Only Formerly "Poor" People Will Understand This (1h of r/AskReddit)

rich people over in debt who married someone significantly poorer what surprised you about their previous wear of life making financial decisions based around the three paycheck month if you're paid every two weeks most months you get two paychecks and all of your monthly bills and budgeting is based on those two paychecks but twice a year there are three pay a days and a month and that's when you can actually solve problems that's when you can get the car registered or fix the dryer or get the cat spayed to the other ten months you're doing maintenance and trying to cope three paycheck months you can actually try to fix problems this I know this so well finally in a salaried position but on a tipped income those three paycheck months were a serious life saver more of a funny incident but I was the poor one my husband at the time still boyfriend took me out to a very nice restaurant waiter asked if I want pepper on my Caesar salad that was just made tableside I said sure and he goes about it thing is I didn't know you had to say stop my husband slowly realizes this but decides to see it play out he did eventually say that I need to say stop I just thought a Caesar was had this way as it was my first time even eating a salad that wasn't just iceberg and ranch dressing it still tasted fine just a little bit too much pepper haha I was adopted at age seven I lived in extreme poverty and then all of a sudden I lived with a doctor who bought gifts for birthdays and Christmas I didn't know that was a thing I didn't know you could go to the store to get food I just thought you went to the church and had to pray before they give you a bag of food when the family had people over for dinner if they ended the prayer before the meal with F H B amen it was a signal to let the children know that they don't have enough food for everyone so take smaller servings and let the guests get a regular serving F H B equals family hold back they were always generous to their friends and didn't let her lack of funds embarrass themselves when doing so but I grew up poor too but we never had any guests round for dinner FH be my heart honestly food insecurity when we were first married she would get visibly uneasy if the food in the house was running low or she never over ate or anything she was just always concerned about it a lot of times when she was younger she went hungry on the humorous side though she hates camping her answer is always the same I can't because it was fun she can't because they couldn't afford hotels she and her mother lived with her grandfather to not be homeless because her grandfather owned a house she was put in Community College payments on her credit card and building debt with it I paid off her credit cards when we were dating and she cried from me being so nice it was only like 1,300 bucks I bought a condo then we got married then we bought a house I never really considered myself for it until I started dating her and learned that a trip to Wendy's was a treat I grew up middle class and we are currently middle-class help my wife was born and raised in the Soviet Union she still goes crazy for fresh fruit like it's the most extravagant luxury the prevailing mindset in his community growing up that insurance was something only rich people had not health insurance mind you well not just health insurance auto insurance going without it was a way of life for most everyone he knew my so has to constantly remind me that I can go to the doctor whenever I need to instead of just hoping I don't die I am on the other side as I married a girl from a rich family although we both earned the same and I tend to worry about money savings future through the years I have realized that she worries less about it and still saves more and spends less than me I feel like coming from a lower middle-class family makes me think about saving more but at the same time I spend money on things as I could not have them all before I got my own job I am so like this I think and plan and budget but when my paycheck comes it is so hard to not spend it all on going out to eat or other frivolous things because I could never have those small luxuries before sandwiches when I made him a sandwich I only put one thin slice of meat in it he couldn't believe that was how I had sandwiches growing up growing up we weren't allowed to just eat deli slices it had to go between two pieces of bread because that would fill you up faster and save on meat costs I am NOT well-off that my stepfather is I was raised by a single mom who spent money on everything and bills were always behind she just couldn't manage her money at all in her 50s she met and married a multimillionaire we are in middle America so that goes further than maybe in a lot of areas they have given themselves $10,000 a month budget to live on living on interest own their home anyway once my mom met him and they got all her finance situated and paid off she won't spend a penny he spends like it is going out of style he has actually begged me to take her shopping to get clothes and accessories she won't do it she spent more when she was a single mom with nothing it makes no sense to me at least buy a new outfit she is heck bent to not use a penny of his money they barely even have any groceries if they have anything it is because he buys it for them she is a retired nurse that gets a retirement and SS but she won't spend anything she lives poorer now than any other time in her life this sounds less like a financial issue and more like she's trying to preserve her pride she knows that people will think she's a gold digger if she spends his money so she's going to the opposite extreme and refusing to benefit from any of it I didn't marry this woman but when we started dating she always wanted to chill at my place never hers which was fine but she gained 35 pounds in just like a few months of dating she was 100 pounds when we started dating not that it was a bad thing one I am a chubby man in two I was just glad she wasn't pregnant anyway turns out her family couldn't like a for dinner sometimes so suddenly she had a place to eat every night and gorged herself I know two siblings who were starved by their father for years until CPS took them away and placed them with their biological mother from they gained at least 100 pounds respectively and will not stop gorging themselves on food at first I didn't understand but now that I am older I know food scarcity is traumatizing I fell in love with my uni best friend who really didn't have any money when I got a job for my birth then I decided to plan a holiday and offer to bring him along it didn't even occur to me that this was his first ever holiday he'd ever taken his family could never afford it growing up and he'd never really thought to do it as an adult my partner and I are both poor the different kinds of poor she's never been homeless or not had enough to eat while I have she's extremely frugal and hates buying anything we don't need I feel a desperate need to stock up if we have any extra money and it's a fight for me not to fill our house with canned and dry goods in case we don't have enough money to buy food next month for some reason it makes no sense but my instinct is to hoard food because there just was never enough of it around growing up kamar it makes no sense but my instinct is to hoard food because there just was never enough of it around growing up but that makes perfect sense I'm from an upper-middle class American family and my husband is from a poor s-see Asian family it is hard for me to wrap my head around how poor they really were when he was growing up he told me about eating only rice with sugar for meals because they couldn't afford meat they were probably living off less that's $0.50 day for a family of five at times I'm southeaster sin as well rice soy sauce eggs and a little vegetables go a long way I'm not rich at all but my husband came from a very poor Mexican village he told me he used to shower outside because there was no in-house plumbing and used leaves as toilet paper I mean there's pour and there's my husband's previous life poor he's been living in the US for 12 years now but when we first met it was so interesting seeing life through his childlike eyes going to the cinema was a huge event for him heating food up in a microwave was a totally foreign concept and staying at fancy hotels when we went on vacation was like whoa I still see him surprised by things now and then and it just reminds me how much I take my middle status class for granted Hamburger Helper she hates it because it would be her meal 5x a week growing up I had never even seen HH before I went to college and loved that stuff 10 for $10 deals are awesome my so said today I made rent meaning today I've earned enough accumulated enough to pay the rent and I realize that this is a monthly accomplishments to someone with no fixed income salary making rent is a huge relief the other horrible part of having unpredictable income is that when you try to get your financial crap together all the budgeting advice assumes that you get the same amount each week or at least close enough to work off an average it made me feel really hopeless when I was there one of my exes could pull in a lot of money easily twice or thrice what I could he was so incredibly bad at saving this money down to say setting himself up as a company to avoid paying higher rate of tax but then paying a large amount each month to an accounting company to handle his taxes which he'd do himself anyway because he didn't trust them to get it right he'd pay for taxes from one end of the city to another or hire cars rather than use public transport flights cancelled booked new ones never bother to claim back on insurance buy a sports car wreck it sell it for scrap he'd work contracts and then take time off to work on his own startup but spend every weekend just going out and buying drugs and do booze I thought it was really fun and wild at first haha money really means nothing to you but when we became a long-term couple I started feeling like his mother man will you not just fill out the insurance paperwork not rich but with a partner who was raised by a teen teen mom and grew up poor sometimes I just want rice and vegetables for dinner that's a no from her she won't go back I was with a girl for a while who grew up in a pretty broken home still surprises me just how bad her spending habits are she racks up credit card debt like it's nothing she lived in the desert without air-conditioning damn that reminds me when we were kids my dad got an AC for free from one of his jobs but we were almost never allowed to use it because of the electric bill probably only got to use it if it was like 100 degrees out long term dating pets I was always surprised by the number of pets she and her family had living in the trailer and how much of a share of their income they spent on them credit cards were avoided for me growing up we were encouraged to get a credit card in our name and use it as much as possible in order to build credit there was always money to pay it off each month so it made sense to one build credit and to collect airline miles or whatever the reward was back in the day when we got together she always used cash or a debit card she had a credit card for emergencies and avoided using it otherwise it took a long time to get her over her aversion skepticism we were fortunate to have two good-paying jobs though it also taught me a healthy appreciation for what it means to have a financial cushion the logic of buying things on credit that you could buy with cash in order to build a credit score is pretty weird when you think about it you're basically taking out a loan that you don't need to show you're responsible with money I dated a one-percenter briefly she was surprised I willingly went inside fast-food restaurants I can answer this one I did not grow up rich by any means but I would say my family was upper-middle class my husband was born in Nicaragua and eventually moved to Texas where his mother barely coped supporting him and his brother some of the things that surprised me one he never eats snacks ever they didn't have food in their kitchen and he would go hungry sometimes he said once they had an egg in the kitchen and he scrambled it and split it with his brother while his mom hungrily looked on now as an adult he doesn't understand snacking if we eat a banana he thinks that is our next meal - he is very impressed with smaller things in life he had one toy as a kid truck and now anything I get him he thinks is the most amazing thing in the world he saves everything 3 he is the hardest worker I know he never wants to be where he was for he is the most grateful optimistic person I know we've been having some problems family drama trying to sell our house work stuff etc he is not afflicted by any of it he is cool as a cucumber he always says did you eat today do you have a place to sleep does someone love you then you are better than most people ideally love him he makes me see the world in a different better way not super rich by any means but my husband said he'll always be surprised about the following how I lived off of 13 K in 2011 resiliency to survive financially and pursue my dreams of being the first college graduate how I didn't know what spinach was or tasted like until our first few dates in addition to Helen of the leafy greens first real date in my 20s we went to a steak house when the waiter asked me how I wanted my steak I said cooked law hikes didn't know there was any other way then how my dad cooked steaks cheap flat steaks topped with ketchup ranch dressing my experiences from the opposite perspective I was the poor one it absolutely floored me how my wife acts when something broke like a car appliances clothes etc as a child living below the poverty line replacing a tire or other necessities was a disaster requiring tricky trade-offs in the budget or just plain acceptance off just how boned you were when my wife's phone broke I went into full panic mode while she shrugged and said we can just a new one this afternoon and then we did he was making good money but came from a poor family one thing that surprised me was the lack of budgeting no knowledge of a 401 K Roth IRA retirement seemed like something that he'd never get to do so even though he made good money he was starting to rack up credit-card debt now he's much better at it than I am he adores budgeting and looks forward to fire I'm from the poorer family not super poor [ __ ] my laws have a stupid amount of money so by comparison I'm very poor but I think I can answer for her we have two young kids and my wife was shocked when I said we should look for clothes and toys for them at local flea markets and garage sales the idea never occurred to her that we could save money by getting some gently used items she had never even been to a garage sale in her life but she has grown to love them and now questions whether it is worth it to buy any item new or not before running to Amazon or a store her parents think it's disgusting we make our kids wear clothes that another child had before but they don't pay my bills kids outgrow clothes so fast most of those used clothes are basically new wife and I are not poor not rich by any means either we definitely hit up the local mom coops where moms sell they use baby kids stuff find a bunch of good stuff in there to the point where we feel stupid for buying new because it's so much more expensive anyways it's not even close to being disgusting I came from a relatively wealthy family new-money my dad started his own business and grew up poor and my wife came from a lower-income blue-collar family and we got married out of college and neither made much money in the beginning my biggest surprise was how she wanted to spend money she was shocked when my mom bought her $100 plus pair of jeans for a birthday she couldn't wrap her mind around spending that much on jeans but she wanted a motorcycle for me which I don't ride in the first place and then a new furniture set and then a new bed and then a new car she wasn't concerned about savings or retirement and she never wanted my parents money for any of it we are both way too proud of that it took a long time for her to come around to having an emergency savings account focusing on debt and not needing the other crap she eventually realized that her parents wouldn't be in such a terrible situation because their spending habits are horrible she still has it come out sometimes though we recently paid off my car and she immediately thought I should get a new car I grew up with a poor family I was told credit cards were evil and to never get one by my parents they had this outlook because they were never taught how to properly use them either when I finally did have to establish credit and got my first one I didn't overthink it and just followed the rules and paid it off every month then they allowed me more and more credit more and more cards an emotionally abusive ex would use my cards for everyday living promising to pay them off with me soon the interest started to snowball and before I knew it I couldn't get out from under it he gusted me after four years of living together I was on my own for about a year I'd get home from work every day and just sob I was depressed as heck I met current my boyfriend in the midst of all of this I noticed him always using credit cards and talking about perks and points he seemed so responsible in the way he used them it took me a bit to open up to him about my debt because I was so embarrassed and it got to the point I felt like there was a weight on my chest 24 stroked 7 the late calls only paying the minimum on each card every month barely touching the interest when I finally opened up to him he sat down with me and said we are a team we'll figure this out together he helped me go over all of my interest in cards and see what the best option for me was he offered to pay it all off with his work bonus that year and I pay him back but we hadn't been together long and I didn't love him for his money I didn't even feel comfortable with him paying for dinner often I knew I had to get out of this myself one day when I saw him he gave me an envelope and told me not to open it till I got home he gifted me 1,000 I did not want to accept it and felt horrible doing so he told me he hopes it had helped the burden and do with it whatever I wanted or even something to treat myself since I couldn't do that for so long I asked him if he minded if I used it to pay for a lawyer to file bankruptcy he said he'd support me in doing so I did end up filing it was scary but I've never made a better decision in my life felt like 1,000 pounds were lifted off my chest it doesn't directly relate to the amount of money they had I don't think but their place was always filthy I mean dog crap everywhere my soul lived with his mom sometimes it would rotate between her and his father and both places were this way dishes piled up floors of a grimy the place s stank of dog pee and cigarette smoke one time I used the bathroom at one of his parents places and had to spread my feet while sitting on the toilets to avoid stepping in period blood I mean it was so disgusting my sir was baffled when after we first got married and moved in with each other every day he would come home to her generally I'm not perfect spotless home now on the flip side I once dated a guy whose stepfather was a lawyer so they lived a lavish lifestyle the only thing that he was surprised about when it came to my lifestyle was that I did not eat pizza with knife fork and a glass of wine law common now on the flip side I once dated a guy whose stepfather was a lawyer so they lived a lavish lifestyle the only thing that he was surprised about when it came to my lifestyle was that I did not eat pizza with knife Fork and a glass of wine law this sounds like a poor person simulation of a fancy night at law what do insanely poor people buy that ordinary people know nothing about when I was child Burger King ran a special kids mia where it was too many burgers that were attached to each other like a weird conjoined burger experiment sometimes we would go my dinner was 1.5 of the mini burgers my mom's dinner was the half I didn't eat and she would fill up on the free refills of soda if I had a really odd childhood until age 9 my family would have been classed as upper-middle class then my father left and my mom went bat-crap crazy from 9 to 18 we were dirt poor I remember being 10 years old and our weekly treat was to go to the little Woods cafe I think they went bust and they did a 99 page five piece breakfast we shared that among my mum brother sister and one of us got the extra item we'd take turns as an adult I have made sure my children will never know poverty because of excellent memories like that nothing motivates you more than memories of fighting over a solitary sausage I had to move out on my own when I was 17 I had no money at all and drove an old clunker Camry I got a flat tire to match the flat spare in the trunk I went to the discount tire on the east side of Indianapolis where I was living to see if they could patch it when they got it on the rack they said that belts was showing around the tire in facts all of the tires and I would have to replace all four tires I thanked them went outside sat in my car and started crying the manager came out and knocked on the window he said that he had a set of tires that would fit my wheels that someone left when they got new tires I told him thanks but didn't have any money he told me not to worry about it and when I graduate to come back and buy my tires from them growing up my family had its moments of struggle our public transport system at the time had tickets which were simply hole punched with the date and month not the year so we save them and store them neatly in envelopes marked by month and concessional full fare after a few years of saving tickets we pretty much had free train and bus travel for the next 10 years until they changed the ticketing system to electronically stamp tickets with barcodes mine were done by color and letter I would see people with plastic baggies full of bus tickets trying to find one that matched the current day's color and letter my office only has a unisex bathroom so it has the facilities for men and women naturally there's a tampon machine and tampons are only five cents once a month I work late get a roll of nickels and fill up a grocery sack with tampons for my wife good man extended-stay housing or motels hotels when you can't qualify to gets an apartment because you don't have proof of income you end up wasting more money to stay for a week at extended day housing or a cheap motel it sucks us having no home being a transient I promised myself never to be in the same situation again I have had students who've lived in extended stays apparently common practice in some places is to stay long enough to establish tenant rights then stop paying until they are formally evicted after that rinse and repeat I was so poor once that I would go to Long John Silver's and order a water and crunchies which used to be free then sit there and watch the people that would dine in it was amazing how little they ate and then they would leave without dumping their tray off in the trash fries Hush Puppies chicken fish all untouched no I didn't eat a piece that was bitten off off I once saw a woman order a two-piece fish and more for her kid that ate one hush puppy and a few fries and then left the rest of it there it was the best I had eaten in weeks glad that's behind me now I'm surprised they let you stay without buying anything Lots off school systems do free lunches for kids under 18 during the summer when I was a kid I remember my dad taking us to get lunch at the school then go play disc golf soccer or do something else free and fun it was a blast and I had no clue it was because we were poor dollar theaters and sometimes they'd have a free afternoon evening show for kids with the purchase of a parent ticket many movies were seen by the three others for four dollars with a shared popcorn and coke my dad was amazing at making us feel rich on basically nothing good on him you really realize how much your parents do for you once you get older and look back hope you're better off now but the generic version of spam is cool treat you learn that sorta thing as a kid I have been both very poor and very comfortable a lot of very true statements already posted here but here's what I have noticed when you are broke you can't plan ahead or shop sales or buy in bulk poor people wait to buy something until they absolute need it so they have to pay whatever the going price is at that moment if ten packs of paper towels are on sale for half price that's great but you can only afford one roll anyway in this way poor people actually pay more than others for common staple goods this is true it's expensive to be poor in the u.s. stuff on layaway my mom would always go to this store that sold heavily discounted irregular and put it on layaway for our new school clothes after selling plasma I would walk to Wendy's and eat the crackers and ketchup for dinner learning the times of the day when meat bakery fish vegetable and miscellaneous items are reduced to 75% at the local supermarket I've been learning for yours but it's a good day when you find 400 grams of fresh mints 499 P and you have warm filling food that you used to take for granted when living with parents one thing I've noticed about being poor is that you become almost vegetarian because me just costs too dang much frozen or fresh another thing would be buying the cheapest large container of yogurt and mixing in jam four fruity yogurt but that's not about being poor that's just a good idea I make a good living and I do the yogurt thing still saves a ton and I honestly like it better because I can make it less sweet than the pre-mixed stuff even still buying fade yogurt I save about five dollars a week doing my yogurt that way doesn't seem like much but that's over two hundred and fifty dollars a year and every little thing helps when you have crushing student loan debt you're trying to murder a buddy of mine went through a tough time a few years back and I didn't know about it until he told me about a year ago one thing that stuck with me was that he made just enough money to survive by survive he meant literally enough money to pay rent utilities and the cheapest worst food he could buy he couldn't afford transportation not even the bus he told me about a span of a few months he went through where he literally only ate water dry noodles and peanut butter for a few months he worked at a restaurant and they cut his hours he couldn't find other work his first big reality check was that he had to sell his car make rent one month the next month he started selling other unnecessary items like his old TV some old appliances and his nicer clothes he got to the point where he was doing his laundry with dish soap in his sink he couldn't afford the odorant razors or any of the things we take for granted so he'd steal them from the grocery store he didn't like to do it but he had no choice he never got caught when he told me all of this I was floored I wish he would have told me when it was happening I would have helped any way I could at that time I was by no means living a fancy lifestyle but I could have thrown him a $20 spot here and there to help him put some groceries in the house or some TP in the bathroom Frick just thinking about it makes me oh he's still poor today but he works full-time and is happy at least from what I see at home surgery used a pair of needlenose pliers a razor blade and some antiseptic superglue to remove a cyst on my forehead the secret is to cut it in a cat's eye shape quickly push the skin back after you pull the cyst out don't let it pop and get the glue on fast burn like 10b on a bee boat but it bleeds a lot and you have to get it on quick to stop the bleeding my dad pulled his own tooth once said it hurt less than the tooth itself that was one poor mother I wonder where he's at the first four years of my life were spent in abject poverty as a child I would ask my mom if we could get a candy bar she would explain to me at age three that we could get the candy bar but if we did it meant we couldn't afford a 2-liter or coca-cola she would phrase it like so if you get the candy bar it will be gone in a few days but if you get the coca-cola we can have coca-cola for the whole week amazingly I knew enough to understand that coca coca for over a week was a better deal than two days of a candy bar as a side-effect I was regularly told no when I asked for things I wanted mostly lego sets or he-man toys around age 6 my father's taken a mineral prospecting company finally paid off turns out he had been putting every dime he had into it since before I was born we went from surviving on mayonnaise sandwiches to having 2015 s equivalent of ten thousand three hundred dollars per month some income my little sister was around two or so at this time and she was getting everything she wanted for the first six years of my life I had learned that asking for things I wanted would always end with an O so I never asked for anything my parents weren't able to put it together until my grandmother got very sick and came to live with us the whole family was out shopping and my grandmother knew I loved legis but I didn't ask for a set of them meanwhile my little sister had a Barbie doll under my little pony in each and she stopped and asked me Rathod in you don't want a Lego set mommy and daddy always tell me no grandma we can't afford them I have only a very vague memory of this good before she died my grandmother told me this story and said that my mom broke down in tears in the middle of the store sobbing my dad had a look of defeated failure on his face according to her apparently it simply never occurred to them the reason I never asked for anything was because I had always been told no for Christmas I got three LEGO Technic sets powdered milk I once worked in a call center and an old lady called almost in tears that cable went up by one dollar and fifty cents her line that she repeated more than once was that she couldn't afford fresh milk and had to buy powdered milk unless it's due to a lack of refrigeration available or some sort of allergy only the very poor would buy powdered over fresh milk we drank powdered milk growing up it was terrible sometimes my mom would mix a bit of cream and to make it taste better it didn't work hug thanks for bringing up this painful memory I knew a guy that would go to a livestock feed store and buy antibiotics and some other meds there that were meant for farm animals when he got sick there was another med he'd get at pet stores too he'd just cut the pills into smaller pieces to try to guess what the proper mg amount was it's apparently crazy cheap for certain meds and doesn't require a prescription or gov't oversight like it would at a normal pharmacy my parents would just get cheap antibiotics over the border in Mexico the in Roach poison and some other stuff like that that we probably don't carry in the US for a good reason growing up was interesting regarding money my mom was a hoarder and I lived in a house with trash including animal waste everywhere with no heat or running hot water I used to take jugs of water and put them on my front porch to warm up enough to bath with the house was failing apart and the tub was actually sinking into the ground so we wouldn't use it so I made a hole in the corner of my basement floor so it would drain the worst was winter the water never got warm because of the cold and my hair would be frozen since there was no heat it took me a long time to figure out this wasn't normal what made everything worst was she was abusive and made us poor with her spending she made about 1,000 a week or more and would give it to charity so others saw her in a positive light they didn't know about the house once she even won the lottery and got 82,000 and gave it all away all I asked was for a trailer so we had someplace to get warm or shower but she saw nothing wrong with our life there would also be days she gave our food money away and I wouldn't be able to eat if there was no school my mother is a B and we have no contact anymore on the awesome side I have four kids and a three-level house with four bathrooms guess who showers all the time with hot water now about a year ago I was addicted to alcohol 4000 kilometres from home dropped out of school and living in my 20 year old car I got so used to eating microwaved potatoes that I considered walking into a seven stroke eleven and pocketing a handful of Mayo packets while pretending to buy a hot dog a special treat I grew up a distinctly middle-class and generally did not want for much my recent experience has really put into perspective the difficulties experienced by people who are or have been in similar situations to myself but bear the burden of direct responsibility to kids and family things have gotten a lot better since I've accepted the help of other people seriously even relatively tiny gestures of kindness will go a long way with someone who is literally struggling for survival never underestimate the impact you can have upon another person's life I'd probably be dead by now if it weren't for the unconditional love and portal friends family and random strangers instead I'm 25 relatively healthy again and back in school trying to finish off my engineering degree if you've taken the time to read this then thank you it means a lot renting own furniture 500 dollars flat screen becomes $2,000 when you pay by the week Oh God bags of frozen veggies and a couple packs of ramen can make a family meal I used to buy these awful frozen chicken discs wrapped in bacon they were terrible filled with gristle and just nasty eating those with rice and frozen corn was a real treat I ate kraft dinner mac and cheese every day for about 2-3 years because that was all I could cook one my mom worked I could have made SpaghettiOs but I hated those that for dinner and one of those cheap 99-cent pack doughnuts from the grocery store for breakfast lunch was Bellona sandwich and an apple finally when I was about 10 or 11 I started teaching myself how to cook from my mom's old cookbooks so my meals got a lot better all carbs and cheap fats scalloped potatoes rice and cheap meats my local bus service used to have paper transfers so you'd pay your fare get the paper transfer that was good for an hour and then you'd use it for the next bus but if you were only going to the station you'll get a paper transfer anyway then hang around the station for an extra five minutes to see if anyone needed it conversely you'd wait around for people getting off the bus to see if you could score someone's transfer this only worked if you weren't switching buses did I got quite a few free rides this way and gave many a transfer away going without meds living in constant pain because you can't afford a prescription I remember laying in my bed at night and my mum would be sobbing in her bed from pain because she couldn't afford the meds that would treat her rheumatoid arthritis or anything but generic tylenol for her pain I guess that's not really buying anything but while we're down memory lane saving your birthday money from your grandma and aunts and uncles so you can pay for a babysitting course that lets you babysit at 12 getting a babysitting job at 12 and babysitting everyday from three until seven or eight to earn some money giving that money to your dad so he can pay his phone bill and put gas in his car getting a real job at 14 working at a fast-food joint say you got to eat dirt cheap but still giving your dad money but this time knowing it is going to the casino with a bar but still doing it anyway being poor was awful zeros stroke ten do not recommend what odd or unusual preferences have you developed you too growing up poor I still can't bring myself to write in Madlib books or on things that could be reused growing up ultra poor it was a rare treat to get something frivolous but Mad Libs were also semi educational so every once in a while I would get a new mad lib book from my dad but I felt a lot of anxiety about wasting them by writing directly in them if I number the blanks and then wrote on a separate sheet of paper with the corresponding numbers I could reuse the books over and over again but being really poor made me and live in this awful anxiety driven state off don't use up because you might not get any more anytime soon and you better use it all and not waste anything which made me overthink and overanalyze my actions I was confronted by this preference to not mess things up in my masters degree program because the prof would expressly tell me it was okay to write on the handouts because she would share the digital copies with us so we would have a clean copy to use in our own classes later and I still couldn't do it using plastic grocery bags as trash bags don't really see the point in using actual garbage bags garbage bags leftovers from your grandma's bags clothes bags lunch bags the all-around reusable bag any time someone tries to buy me food or anything for me I always try to go for the dollar menu or try to go for the lowest amount even if they say buy whatever not letting anyone in the house operating under a barter system with friends where I grew up there wasn't much money so people often got at good services and often exchanged small handmade gifts as payment then I moved and discovered that wealthier people do not like this at all even though I don't have to as much I still calculate how many powers I have to work in order to afford something to decide if it is a need or a want do I want to work 2.5 hours to fill my gas tank or 2.5 hours to buy a single shirt I want the shirt but the shirt isn't going to get me to work I really really really want a switch and several new games I'll have to work at least nine days to afford the switch in the three games I want and after I've worked those nine days I can't justify spending the money on the switch and the games yup I did that too when you start comparing purchases to hours of work it starts getting hard to spend real fast i legit cringe when I buy anything slightly expensive and I find myself constantly buying the cheapest store brand products instead of name-brand crap dated a richer girl who told me she had never had Chef Boyardee or spaghetti astir for but was disgusted by them apparently her parents had always told her growing up that canned food was for dogs what the frig her saying that hit especially close to home because I eat spaghetti us with a grilled cheese at least three times a week my dad grew up even poorer than me and he won't eat Chef Boyardee because it is so crappy I like cheap wine even when my budget allows for a $75 bottle I'll buy the $10 bottle I still prefer thin ruff bath towels big fluffy towels are too fluffy it's feels weird when fluffy towels get wet yes if the towel is too fluffy it feels like it isn't doing its job not sure if odd or unusual but my parents used to tell me told the food served since we were poor and sometimes they wouldn't eat so I could have a full serving of food I'm no longer poor but I still eat the full plate no matter how full I am this messed me up royally as a kid now I just go without and eat leftovers from the plates of the kids I watch for friends and family they think it is funny that I'm only hungry when cooking and when everyone else is done I hope they never figure out how poor I am toast with butter and cinnamon is my favorite goat and for breakfast I will have to try that tomorrow morning sounds great to me eating fast had four siblings and only so much food was made for dinner if you didn't eat fast you didn't eat yep I know the feeling however I learned to eat fast from prison haven't served time since 94 but I still wolf down my food to this day it's a hard habit to break I am to this day unable to manage my money going from not being able to spend anything to having at least 300 bucks left for whatever I want made me spend recklessly good think it would be the opposite growing up poor but spending feels so good : this is fairly common most people in your situation will buy things since experience has taught them they don't know when they will have money to spend on things again so they end up spending it all thus having no more money buy just buy one pair of trainers and wear then until the fall off my feet then buy a new pair I make good money as an adult but I still do this I also don't buy branded clothes I worked with a guy and we earned the same money at he collected limited-edition trainers and drove an expensive car I just couldn't comprehend the wasted money I cycle everywhere because it is good for health I moved to Switzerland in a few weeks for a job that pays 2.5 times my current salary and I still intend to cycle everywhere I love Little Caesars $5.00 pizza more than fancy brick-oven pizza BC spending that much gives me too much anxiety to enjoy the food not having a lot of clothes I can't stand a cluttered closet and having more than like three pairs of shoes seems excessive to me ditto I had four pairs of shoes once and I felt like I was suffocating but they were all necessary one pair for work slip-resistant one for church one for just daily use and one pair of gym shoes not filling up the gas tank because you might really need the money later $10 at a time save another $10 that's food for a week just in case there were five of us growing up and so we always had our good clothes and our everyday clothes we changed out of our good clothes as soon as we got home from school and I still have this habit to this day I change out of my work clothes and into lounge around the house i dot care clothes as soon as I get home love Mia cannot beans if I have no dinner no problem I got a cannot beans beans are also super healthy and food for your digestive system off-brand foods so much cheaper I can't wrap my head around people who don't buy the store brand at least most of the time at the store I shop but it's usually about half the price and I can't tell the difference if there even is one I can sleep anywhere slept on the floor for a good couple of years and can handle heat pretty well cause we didn't have a/c it was one window unit until senior year can literally watch anything and be entertained cause we only had one local channel ten station but saying all this sounds like I grew up in the dang fifties but this was all in mid 2000s long I've gotten used to not having a bed frame and ended up using just a mattress and box spring and having old flat pillows instead of new fluffed up ones I still buy used clothes me too I try to say it's because I want to be environmentally conscious but really I just can't bring myself to spend more than six dollars on a top I eat a lot of frozen chicken pot pies the crust is amazing lots of people mix it all up I eat the crust last but hate crust on actual pie I developed a dislike of wearing new shoes I prefer old worn-out shoes the new pairs feel too rigid keeping all my clothes even though I'll never wear them I didn't have much growing up so now I feel like I need to keep everything but close friend grew up very poor and and supported things were always a competition between him and his brothers so he maintained that mentality into adulthood in many respects fast-forward to us going to a Smash Bros tournament he's egging me on while I'm playing other people but I'm sincerely supportive of him when he goes up for his own match as we leave the store he basically says wow I was in butthole to you while you were constantly cheering me on I feel kinda bad now he just prefers being competitive in nearly any aspect though it's certainly gotten one III karma lately I get freaked out if my pantry isn't full it doesn't even matter if it's worth food I like I just have this fear of not having food in the house same i hoard non perishables not turning on the heater no matter how cold it gets just layer up and lots of blankets mac and cheese with tuna cheap but so good saving every cent I can I'm talking 80 cent versus 60 cent cans of beans and never buying actual brand name anything pinching pennies never seems to leave you if I ignore the dates on a lot of food the milk I smell before I use to make sure it's not sour constantly checking the bread for mold when I know it's past the date smelling the meat before I cook it to make sure it's okay unless something is like six or more months past the date it's usually good the expiration is just the warning that means you have to start checking it this shouldn't be a poor thing food waste is so terrible and most of those days are either inaccurate mean best before which is about quality not edibility and with some things you can pick cut off the mold like cheese maybe bad fruit in a bunch cooking it's more thoroughly or cooking it early to then eat a couple days later ET cie buying cheap things and making peace with the fact that they will eventually break it may not taste good or it won't fit me instead of investing in something long-lasting I can travel I'd love to I could probably afford to now but dropping any amount of money on a trip seems insane to me I grew up never really going anywhere outside of a three-hour drive and only stayed in hotels maybe like three times while I was under 18 it also feels weird to be in debt but managing it I have medical bills that I am paying off and credit card stuff but it's all pretty manageable growing up my mom constantly would get payday loans we had bill collectors calling non-stop about medical debt and my mom maxed out every credit card she owned so I was taught that debt was horrible and you could never get out of it also I really loved microwave tortillas and cheese as a whole meal thatin lettuce cheese and ranch wrapped up in a tortilla I think back on it though and I'm really not sure how my parents raised me with how much they made I make double now what both of my parents combined income was when I was in high school and I really don't even make that much I feel that debt thing my parents somehow declared bankruptcy twice which is strange because they never spent money on us and I can't imagine what they did spend money on because of fake credit cards don't help with buying drugs my husband and I have some manageable debt but the panic passes through my mind once in a while plus-sized women the only skinny chicks in the hood were coke W I'm plus-sized and losing weight quickly right now I've come to believe being fat in the first place for me has a lot to do with never knowing if we would have enough food from week to week also I grew up with the mentality that if it's free take it and take as much as you can leftovers on my jam I take home friends leftovers I have no shame I can find a good way to reheat just about anything expiration dates are like yellow lights the concept of selling a car is entirely foreign to me we drive cars until they die so completely that even the junkyard doesn't want to pay for them keeping the lights off almost all the time or biking everywhere I like fake maple syrup better than the real stuff Mrs Butterworth for life only ever buying clothes if there's a really good sale I never go out to buy new clothes I love walking everywhere if it's within a 60 minute walk sometimes even longer I am that person that will walk and once everyone to join me for the exercise and adventure when everyone else is begging me to take a 5 10 minute lyft uber heck no why would I pay for something when I can get exercise and have a pleasant stroll for free it's so nice to walk around and see your city people my friends will pay a five-dollar Yubel to not walk five minutes in the relatively okay part of downtown LA but I enjoy walking around and seeing the buildings people hotdog stands random youtubers which I would have totally missed out on had I crossing on uber and started scrolling IG little strolls make you appreciate the little things in life only buying clothes for back-to-school in the working world this turns into only buying clothes for a new job I don't like giving or receiving opulent frivolous gifts I always feel harshly like that money should be saved or spent on something practical I like splurging when it's for something special for someone else I hate buying something nice that I really want for myself and worse when someone else goes out of their way to give me something nice I used to enjoy just eating a tube of saltines with butter when people used 2-3 paper towels to dry their hands off when it can be done with just one sheet what something a poor kid would understand but would utterly confuse a rich kid waiting around in a laundromat had to go to one a couple before those suck watching the rest of the class go on class trips or vacations while you stay home and/or work oh man that one hurt to read I always went on field trips and had amazing memories and moments I can't imagine a kid having to stay behind you to cost but at our school we had a subsidy program that even if parents couldn't pay for trips for their kids the school would be able to help assist I don't think this was ever abused either every time you get a little bit ahead an extra $100 dollars or so and being able to relax and breathe a bit next day something goes catastrophically wrong with the car or an appliance or an unexpectedly charge on something you've forgot about it never ends one step forward two steps back it's expensive to be poor having sleep for dinner if you pull your knees way up to your chest it helps with a hunger pains the guilt versus gratitude relationship fight you have when your friends share their food with you because on one hand you never have enough money to buy enough food to be fully sated so that extra from your friends is awesome but on the other hand you understand how awful it is not to have enough food at lunch and you don't want to put your friends in that position become of the other hand you understand how awful it is not to have enough food at lunch and you don't want to put your friends in that position becoming wealthier as an adult now nothing felt better than paying back a kid who used to give me PBJ sandwiches those were everything at the time and he didn't mind but I was guilt ridden going to the library to use the Internet new memes different not unused when you're getting new clothes they are used from family or a thrift store paying bills before the age of 18 my entire identity revolves around food I use my spare fun money on food now I give gifts off food I take friends out to eat I give people their foul snacks and candy bars as little surprises we never had enough as a kid we went hungry every dang day and now I express myself through food I'll bring friends dinner al-bait people's favorites I'll bring my co-workers entire casseroles I'll take huge pots of soup to our neighbors I'm getting emotional right now just thinking about how important the availability of food is to me I have an 18 yo coworker that doesn't need lunch during break for our 12-hour shift so I started packing twice as much and I feed her the extra I bring I just want all my friends and family to be full to never have to feel hunger like my family did like I did I don't want that for them I wish I could give you multiple upvotes buying food not for taste or preference but for the price point and how filling it is it's all about that rice sugar sandwiches for dinner butter sugar and bread we thought it was like dessert for dinner but my mom told us recently it was because we didn't have any food for us we had butter and sugar toast for breakfast since my dad needed the milk for coffee and we were out of peanut butter and jam brought it to school for lunch a couple times too though normally the we're out of food lunch was jam or plastic cheese sandwiches my parents always managed to find something for dinner even if it was just a grilled cheese sandwich each white bread toasted with butter and garlic powder equals poor-man's garlic bread my parents would splurge and buy hamburger buns for it I remember when we would go shopping for school clothes it was at Walmart or Kmart and it was always the sale items and one size up so we could grow into it and choose at least an inch too long being really young and getting excited about the power cut lighting candles et Cie when really it was because we couldn't afford electricity good on your parents for making it a fun event instead of burdening you with the sadness of it all milk was in the pantry carnation instant you get to eat the leftovers which the guests didn't eat as your parents make the best items feel guests my Korean family was by no means poor but man do I feel this one no brand-name snacks being shared no brand name anything really I was always jealous of my friends who had fancy snacks like dunkaroos or gushers since I only ever got the kroger or walmart brand snacks and only if we had extra food stamps leftover being able to buy the good snacks for my kids makes me feel like I have accomplished something in my life back in high school I was getting flamed for having cheap shoes from Marshalls here's something along the lines of how it went kid those shoes are ugly as Frick me I agree I gotta wait for my next paycheck so I can grab some new ones uh kid why don't you just ask your parents buy you shoes me because they gotta put money in more important places right now kids wait so your parents don't buy you new shoes me now I gotta save up kids look of extreme confusion the confusion of the kid when he realized that most parents don't buy their kids everything they want was something I won't forget in typical high school fashion he then proceeded to tease me for being broke also explaining to others that the only time I left my home state was for family emergencies was something that they couldn't grasp either I used to get clowned for my clothes and shoes I can still see their laughing faces like 25 years later yes I'm aware my shoe has a hole in it no my socks do not match em yes I to cast my own hair thanks for pointing that all out so loudly and in front of so many people the large pillows full of cheap cereal at the grocery store they always put them way up on the top shelf too so as not to offend the more expensive General Mills Kellogg's post cereals at my local grocery they are on the very bottom instead knowing how to sue as a necessity I've fixed countless shirts and pants even my couch everyone needs to learn this fried bologna cause we eating fancy per ting water and shampoo bottles to make it last longer I don't know what level mix you are talking about but there is no sense letting the coating inside the bottle go to waste add a little water shake it up and let it settle to get at least four or so more washes out of it I was a poor kid who was lucky enough to go to a good high school the downside off up to his growing up next to entitled brats I've seen a girl throw her brand-new gold iPhone across the room and not bat an eye because her parents would buy her a new one sure enough the next time I saw her she had one these are the same kids that crash the new cars they get for their birthdays get manicures facials and eyelash every week despite never working a day in their lives on the other side I was scared when I ripped the strap off the backpack I had been using for four years I sewed the dang thing up because I didn't want to stress my mom out with having to find a new one for me I used it for two more years through college until it finally kicked the bucket and I was able to get a new one getting upset when clothes shoes or other basic items are ruined if I had a hole in my shoe or a stain or tear on my clothes I had to live with it at least for a while my new kids in the middle and upper classes that would get chewed out for stuff like that but their parents would usually buy them new stuff right away - that wasn't the case for a lot of kids like me because it just wasn't possible most of the clothes I owned were hand-me-downs to begin with some of it was found in the garbage my friend borrowed my long sleeve Nike shirt newly purchased from the Salvation Army and immediately put some holes in it she just laughed as I flipped my crap Frick you tenner my mom whooped my arse over that parents borrowing birthday money to help with bills or buying food and toiletries love them to death they've always worked hard for me and my sister Oh and not having health insurance that cable and Wi-Fi are a luxury that going to the nearest beaches a vacation Santa Clause have a budget relaxing in an empty parking lot is your friend's car is a typical night out because nobody has anything at home and don't want to be there anyways because it's too stressful you can't just live within your means guess he'll die then oh wait funerals are expensive for the actual process of looking at something in a store and debating whether or not it's really something they need or is it something they want before trying to see if they can find a cheaper version back where I am from we still have to heat up bath water on the stove in that neck of the woods every term our school would do a thing called scholastic books it's like a catalog of books and other educational things that parents can go through pick put what they think their child will like and order them the school gets a percentage of the sales and the kids get an education filled Christmas unboxing ever term almost every kid in my class would get at least one thing expect me so just sitting in the back of class watching other kids showing off their new stuff to each other one year a kid left before the order came in and the teacher gave his book to me rich kids will never know the feeling of being poor having it noticed and not being shamed for it it was the only time I ever got a book from Scholastic and I still have it side note I'm all grown up and him not super poor every term my mom and I pick a class at the local primary school and buy books for every student that doesn't have a book order in that classroom it's a mixed school half rich people and half poor people living in a trailer park struggling to get by doing without most rich kids have never had to contemplate what it is like being without food or living in a cockroach infested and safe heck hole before no one should coming to school stinking because your parents couldn't pay utilities that month as if you chose to be gross I'm feeling this one I grew up on an acreage that we rented downwind from the town landfill even when we did laundry we still stank we were always teased and mocked through school most kids make sure to save your allowance poor kid rich kid what's that lol I would get an allowance save as much as possible then half my mom need it and spend it all on drugs fun times seldom will never travel abroad I've never been out of the country and I'm 24 not even Canada never going to the dentist before relatable first time I ever went to the dentist is when I joined the Navy you have to get creative for entertainment rarely had toys and friends definitely couldn't come over sugar rice was very common so was crap on a shingle white gravy with meat on white bread was at least once a week parents constantly busy with work and side jobs and being exhausted all the dang time hand-me-downs were new clothes sharing a room with multiple family members having to do chores without getting money or a reward always getting consoles and games like two five years after they released and everyone was on to new crap bro there's a lot that game where you hunt for change down the back of the sofa so your mom can buy cigarettes struggle meals love my mum no matter how hard times got she always found a way to whip something up in the kitchen my fate was fried tortillas with refried beans sometimes with cheese coming home to the gas lighter water shut off that shame when your parents have to tell the cashier to take items off because they didn't have enough water in the shampoo detergent collecting all the change in the house to cash in at the local grocery store knowing your mom's social security number by heart at 12 BC you had to call to set up payment arrangements for the utilities while she worked evenings school lunch shaming for example indebted Rhode Island kids must eat the son P and be off shame my school had free lunch tickets they were a different color than the regular lunch tickets that way everyone could know your family was poor the value of a dollar bread for hot dog buns poor or Australian what it is like to eat spaghetti for over a year and a half straight other than my birthday that is exactly what I've done and them doing I hate it I hate it so much I hate IT I hate IT I hate I T sorry I had to have a moment stressed myself out I'm no expert at being broke but you should probably get some rice or something they call it intermittent fasting by not eating breakfast but that's pretty standard to me how I grew up not eating breakfast lunch dinner because there was no food you have been visited by the cook dog comment without food there is no paradise so that you never burn the steaks if you are new to the channel you can subscribe I publish new videos every day until then check another video or don't either way have a great day you magnificent people

Channel: Updoot Studios

Views: 26,599

Rating: 4.787529 out of 5

Keywords: reddit 1 hour, 1 hour, compilation, poor, poor people, poor people food, poor people vs rich people, poor to rich, #updootst, updoot, updoot reddit, updoot everything, reddit on tap, toadfilms, pewdiepie, reddit, askreddit, funny reddit, reddit stories, top posts, reddit top posts, reddit cringe, comedy, reddit compilation, /r, r/, r/askreddit, top posts of r/, askreddit reading, best reddit posts, top posts of all time, people of reddit, askreddit question, ask reddit, subreddit, sub

Id: W-2Rb-HQTzw

Length: 64min 45sec (3885 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 31 2020