Grow up Broke? What did it teach you?

[Gem1950]

Deleted

Or facts.

When one's parents lived through the Great Depression and WWII one is faced with a different set of values and experiences than those prior or post that era.

[Bulletdog]

I learned all about the predator/prey relationship in my "hood".

If Dad worked a lot of overtime we could splurge and get McDonalds, but only ONE cheeseburger each. Many times I ate my Frosted Flakes with water since we couldn't afford milk, and I was happy to have Frosted Flakes. Shoes were repaired and clothes were patched. I learned the value of money, but I also learned the value of opportunities to earn money.

I learned to hustle. To look for opportunity and pounce on it. It was easy to outcompete my peers. Gen Xers. Most had little drive or initiative. Most had little sense of duty, and a poor work ethic. Making myself more valuable than them to any employer was not difficult.

I vowed that I would not live barely making it from paycheck to paycheck as my parents did, and I don't. I watched both of them work their bodies to the brink of collapse for a pittance. I resolved to live differently. I learned the value of residual income vs. and hourly one time wage. As I got older, I learned about investing and money management. Everyone wants their children to succeed and have a better life than they did. My parents succeeded.

My child is a near carbon copy of me mentally. She is not growing up poor and the differences are both obvious and interesting.

[lowprone]

When one's parents lived through the Great Depression and WWII one is faced with a different set of values and experiences than those prior or post that era.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Ain't that the truth ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

[C-grunt]

I didn't grow up poor. But we weren't well off either. When I was young my father worked as a medical supply salesman. He sold everything from the blood pressure cuff machines up to CT scan machines. He made good money. Unfortunately they got bought out and he was laid off. He started his medical supply company but it failed. I remember I was about 10-12 years old at the time and him saying "nobody wants to spend a million dollars on a new machine from some guy who works out of his house".

Since then I have always tried to shop at local businesses when possible. When a good mechanic friend of mine cuts me a deal on my vehicles, I always give him a generous tip.

[Inkslinger]

To work hard. I got a job delivering papers when I was 11 and have been working ever since.

[THCDDM4]

Taught me a lot. Here’s try s short list:

-I didn’t want my children growing up in the same fashion I did, being broke most of my childhood
-I worked my ass of since I can remember helping my mom with bills and chores- it didn’t stop when I grew up, I still work and earn Every cent I get.
-Doesn’t matter if you are rich or poor it’s up to you to be successful or unsuccessful. And yes, you can be rich and unsuccessful and you can be poor and successful, as odd as that may sound.
-Always doing what is right and just is the only path, lots of roads lead to money, only one is the right one. Honest work and earning what by you get.
-People use whatever lot in life they have as a crutch, it’s an illusion and anyone who is motivated and driven will get what they want eventually.
-Don’t borrow, save

[JediGuy]

…and I sometimes wonder whether or not to deny them something to teach the same lesson I learned.

I struggle with this.

I didn’t grow up broke for most of my life, but I do remember a pastor bringing my dads paycheck in the form of a box of food from the food bank at one point. That has stuck with me, and not fondly; I was under 5-7 yrs old. I remember his working at Dominos as a second job and how cool we thought the hats were. Also Watkins direct sales. Paper route? Check, and I “helped” at age 5.
I also remember all the hand-me-down toys from Navy families that loved my parents (via church work near a NAS) and new toys from the local construction business owner.

I learned a few things out of that.

1) Be the sort of person that lets people know you care about them. They won’t forget, or at least not all will.
2) …don’t let people take advantage of you.
3) Pea soup…has not been seen in my house or my parents’ for 28 years now, and it won’t be at any point in the future, if I have any say in it. And I do.

[SteyrAUG]

I've grown up in a cycle of doing really well and being really broke.

I've learned money is to make life a little nicer. Spending it on having the family down for Christmas or even just having all your friends over the grill steaks, you really can't do anything more important with it than that assuming all your basic wants and needs are met.

You can't hold on to money. If you put it in the bank, something breaks and there it goes. And something ALWAYS come up. If you want to hold onto wealth, buy things that hold their value.

The best things you can buy are a comfortable house. Doesn't have to be the biggest or the nicest, just a decent place to live. It's one of the most important things you can buy assuming it's not a bubble price. Buy it for the place you intend to live, not what you can sell it for 20 years from now.

Buy a decent vehicle. Reliable transportation is important. Cars almost always lose value so don't over spend and buy something with the idea that this will be my vehicle for the next 10 years.

Guns are generally safe. But good guns hold their value and junk guns will always be junk. It makes no difference that a Commando III is a preban from the 80s...it's still a worthless piece of junk that is unreliable and the internals look like paper clips. Colts will always be worth something, Anderson will always be worthless.

Most important things are knowing how to weather the storm. Lots of people lost almost everything, including their jobs during the whole Covid thing. And there will always be something either natural disaster, some kind of economic crisis or something like a pandemic that shuts everything down for a year. Having been through that sort of thing before, but nothing exactly like it, I knew the important things to do so you don't lose everything.

[rero360]

It is interesting how different people respond. My wife grew up dirt poor, sleeping on a mattress on the floor of a back room of a store in the Philippines. I grew up not quite so poor, but poor none the less. She likes to spend money on clothes and shoes and vacations and eat out and I want to save it, pay off debts and grow wealth through investments so we don’t become poor again. We’re doing alright, debt is getting paid down, our boy is going to a private preschool, I just need to find an Engineering job now that I’ve graduated so we can really pay off these debts and save up funds in a hurry.

[Jellybean]

People who say things like "it's not about the money" or "money isn't everything" are generally either A) bleeding heart brainless tripe spewing idiots, or B) already have all the money they could ever spend, and then some. Yeah, it is kinda all about the money cuz you know, you need it to like,... live and stuff...
You need only two things to be successful; money and your health, and of the two, health is the more important, as if you have that, you can find a way to make the money. If you lose both, well, you're pretty screwed. You can't wish or work your way out of that situation.

Being honorable, going the extra mile in your work, "doing the right thing" doesn't mean shit if nobody's watching, and half the time nobody gives a shit when they are watching. "Never work with people you know; never work when you're desperate". Small business, big business, it doesn't matter, they all see you as a rented mule. Treat them the same - never let yourself get so sucked into the bullshit that you can't maintain the mental ability to walk away in a week or less. Never let it impact your health to the point you end up losing that priceless commodity for a pointless job that ultimately means nothing to you, or your employer.

Financial seminars/self help books, "get out of debt" programs, etc, are 90% either bullshit, or for people who have more money than they need, and just suck at managing it. Watched my parents chase a few of those rabbit holes. Still didn't make money appear. Couple of them actually just helped the little we had disappear faster... Same thing with anything that even sniffs of MLM. Just take the money out back and set it on fire; you'll get the same result.

Cars - don't get attached. Sell em or trade em before they become worthless money pits. It's easy to fall into the trap of trying to 'stretch it out a few more years' when you're hurting for cash. Next thing you know, the repairs are costing you what a small loan payment would, and now you have neither a reliable car or money for another...

Anyway, without getting into a blistering whingefest, the overall takeaway is being poor sucks.
The ONLY good takeaway I can say I've seen is the oft repeated "buy once cry once" mantra. I can thing of many times the 'bitterness of poor quality lingered long after the sweetness of low price was forgotten'. I can think of far fewer where I put out more money than I wanted to for a really good thing and regretted it. Still happens occasionally...but less.