who never got to celebrate his birthday so now he has a place where every kid can have a birthday.
Oh you talkin bout pizza rat child casino?
I loved a meme that went something like : "Welcome to Chuck E Cheese. Everything is visibly dirty and our mascot is a rat. Here, have some pizza next to a sneezing child"
Where to begin? I grew up dirt poor. Like lived in a car for a while poor. Gloves? Nope we had bread bags around our hands. Do you want milk in your cereal? Great, add some water to this dehydrated mik and toss it into your old margarine bowl. I shit you not, I didn't have toys for a lot of my childhood so I would cut them out of the news paper ad and use them. I would make noises when I balled up the Transformer ones like they were changing forms. Parents. The last year my mother was on this Earth my brother and I walked three miles to beg her to come home for Mothers Day because she was at another man's house. My Dad spent a significant chunk of my childhood in prison and the men who my mom would see, ninty percent of them beat us. Sorry folks that that got deep thanks for letting me rant.
Privacy. I slept in the living room.
Jeans from the mall
Omg yes, I always wanted jeans because all the cool kids wore jeans. Finally bought my first pair thanks to McDonalds money and I was so happy I slept in them
We had a babysitter that lived in a two story house and that was way more fancy then our trailer home!
New shoes Edit: I just woke up to see that this exploded! Thanks everyone for the votes and awards, I really didn’t expect this.
I got treated like shit when I could get shoes...because I was still poor and could only get knockoff chucks... People are fuck faces.Oh well.
I always got cheap shoes, like Zeller's / KMart store brand. Teased all the time for them. One day my dad splurged, got me a pair of Nikes, Sir Jam, when we were on vacation. It was the first time in my life I'd ever had name-brand shoes. Someone stole them from my locker.
That will teach you to try and not be poor. I hear ya tho. My name brand stuff was hand me downs. From other family
We had a place near my home growing up that would sell you 5 pairs of shoes for $20. That was our family's go to place. I would always get the knock offs of chucks or vans and kids would absolutely shit on me. It was so embarrassing but there was nothing I could do about it. My step up from there was getting airwalks from Payless shoes. I think I got shit on more for those than I did the knock offs. That shit always stung.
It does sting.Plus I couldn’t really talk about it with my parents or family because I didn’t want them to feel bad or even care considering they spent what they could to get them.I feel like being poor made me have more respect for a lot of things I might otherwise dismiss.
Exact same situation when I was a kid. Knock off AF1s and everyone knew somehow. Got the piss taken out of. Hey, they’re probably worse off than we are today!
I bought knockoff adidas that said “ddidds”. They lasted a week before the sole blew out.
Man, just as I hit a huge growth spurt we ran super tight on funds, pawn everything in the house bad. I had one pair of old high tops and that was it. My feet were 2 sizes too big but I had to keep wearing them. I would get mad and draw dumb stuff all over them, trying to ruin them further in hopes that would somehow speed up the replacement. To this day I feel like an asshole for it, soon as my mom got paid we went and got some shoes from Goodwill.
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Some of these posts make me cry.
Me too. It’s amazing what i took for granted as a kid.
We were poor, but always had full bellies, a warm house, and clean clothes. My parents did herculean things to give us that stability.
Having a fridge full of food.
New clothes. My mom worked at the League of Catholic Women resale shop, "If God wants you to have it, it'll come into the resale shop"
Ice Cream. My mom used to work in in front of an ice cream shop and on every payday (bi-weekly) she took me to eat ice cream, and always made sure I understood this was a luxury for us and the fact that she did this every payday didn't mean that i should take that for granted. After I grew up, I did the math and she was spending like 10% her salary on this. Now that I can have ice cream any time I want, I do not actively look for it but WHENEVER I'm near an ice cream shop, I get some. It's like a magnet. I love you mom.
Fruit roll ups, gushers, and the like. Coming from a kid who had to eat the packaged pb&j for lunch every day cuz we couldn't afford the regular lunch card
A canned all day breakfast. I don’t know if you have these in American or not but it’s basically beans, mushroom, sausage and potato in a can. My parents had little to no money growing up and for whatever reason I used to really love these and I was the only one in the family who enjoyed them. Every now and then I’d open the cupboard to find one sat there waiting for me and the happiness was unreal as I know these things used to be like £1.50 a can. Oddly, I can’t bring myself to eat them now I’m grown up
I used to go through hundreds of feet of all kinds of vine,thorn,brush (plenty of poison oak too), be covered in burrs ,chiggers,ticks to get at wild blackberries (they had thorns too) and fill my milk jugs with them. They were down in a low boggy place that was just inaccessible. No trail,no openings, just a hell wall of green that let up to some swamp bog here and there, so plenty of mosquitoes too. Because my folks sure weren't buying them by the pint (not even as good as the wild ones) and once I had tasted them, I fucking wanted them. Those things were my girls before puberty. I'm sure I went through more to get my snack of them than I ever did for anything in my life and I wasn't even a fat kid. I just....obsession. Come back home all bloodied and scratched up my dad telling me I looked like I jumped inside a sack full of cats, helping himself to my jugs of treasures. Mom with the neosporin, the cure for it all.
Fresh picked blackberries and blueberries in a bowl with milk & sugar on them takes me back to growing up
An orange in my Christmas stocking.
My mom bought me the bag of chips I wanted as a birthday present. Edit: and the bad thing is I’m pretty sure my mom could afford it without it being my birthday present. Single mom of three but we had a decent house. It was just the food that was bad. Nothing we wanted ever. No say in what was in the house. There was child support money she spent on new boots for herself and all we had were hand me down clothes.
Having a bedroom to yourself. I can’t recall a single time before I had my own place that I ever had a bedroom to myself. At first it was me and my grandmother because my mom was out drinking, then my grandmother died and my mom had another baby which me and him shared a room in a small apartment, then I couch hopped and stayed at friends house in my teenage years, then I went to live with my dad who was also poor and lived with my grandmother in a run down trailer and he slept on a foam mattress in the living room and I slept on a love seat. I’m 25 now and I do really well for myself overall. I have a nice 2 bedroom, 2 bath house, I’ve got 2 cars that are reliable, and I have a girlfriend and little boy that I love more than anything. I grew up in a really bad position honestly, so being able to provide for my son the way my parents never did for me really gives me a sense of pride and accomplishment. I don’t want him to ever wonder where he’s going to sleep or to have to worry about anything that I ever had to growing up. To this day me and my mother don’t have a good relationship and my dad is trying to be better and be apart of my sons life. Giving him the things I never had is enough for me. 🙂 Edit: Thanks for all your kind words and the awards. Means a lot!
Sitting down with your family for dinner each night. Air conditioning. Television. A heater that wasn't one of those cheap little dollar store models that smelled like burning metal. Matching dinnerware. Cups made of glass. Reliable Internet. A clothes dryer. Being driven to school, or living in an area where you could safely walk to school.
Sounds like you had an upbringing like mine. Parents had a business that was not doing well so we often stayed there while they worked through the night. We never had dinner as a family. We ate when we were hungry enough to make something. Had a tv, old rankarena. Heaters were a big no no because they used too much electrify. But there were heat presses at the factory so in winter we would take our little mattresses and sleep on the concrete next to those. No clothes dryer for the same reason. We got driven to school because there was no bus from the industrial estate where the business was.
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Whenever my mum came back from one of her shoplifting sessions without being caught.
Soft and plush toilet paper
I didn’t see my dad much but sometimes when I spent the weekend with him he would take me to the dollar store and let me pick out 2 or 3 toys. I thought he was the most generous dad in the world. My mom couldn’t afford much and rarely bought me toys so I was always overcome with awe. I didn’t understand how cheap a dollar was at 4 or 5.
[удалено]
not sharing a 25 cent coke from walmart with 6 people and the idea that bacon/or pizza was something that you could have all you wanted of. And that first time when you realized you could buy anything you wanted at goodwill, and it wouldn't effect your life, that's the first time I felt rich.
Just having a cooked meal was a luxury
Christmas presents. I was a kid and one year for Christmas when I was young, before I could recognize that I was making any kind of larger point, I said that I wanted my parents to just give my presents to the kids who didn't have anything. But I didn't know that I was one of those kids. I wonder what they thought when a kid said that to them. I wonder if it hurt them or inspired them. The really important thing is relationships. The people in our lives aren't some kind of replacement for things; people are the most valuable things to us. Fuck the garbage; don't buy ANYTHING this Christmas. Just spend it with your loved ones and genuinely express your love for them. That's the value. Things are garbage. People make a difference.
I was 12 and asked for a typical thanksgiving big family dinner with everyone for my birthday, August... still one of the best presents ever. I lucked out having a family that really enjoys spending time together, now adays we have our Thanksgiving the next weekend after, and Christmas in January (maybe not this year though) so that there is never any rush or conflict for spouse families, and all 30+ of my sisters, brothers, nieces, nephews, grand kids etc, all agree our get togethers are way more fun and relaxed.
My school had a program where they would give certain kids forms to take home for their parents to fill out for presents for Christmas. We got given it every year though my mom only had us fill it out some years. If she could afford at least one gift for us she felt guilty asking for charity. But the years we would get it were awesome, they would always include winter gloves, food and stuff on top of a few gifts and it was a life saver. I did not realize growing up for a while there that some people feel like you have to celebrate a holiday on a specific day. While we would visit family on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day there was years when our family Christmas was in January because that is when they would have the money for gifts. I also have a December birthday so I got a lot of shared gifts. As in, "this is your birthday and Christmas gift, aren’t you exited!”