Grow up Broke? What did it teach you?

[chuckman]

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

Same, selling and delivering papers. Followed by working in three different restaurants, the first of which I was too young to work so they paid me under the table to bus and wash dishes. It did teach me to hustle, it also taught me that I did not want to go into the restaurant industry.

Money does not buy happiness, but it does buy security, and security can help you be happy. I make as much now as I've ever made in my life, which is good because I have one son in college, another getting ready to start college classes online, and three more kids behind him.

One thing I have learned, and my wife is really good about this, is no matter how much money we have, still live like you don't have it to spend. She still shops with coupons, we still get some stuff at the Goodwill, my kids clothes come largely from Walmart or Target, our vehicles or but they work just fine. But now we do not hesitate to spend money if we see something we really want or really like, I want to fly my son and I to another city to catch a ball game? I'll do it. We want to go on vacation and spring for the oceanfront room? We'll do it.

[brickboy240]

We were not "poor" but solidly in what most would consider "lower middle class."

Dad was a welder and mom worked for a catering company. Neither had a college degree, nor did their parents.

We grew up appreciating the small stuff and learning to do without and not be sad about it. Taught me how to save and "stretch" things like basic household staples like sugar, soap and groceries. Grew up with little tolerance for wastefulness and still cringe when I see people throw out an half eaten sandwich or unwanted foods.

One very important thing it did for me was drove me to make more money than my parents and liver better then they did. Once I got out school and began making real money, I was determined to live better than I grew up. I knew how bad it sucked to be poor and have few nice things - I lived it. It was a great motivator for making more and making my ay into what I consider upper middle class living status.

[markm]

Getting divorced and going through tight financial times was an outstanding experience for me. I quit looking for ways to spend money, and figured out how to live fairly happily with very little.

Now I have the lowest Credit card balances of my life, some sort of savings, and my credit score is an orange tip tracer.

[C-grunt]

Kind of related...

My parents didnt plan for retirement until they hit about 40. So they stressed to me when I was a teenager to start saving for retirement from the start. My dad passed away a year before he was going to retire and his retirement savings was about 40k dollars. My mother retired a few years ago (they divorced many years ago) and she lives off of Social Security and money her parents left her when they passed, which with her savings is around 130k. My mother had to move from Phoenix, where she'd lived for 40 years, back to her "hometown" in southern Oklahoma because of cost of living differences. In the end that turned out to be a great move as she is close with her sisters and she was able to buy a house outright from the equity she had from her house here in Phoenix. So, while she doesn't have a substantial retirement, she has no real bills either.

I took my parents advice and have been thinking of retirement since I was 18. I dont strap myself but I definitely contribute to my retirement plans every paycheck. Im in my mid 30s and I already have a better retirement savings than my parents ever had combined.

[Averageman]

If we were poor I didn't know it, but looking back, we were poor.
We made "Sugar Bread' for breakfast with powdered milk and walked through some snow to school.
All that fell apart when my parents separated.
My Mom moved across the country, got her shit together and we slowly improved. Raising seven kids on little more than hope aint easy.

What I learned;
You need to be really dedicated to your craft.
You need six months of emergency money.
You need to take care of your health.
You need to pay off your ride.
Start a 401K.
Live on much less than you earn and save and invest.

[Swstock]

I learned how to enjoy the **** out of spending money . I see plenty of miserable people with tons of cash that they don't want to spend. I do special shit for my kid as often as possible. Money doesn't make people happy. Spending it does. My son has 1 childhood. I want to make the best of itnn

[uffdaphil]

My depression/WW2 parents were poor until I was ten and dad got a much better than average paying job. But that didn’t change things for us kids. I had to wash and iron my own clothes from about age 13. Paid mom .25 every time I used the iron. Darned my own socks. Allowance (max was 25 cents/week) ended earlier. I sold seeds, mag subscriptions, greeting cards door to door until I was old enough for 2 paper routes - seven day and weekly. Bought all my school clothes starting 9th grade. When parents still bought my shoes I had to put cardboard inside to extend soles with holes. (Don’t cross your legs.) Then had re-soled until uppers wore out. Most of my peers had cars bought by parents. Many never worked while in school and had Lots of new clothes and spending cash, but never appreciated the value of anything. Their folks “put on the dog” and lived poor so their kids could strut around in school. I expect they later learned some hard lessons I didn’t. My parents and I butted heads a lot, but when I matured and was finally thankful we became close until they passed.

So I learned early on I had to work to make it. But like Markm, getting divorced was my best financial teacher. Really took seriously living within my means, carrying over no credit card debt and paying almost always cash instead of financing purchases. Except for the house of course. She got all the equity. And that was still well worth it.

[davidjinks]

I learned not to be a shitbag parent who can’t provide for their children.

It sucks when you’re 11 years old and you get sent to the grocery store to buy food using food stamps. This was back in the day when they came in books, in different denominations, that looked like Monopoly money.

Just an interesting perspective on what Life's lessons taught you.

[Averageman]

I learned not to be a shitbag parent who can’t provide for their children.

It sucks when you’re 11 years old and you get sent to the grocery store to buy food using food stamps. This was back in the day when they came in books, in different denominations, that looked like Monopoly money.

Wow, just wow. Dude, that's F'ing Sad.
I remember those books of stamps. I used to see them all the time at the Grocery Store.
I never dealt with that, my Folks were way to proud to take a handout,
but that didn't stop them from having more kids. Hahaha!

[Lowdown3]

It taught me not to borrow, spend only what I have and save.

+1 million (debt free dollars LOL)

Everyone makes mistakes (getting into too much debt) at times, it's what we learn from those mistakes. Debt often has a lot to do with it.

I remember taking a long car trip with my Pops when I was an adult. He had some apartments up north when I was little. He had bought an old industrial building, we lived in part of it and he built about 16 apartments in the other part of it. I was asking him what he was getting monthly back then, etc. I was running numbers in my head got a confused look on my face and said to him- "how TF were we so damn poor then??" He had borrowed all of the money for the place and renovations and the interest rate at the time was about 14% (early 80's) Hell I remember never seeing my Mom cause she was working literally three jobs then while Pops was playing apartment manager.

Hoping to make easy money, he made some bad decisions. When you lived through that, the whole "use OPM" talk gets overrated.

Back in the early 90's I got a bit backed up on AP and then it got slow- which is how that kind of thing always happens in business. Learned a valuable lesson there also and put all my businesses on a cash basis (no accounts payable).

In order to move forward you have to learn from mistakes and being willing to realize what the problem really is- the dude looking back at you in the mirror!!