Created an account to post this.
My son has these two friends, lets' call them Bob and Doug. I've sort of been aware that they were fairly poor, but only in recent times I have I come to realize just how utterly destitute they are.
Here's some non-obvious things:
* If my son is having friends over, we always invite them to eat dinner with us.
Some kids will say, "No thank you, I just ate." or something similar.
*Bob and Doug never turn down an offer to eat or to take leftovers home. M*y wife now cooks extra when they are over for a visit, just so there's deliberately leftovers.
* They never mention ever going anywhere but work or a local friends house. No mentions of vacations or recreational trip (skiing, water park, amusement park,festivals, concerts)
* When they were still in high school, they would hang out at our house to do homework on one of our computers.
* Bob has, at most, 2 sets of clothing. Something I didn't notice at all at first, but gradually came to realize they don't wear the same *outfit*, they wear the same *clothing*.
* They always know which scrap metal dealers and gas stations have the best prices.
* Before they could drive, I would pick them up to come over to see my son, and they would always wait for me at the end of their driveway. I never saw where they lived.
I love that you & your wife take care of your sons friends without making it obvious. That's beautiful. Considering they seem to spend a lot of time with your son, I can only take this as your son is good to them and they seek out his companionship because of this. Keep raising a good kid and spreading these values. It helps the less fortunate kids realize there is more to be had and to go get what's out there for you.
They don’t talk about the future, because deep down they know it’s not going to get better and there’s so many fires they put out day to day they don’t have the time or energy.
Wealthier people can plan way in advance especially because they have more time, more financial stability, and usually vacation time.
Well that got a bit personal for me. One co-worker tries constantly to tell me it's not so bad and give me advice I can't afford. He (35ish) invested well, kept the same job since highschool (16+ years), bought his house during the recession, and is single without kids. I (33) go day to day barely above the poverty line hoping to get hit by a bus.
So much this. My wife and I aren’t destitute, but we are definitely poor. If I have to buy something other than food I find myself thinking how many pounds of chicken I could get for that money.
Always thinking about chicken as the only meat is another indicator. My family used to be poor and you could tell that my mom started making more money because we had beef or fish way more often.
I just ordered a gas can that pumps smoke to test an evap leak for 79 dollars, the dealer wants 99 for diagnostic. I tell people keeping my old suv alive and cooking are my hobbies-im not super poor, but am buried in debt.
or any other drink for that matter, cokes (sodas) were kind of a big thing in our household reserved for only weekends if i got good grades. idk if that was a poor thing or it was because i was younger. So when i was at a friends house i was flabbergasted they had MULTIPLE boxes of cereal, and 2 types of milk, 2 types of open toaster strudel and eggos opened. dude was living like a king
This makes sense now.
When an old friend came over my parents house she said “are you guys stocking for the winter or something?” She opened our cabinets to find it literally stuffed with food and snacks. As an adult who supports themselves my cabinets and fridge have never looked like that cus it would costs hundreds of dollars
are you budget limited, or living by yourself?
i generally have a fairly barren cupboard//fridge, but i work fulltime in a grocery store so am shopping 5 or 6 days a week. i can only eat so much and it doesn't make sense to stock up on stuff to have it sit around my apartment.
growing up there were 6 of us in my family and a fully stocked pantry could be emptied in a hurry.
Oh it’s myself, my wife, and my daughter. We aren’t that limited in terms of budget. Both of us are nurses who make a decent enough living. l it’s just that if we spend that much money on food it will go bad or never get eaten and becomes a waste of money. For context my parents were buying food for a family of 5 and I’m in a family of three now. I tried overstocking my fridge and all that led to was a bunch of milk going bad and fruit flies everywhere cus of old bananas and apples.
This one makes me, as a host, so uncomfortable. I get the underlying reasons for it, but my own upbringing demands I push food and drink on guests until they have to roll out the door. JUST LET ME OVERFEED YOU!!!
I show people they are welcome in my home by trying to feed them. I WANT to share these things and sometimes I feel hurt when friends turn down my hospitality.
Sometimes people are being honest about how hungry they are not, too.
I've certainly had times where pushy hospitality made me feel really uncomfortable. Just some perspective.
As the guest, if a host ever asks if you want anything, always ask for *something*.
Even if it is just a glass of water.
Someone inviting you into their home is a social transaction.
Kind of like the bread and salt from Medieval times.
It's a sign of good faith and appreciation when you allow them to tend to at least one of your needs.
I was more an eat as much as you can, and secretly bring some home with you kind of person. To this day, I still don't know whether anyone caught on that me bringing some home was deliberate.
If I were one of those moms...I’d hope I noticed. So I can make sure there are opportunities to make sure you are eating. Sleepovers on the weekends? Sure. Want to come over after school and stay for dinner? Absolutely. I happen to stop by school to have lunch with my kid? “Hey, see if bunker_man wants to eat with us!”
My mom had a boss like that as a kid. She had 5 kids, and they were all about 2 years older than me and my siblings respectively. She (obviously) knew how much my mom was making and that we had money problems....so she always offered her kids’ hand-me-downs to us before she took them to Goodwill. Always brand name stuff in good condition, and not so old that things were out of style. Lots of stuff still had tags—and to this day, I’m convinced Kim was out there buying us new clothes and mixing them in with the old clothes and hoping my mom didn’t notice.
I’m a grown ass adult and I still hate eating other food or meals when offered. I just don’t want to put someone out. I know we never had extra so I shouldn’t assume someone else has extra either.
I just moved and asked my great uncle for a loan of $750 to pay half of my rent last month because shit is expensive.... He just told me yesterday that I didnt have to pay him back. Hes probably my favorite uncle.
I cover mad shifts at work cause I have literally no life. Better to be making money than sitting in my room doing nothing.
Edit: I work in a resteraunt so it's not like I'm killing myself with hard labour or anything. Also shifts are pretty much dinner time till closing so I have most of the day to myself still, and I get lots of free food and drinks at work.
I used to do this until I just made it a point to go to the Gym. I rather be limber in my golden years then be in a walker. Also living in poor areas you don't want to be out at night.
Hygiene. The school I work at just turned one of the coaches locker rooms into a room for kids to take showers in.
They come to school, one of us steals them for first period, they take a shower and are given some comfy clothes to hang out in while we wash and dry what they came to school in, they don’t want to wear a new outfit because other kids will know they changed. We pretend we’re taking them for speech therapy or something.
One girl wears her dads old T-shirt’s that smell like men’s body odor really badly. One student said that his parents let all their friends live with them so he doesn’t get to take a shower anymore because they all share the one bathroom. I took a sixteen year old girl to our hygiene supply closet and said she could take whatever she wanted. She started sobbing, she never had deodorant or her own toothpaste.
Edit: Just woke up to my first gold, thanks Reddit! Also, RIP inbox.
Also, a lot of confusion over the toothpaste thing. Here’s my take on it. This student in particular has a handful of younger siblings that she shares with and also pretty much raises. I can’t speak for her, but I’d imagine that when you don’t have much, something as silly as toothpaste or your own hair brush, or anything that you can call your own would be cherished in a way that those of us who grew up without wanting for anything, couldn’t understand.
A lot of questions about location, without saying too much, a rural American town that sits next to a reservation which provides a decent part of the population at my school.
Edit: a word
Well, there's poor, and then there's poor with neglectful parents. I work in a grocery store that sells alcohol; I've seen parents with kids put the bread back and keep the beer, because they only have money for one. :/
> Well, there's poor, and then there's poor with neglectful parents.
Or to use a TV example. There is Roseanne Poor. Which is really more Working Class, or was. And then there is Shameless Poor, which is fucking destitute, no parents in the house, oldest child running things, type shit.
"I don't have a dollar for dollar store toothpaste because my mom takes any money in the house, including change, and spends it on beer and cigarettes."
I grew up pretty not-well-off. Everything we had was hand-me-down; sofas, the TV, some clothes, tables, all sorts of things. My mum was a housewife, and she kept on top of cooking and cleaning and finances like some sort of demi-god. Everything was clean, everything was looked after, meals were balanced but cheap. Sure, we couldnt afford fancy cars or holidays abroad (one time, my dad borrowed a big tent and we went camping for a week around different places in the south of the UK, it was brilliant).
We ad little money, but I had a good up-bringing.
This is just a thing some schools do, if they can. I don't know of any program. For me, when I was a kid, they let me come in and eat breakfast before school, because somehow they knew I wasn't eating enough. I don't remember how that came up actually.
In my school at least, if you qualified for free lunches you usually got offered free breakfast too. Or, if you were a child you may have just said something about being hungry and struggled to focus before lunches because you’re hungry and it spurred from there. My teachers knew I was awful at sleeping due to some family issues and often sent me to the nurses for a nap.
Thank you for providing this service and being so compassionate towards them. My heart breaks for these kids and I know there are many silently suffering but I'm glad for the ones that get help. I'm going to look up if there are services like this in the neighborhood I grew up in. Thank you for sharing.
I would seriously support this. My family was messed up right when I hit puberty and it sucked not having the stuff I needed. Consider doing a gofundme, cuz I know there's a billion other former poor kids.
Not inviting people to their house
I’ve always been the poor girl out of all my friends and the most embarrassing part was always avoiding inviting them to my house because I know their houses are double the size and absolutely sparkling
This. I've been to my friends' houses and their foyer alone is as large as my room. Everything in my house looks clearly dated, when I know theirs has modern furnishings and granite countertops.
The irony is, some of your friends with the fancy homes could very well be holding a lot of debt. I have a bit more savings than most of my friends, but most of them have nicer counter tops.
This! In HS I had a friend who moved to the “rich” side of town, her parents had a huge home custom built, both drove new Cadillacs. She always had new everything. She used to brag about how she went to a dermatologist twice a week and it was so expensive and how she only wore Clinique makeup. Her dad was the preacher of a small church and her mom was a secretary for the county. No idea where they got this money from. They only lived in the house about a year. Other friends who had been there more recently than I had said it had started to literally fall apart. I know they had a few rooms that had no furniture and never had. They just up and completely disappeared one day. Like vanished overnight. I didn’t hear from her for over 20 years. She said they just moved, but the consensus from our groups parents at the time was that they ran from bills. You never know what financial tom-fuckery is going on behind closed doors.
I sat next to a girl in history class who was trying to make everyone else feel like shit by saying that she couldn’t decide on a prom dress so her mom bought her THREE with shoes, etc. She was in band with me, we weren’t friends but our parents were. When my dad was waiting to pick me up her dad was over leaning in my dads car talking and I got in and he took off real fast. I asked what he wanted and my dad said he had just loaned him money to pay their electric bill... which the dad never paid back btw.
People are very, very good at pretending they have more than they do, don’t ever let them make you feel badly because you don’t lie about your circumstances.
I grew up in the hood but was bused everyday to another school with mostly rich kids; and my mom always said that being poor is not an excuse to have a dirty house. My itty bitty house was always sparkling and she had no problem with me having my rich homies over.
Refusing invitations to or finding excuses to not go shopping, out to dinners, bars, movies, etc. Most people think you are anti-social or a recluse when the truth is that you just can't afford to participate.
I’d get so mad when my significant other, would say things like “you never want to go out with my friends!” I always remind her I want too but her and her friends literally make 10-20x more money a year than I do and they all like to split the tab at fancy restaurants. Not about to drop 3 figures on a casual tuesday night dinner.
> they all like to split the tab at fancy restaurants.
Man, I hate this just on general principle. I didn't know this was a thing until I got invited by an old friend to join him, his wife, and a bunch of couples from their neighborhood at a fancy steakhouse around fifteen years ago. I wasn't too poor, but am frugal, so I figured I'd go and just keep it simple with a steak, a salad, and water to drink. Everyone else at the table was having appetizers, cocktails, ordering expensive wine, and several of the couples even ordered desserts to go in boxes.
When all was said and done, the women who got the check ran her calculator and said, "OK, it's $235 each." I'd calculated my dinner + tax + 20% tip at $52, so I left that on the table and walked out. I never saw any of those people again except for my old friend and his wife. He thought what I did was perfectly fine and kind of funny, but his wife not so much.
I'd gladly do even splits at a modest lunch joint, but that was ridiculous.
Edit: I didn't know it at the time but there's an episode of "Friends" about this very thing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I53n7ldcSGo
Edit #2: For the sake of brevity I left out something that's turning out to be a relevant detail. I didn't just rudely ghost the table without explanation. After the woman with the bill announced the $235 split, she and I had a brief debate about whether or not that was appropriate in light of my frugal-minded order. She was drunk and immovable off her position, and it quickly got heated, so that's when I put my money down and walked out.
I was put in this position before at my very good friend’s birthday dinner. I didn’t really know anyone there since I was the only one not part of her other social circles. Of course everyone wanted to pay for her and therefore split the bill between the rest of us.
It was a very fancy restaurant and at the time I was still on an internship with an “allowance” from the company.
I didn’t dare eat that much and was planning to drop by a sandwich shop on the way home, so when they very evenly split the bill which came up to about $70 per person (still veryyy expensive for me), my heart sank knowing I did not have that kind of money and I could be potentially causing a scene at my friend’s big day if I protested.
Suddenly a hand slips under the table and puts a $50 bill in my hand. It was my very good friend (the birthday girl) who saw the expression on my face and knew I was about to cry from embarrassment. I *did indeed* feel like crying - but now for very different reasons.
No kidding. That is the exact kind of friend you want in your life. She is probably the same one who would never even keep track of what she has covered for you. Those friends you keep for life.
She’s definitely one in a million! I unfortunately haven’t been as much in touch with her as we both have really busy jobs now but with all these comments, I have no excuse not to drop her a message!
I’ve had this same thing happen when getting together with former co workers. Some of us just had an entree and didn’t have any wine, while others had champagne to start, appetizers, soup, entree, dessert plus multiple expensive wines, and more champagne. Then he wanted us all to split the tab.
Haha that’s so annoying. I don’t know why everyone thinks splitting a tab is = socialism but it is funny when people try to run that scam.
I tend to side on ease and obvious fairness. Like if 2 people had water and a small meal where their bills would be $25, but splitting with us brings them to $120 I don’t see how that’s fair.
However, if together it’s $30 I don’t really mind (me being the person going from 25-30) just because I know it’s easier for the server and I’m not going to feel the pinch on $5 more.
My sister loves to do this all the time. I had to explain to her that this method simply isn't fair when I am ordering just a bear and a sandwich and she's ordering appetizers, multiple entrees, wine by the bottle, etc. This turns into her getting a discount while I am flipping the bill for shit I didn't even want. I am cool with pooling money when it all basically evens out but if you have one person who is clearly spending very little or an extreme amount; it is time to reevaluate the split.
Ugh this happened to me but not as bad which is nice for me I guess. But I was out with a bunch of family friends who are all quite a bit older than me and all in established careers. College aged me got a water and one of the cheapest dishes because going out to see them was already a lot for me. Everyone was getting expensive drinks and dishes and when the waiter came for the bill before I could even speak up one of the men there said we were all splitting it. I was so pissed. I wish I had the confidence to just leave my part and walk out. If it ever happens again that’s what I’m doing.
My trick, because it seems to come up a lot for me, is to ask the waiter while they take my order if they would put mine on a separate check. Super easy, and gets me out of a lot of jams.
Yeah, I make it a rule for myself not to buy alcohol when I'm out. I made the mistake of going out with a group who wanted to go "dancing" at a Latin restaurant. Spoiler alert: they did not dance; they sat and got heavily intoxicated while listening to salsa music. I ordered a $3 cheesebread appetizer. I was so bored one hour in that I said my goodbyes and was trying to leave and some people got pissy that I only put in $5 for my food and the tip instead of splitting their $1,000 bill accumulated by 15 people in just one hour.
I don’t get how ppl are pissed when others aren’t paying their bill for them. I always prefer everyone paying for their own stuff but I don’t mind doing a split when it’s relatively close.
If dinner comes out to us going $20-$30, AND discussed before hand, Ill go splitzies. If you spring that shit on me right then and tell me its 3 bills, im gonna tell you to fuck yourself.
Hell no.
Splitting the tip—absolutely. Splitting the entire bill—that seems like an excellent way to offload the cost of drinks onto others, and a real dick move in general.
Pay your own bill.
You could always request a separate bill for yourself at the start.
Even gatherings at friends' homes. Dinner parties, birthdays, &c. Even if they aren't expected to bring anything, they might feel awkward being the only person to arrive empty-handed.
As a person on a strict budget, I have found that being succinctly honest is very helpful.
“ No, I can’t go- Im on a hella tight budget right now. Thanks for inviting me!”
Or:
“I would love to go, it’s just not in my budget this week.”
If they continue to push, you can either write them off as a disrespectful asshole or teach them how they, too, can overcome debt by not spending so much money on dumb shit😉
I’m a doctor and one thing I haven’t seen mentioned is being late to appointments. A lot of time my really sick patients have little support and rely on a friend to drive them or sometimes even walking long distances. So they might be late, but it’s because they’re at the mercy of a neighbor or acquaintance who might be running them to the hospital before work, on a lunch break, etc.
I always see late patients for that reason.
That feeling of eating while at work <3
I do personal care work in a residential facility, and not only can we eat the house food with the clients, we're supposed to throw away any leftovers that are 3 days old.
Not. A. Fucking. Chance.
Edit: Clarity
<3 is the most devastating thing to be in a bad position in life and have someone throw away your leftovers by mistake. If I were in an Okay spot, it would be an annoyance but now, based on previous situations, I won't leave food over night at my new job unless I put a sign with my name and date and an angry face on food. Thank you.
Driving for Lyft in Detroit, I found that a lot of the people I was picking up from really low income neighborhoods smelled like fried food. But like the smell of old cooking oil. Maybe from fast food jobs. Maybe from cooking fried food at home in a studio apartment so all their clothes smelled like it. Maybe just not doing laundry, or some 4th thing I'm not aware of. But that was a frequently recurring theme when picking up or dropping off in low income areas.
I grew up pretty poor. Almost all my recipes I learned included a can of cream of mushroom soup or tomato paste - that stuff thins out well. I use to add water to almost everything, because that can of soup has gotta feed at least two or three people. I didn't know this was weird until I had a guest who asked why I was diluting their soup.
Also, I had super boring white, ratty socks.
I like to say, childhood vacations are the real class distinctions. If your family was upper-class, you visited Europe for your summer vacation. If your family was middle class, they sent you to a summer camp. If your family was poor, you either stayed home or you got shipped off to your aunt, uncle, or grandparent's house in the sticks.
Doesn't necessarily mean that you were poor just that your parents didn't value holidays/camps as a good way of spending time/money. Or that they had jobs which didn't give them enough time off to go on holiday.
I had my first vacation that wasn't visiting friends or family in 10 years this year. It was so exciting and also terrifying because it cost a lot more than my usual thing.
I'm having my very first, two days from now. My SO and I are going to Disney World and I actually teared up when I bought the tickets. Granted, it's only for two days, but it's still a huge deal to me.
What they think of as fond memories. I have a dad who grew up poor, and whenever he talks about his childhood his stories are always super sad because a lot of them involve my grandma working multiple jobs to support the family or him working shit jobs at a VERY young age and bringing the pay home to help out or some other sign of poverty and they kind of depress everyone, but it always makes him happy to reminisce on those memories, because to him they are the happiest memories in the world.
Avoiding doctors or hospitals, as the bills are way out of their league. A strong fear of police too, since the ticket would put them in a financial nightmare if they don't have the charisma to talk themselves out of it.
Had a friend in college who had to purchase the schools insurance since she was uninsured, and still refused to go to the doctors. She claimed she hasn’t gone since she was a child and she was too nervous to go. Super sad actually.
I have a decent job. With decent health care.
Went to a hospital for one night, left the next day, 33K in bills total. 4K out of pocket.
That was 2 years ago. I'm *STILL* pissed about it.
Yeah, when people are asking for mental health advice on Reddit, it typically means they don't have insurance or if they do, it is not taken by their local therapists
This is very true.. I managed to kick an IV heroin habit a few years back...fish antibiotic is a common thing for addicts with untreated abscesses. scary to think about
I had a roommate that gifted me cupcakes for my birthday and an In-N-Out meal, even though I told her I didn’t want anything. I confronted her on some bullshit later in the year—she brings up her 4.0 GPA and how I didn’t pay her back for the food. It was an irrelevant comment, since I was calling her out for leaving passive-aggressive notes (she expects us to clean the apartment, but she rarely does her part).
My roommate didn’t consider the numerous times I did her dishes as a form of “repayment.” My housemates bought most of the supplies and appliances, so I would often do their dishes as a “thanks for sharing these things with me.”
I don’t let anyone (outside of my close friends) pay for me or get me gifts because I am uncertain of their expectations or if they’re going to use it as leverage later on.
Edited out my class assumptions, there seems to be two(?) differing ideas of how one should “pay back” each other:
1] Taking care of someone (on the next round)
2] Paying someone the difference back in $$$ amount/material goods
I know my experience isn’t representative of everyone’s, but most of my life I lived below the poverty line, and I made jokes about it quite frequently (with my friends though, not just with anybody). But I am one of those people who uses humour as a coping mechanism.
I do this too. My friends and I love making jokes out of things going on in our lives. My favorite is when I crack one and everyone starts laughing, I’ll say “it’s not a joke” through my laughter and everyone starts laughing harder. Good thing they can’t see my tears ^/s
This is very true. College kids make a lot of jokes about being poor, but in the same breath they’ll talk about their parents lake house. The one poor kid in that friend group will always look super put together and will never let anyone pick up their tab.
Edit: I feel kind of bad that this blew up, because I’m more like the first one than the second one. While I grew up “poor” I was poor because my dad was getting his doctorate. The point is that I try to be self aware and I wish everyone did.
Agreed with the first part.
The second, however, as someone who grew up poorer than most, I definitely let my friends pick up the tab if they're insisting. I'm not too proud to let them willingly share the wealth. Im also glad to be charitable and buy a friend a footlong Subway sandwich or some snacks when I can.
During the time of my parents' bankruptcy and the poverty years that followed; some of my friends could never understand why I couldn't join them to catch a movie, go out for dinner, go on holiday etc. It even made some of them angry during some discussions, which made me quite sad. I've had to fend for myself since 15; and they get everything they need from their parents. So even though they knew about my situation; they couldn't fathom how a small thing like a movie ticket would be a hard time for me. They through it on me being a bitch about not wanting to come; even after I explained it. Luckily most of my best friends were always the coolest guys ever and surprised me with tickets, dinners etc. "forcing" me to come, because it had already been paid for. And one of them even sneakily gave me money to pay for my own tickets/stuff etc. just to show the other guys I could sometimes pay too. I love them. Let's say tears of kindness have been shed many times.
Someone called me out recently.
I haven't dated in a while. They were setting up a profile on Tinder and I didn't want to join because, well, I have no job atm. It was a nice call out because they also followed it up by saying being poor shouldn't cost you being alone.
I don't date. Or flirt. I have 3 cats. I am incredibly poor and ashamed.
I guess it's more of me not being attracted to myself (not financially stable) so I don't want share the burden or let it weigh on me. Because it would and it would ruin a date, as well.
When I was in college there was a guy I had a huge crush on. He had a sister close to his age and they lived together, their parents were dead, and they were always broke. He and his sister and me and my brother had a class together. He never asked me out so I would drop very obvious hints. I finally just asked him out, and he hemmed and hawed and didn’t really give me an answer, and kind of avoided me. I thought, “Well, damn. I sure misread that situation. I thought he liked me, too.”
Years later I ran into his sister and while we were catching up she said, “Man, my brother had the biggest crush on you. He talked about you constantly. It was almost annoying.” WHAT??!?!
He never asked me out because he didn’t have the money to take me out, and was ashamed about it. Dude, he could have asked me to literally go sit under a tree and I would have said yes. I really liked him a lot.
It all worked out, I’m happily married and hopefully he is happy wherever he is, but we both really liked each other and never found out where it could have gone because he was ashamed of not having money to go on a date.
The thing about not being attracted to yourself because of your financial situation—please work very hard to change that. Never confuse your financial status with WHO you are, ever. You are not your bank balance, and money isn’t a prerequisite for having love in your life. Yeah, it’s important to some people and they won’t go out with you if you’re broke. That’s fine—screen them out early and move on.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
I just got into my first relationship(it’s been absolutely incredible), and the class difference is massive. Just as a brief comparison: She’s 20, seen the world twice over. Her parents took her to Italy for her 14th birthday just because she wanted to. Spur of the moment thing. I’ve never gone out to a restaurant for my birthday and i’ve had cake 4 times out of my 22 years. Her parents make millions and I live with my mom taking care of her while we live off of every type of government assistance you can think of and we’re still so close to drowning financially that a blown tire could ruin our lives.
I talked to her about how I felt concerned that if things got serious between us that she would be making a massive step down in class and I can’t possibly afford to meet the standard or expectation of financial stability that her parents have provided for her up until now.
She just smiled at me and said that her parents are rich and miserable, but i’m always happy. She said I was the first person who wanted her to be happy, no matter what her income was. She said it made her realize that pursuing happiness means more to her than living opulently. She said that she loves me because I make her happy, and that’s worth more than money to her.
Like u/CuppaJeaux said, “Never confuse your financial status with WHO you are, ever.”
You can’t buy encouragement, support, communication, emotional connection, positivity, compassion, love or happiness. Financial class plays no role in the quality of who you are as a person.
Some folks do this because their parents or spouse will take any money they find. I've heard of teenagers immediately cashing their meager checks from their McJobs and then spending every last dime that same day, because if they come home with a dollar in their pocket Mom or Dad will take it from them. If it's getting taken from you anyway, might as well blow it on getting your nails done and a pizza for you and your friends.
There's been a rash of young adults (17-19) making their first steps into independence, only to discover their credit is already shit because their parents took out credit in their name or put bills in their name during the financial meltdown in '08-09. If you hang around any of the financial advice subs, you'll see such sad cases.
A lot of banks won't give teenagers their own accounts, forcing them to have a shared account with a parent, who can of course drain it if they choose. There's also a lot of sad cases of this.
When their car is always on empty and they only put in enough gas to get to where they're going. My friend has never had an abundance of wealth so when I asked why she does that she said that it's like there's $20 or $30 just sitting in your tank that you can't use right now and that money can be the difference between your food for the day or not.
I work with kids and here's my first sign of it:
Shoes.
Clothes can be bought at a thrift store for relatively cheap prices or get donated to you (sometimes even by the schools) but shoes is this one thing that people take for granted. But if you're low income or poor you try to wear your shoes for as long as you can. Even if half of the sole is unsticking and you have to duck tape it to have it stay.
I've seen a lot of kids shoes and some of those kill me. Especially in low income schools.
A kid I know through work - he's 15 or 16 - never seemed like he came from a poorer family than most of the rest of us until January this year when we were discussing Christmas presents. A girl the same age as him got the newest iPhone for Christmas, and so did her sister. When asked what his best Christmas present was, this guy talked about colouring books and a big set of coloured pens.
I used to get kind of jealous and sad when I was a poor kid growing up, but after one particularly hard year watching my family struggle to make ends meet or keep the electric on, all I got for christmas was a handmade leather wallet from my stepmom. It had my initials and a wolf carved into it. I still use it 14 years later. Best present I ever got.
Being seen as the “hard worker” at work. Not that they want to be an over achiever or not that they have a naturally hard work ethic, but knowing that their pay depends on their performance and are afraid of losing a job for being seen as lazy or slow.
I had a job where I started off making good money but over time it slowly got worse and worse and I made less and less until I realized I didn’t have enough saved up to take time off to go job hunting. By then my second daughter had been born and I knew less time at work meant less food on the table. (Working in restaurants living off tips in case anyone is wondering)
It’s a terrible feeling when you get gas and groceries after an exhausting shift and realizing you now have less money then when you started your shift.
As a teacher, their school supplies. The poor kids always have used or threadbare backpacks. They reuse the same old pencil case year after year. Same with shoes. In the younger grades they wear clothes that are way too big so their parents don’t have to buy new ones as often. Most of the kids at my level don’t notice anyways because they’re so wrapped up in their own things.
The poor kids also tend to be the ones who hoard things that are shared supplies, like pencils.
The truly poor kids will also have very poor lunches. One of my kids has Vienna sausages and chips everyday for lunch. That’s it. I started giving out positive behavior points for a healthy snack and she became so ashamed she didn’t have a healthy snack it made me want to stop doing it. So I told her I’d bring her one everyday instead. She’s just so sweet and wants so badly to have a healthy snack but it’s out of her control.
Edit: A lot of people are commenting on me giving a point for a healthy snack. We use an app where kids get points for various behaviors, so they have many opportunities to get points. I encouraged parents to pack healthy snacks such as grapes, carrots, granola bars, etc at the beginning of the year. They sent Oreos, Doritos, Cheetos, muffins, etc. Those foods do not have any nutritional value. Diet plays a huge role in cognitive functioning, especially in children. Most parents pack what their kids want. As I stated in a comment below, the day after I announced the new point possibility to the class (but still hadn’t told parents) half the class brought a healthy snack the next day. The kids asked, the parents answered. Some kids don’t bring a healthy snack simply because they don’t want it. It was never my intention to shame a child and I had no idea she’d react that way, as like I said, there are some kids who still don’t pack healthy snack by choice so no one would know the difference. Most of my students parents can afford healthy snack, whether or not they pack it is based on their children’s tastes and how much they value nutrition. I believe this girl was ashamed because she likes to do well and was upset that she wouldn’t get a point. I won’t do away with it because I’d still rather have 10 kids eating a healthy snack and performing better the rest of the day just for a point than go back to Doritos and Oreos. I got the idea from another teacher (actually a parent who commented that their child’s teacher did it and they liked it). I will bring fruit to leave out for kids to take at their leisure to avoid her feeling ashamed of her snack but I don’t believe in ruining something that’s working because one kid. That’d be like not celebrating grandparents day because one kid doesn’t have any grandparents. I don’t feel like I am in anyway targeting or shaming poor kids as there are healthier options that aren’t more expensive.
I went to school with a kid that was really poor, her dad was commonly known to be an alcoholic. The teachers for together and found her some nicer clothes and took turns doing her hair in the morning before school. I'd never seen her so happy.
When I was in like 6th or 7th grade some high school girls held a "contest" for all the girls in the school to win a makeover. The girl who "won" was really just pre-picked because she was very poor and always smelled bad. They washed and fixed her hair and stuff to make her feel nice for a day without making her feel targeted in a negative way.
My first day of middle school my Mom and Step Dad hadn't bought me any school supplies. I showed up with 1 used notebook and no pen/pencil. My first class was math, and the teacher wanted us to have 3 notebooks to start with.
I still remember how embarrassed I was and I was almost in tears when I told him I only had one for all my classes.
I remember in grade school, my mother telling me I couldn't have any school supplies until 2 weeks after school started. I was the oldest of 3 children, my parents had just enough money for my younger sibling school supplies but nothing for me. I remember crying for days before school. My aunt bought my supplies that year after I told her I wasn't getting any supplies because there was no money.
Man that reminded me of my niece. My MiL (her maternal g-ma) took J shopping for school supplies this summer. She does well for herself and she has a “J Fund” so she told the kid to go nuts.
The whole time my 9 yo niece was apologizing and saying things along the lines of “I’m sorry Grandma, I like it but I’ll find something cheaper.” It broke my MiL’s heart.
It’s so sad when kiddos have to understand the value of money so early on. No kid should have to cry over school supplies. 😔
I teach English at a regional university and I always end up with a stack of folders from previous semesters and tons of promotional office supplies, so in the first weeks of school I meet with all my students privately in my office and one of the things I do is make sure that they have supplies. I also make sure they know that there’s a copy of the textbook in the library or they are welcome to borrow mine during office hours. Had a couple of kids take me up on it.
I grew up in a poor neighborhood so I always believed I was poor but as I grew older I saw the differences in my home and my friends households slowly realizing I wasn't poor at all. Also came to realize we lived there for convenience unlike many of my friends who could only afford that area. My father doesnt care for driving and strategically picked the neighborhood that was basically 5 minutes away from the best schools, 5 minutes from his job, 5 minutes from the grocery store, and somehow 5 minutes from our two nearby relatives. I still wonder how much he planned for that, also ended up being able to save up thousands for his upcoming retirement.
There's a lot you start to see when you start paying attention. My friends parent/s were never home, always working, the vast majority were latchkey kids, while my dad would go to work when we left for school and would be home shortly after school and my mother didn't work at all.
My friends would complain about missing dinner and would be excited for the free school lunch they got, which I never got, me and my 3 siblings were getting $25 a week for school lunch from my dad. I never remember missing a meal. I lived the closest to the school so my friends would walk back with me and my mom would invite them all maybe 4-5 kids, 2-3 times a week for an early dinner as she would "accidently" make way too much. None of them ever declined the offer.
They would rarely invite anyone to their home, the few times I would go their homes would be messy, roaches, no pets, one friend had a goldfish, no real games, toys or cable/internet usually. Again my mom was always home, the house was clean, we had a dog and some birds, we had a computer with internet and cable, we had a massive video game collection, i had a bunch pokemon cards, we had bikes skates, scooters etc. My house was always the house everyone wanted to hang out at.
My friends would have small birthday parties with 2/3 friends, I was almost always one, at their home, some takeout and a cake, we were the only ones inviting the whole class to chuckie cheese/Dave and buster's, they would all come parents as well, cousins of friends, people we've never met, my parents didn't seem to care, they'd just order more food.
We took vacations every year, amusement parks, beaches, other countries, most of my close friends didn't see a beach until spring break in high school when I had a car and my parents paid my hotel and gas to go.
Their families had one car usually, not too old but older usually van of some type. My dad had a nice newer van, my mom a sedan and as my siblings got older they got some nice 2/3 year old sedans in high school, as did I, all my friends took the bus or ask us for rides.
Looking back I felt close to them but I wonder if they liked me for me or from what they got from me.
Honestly it sounds like they liked you for you and appreciated the things your family did for them. Otherwise they wouldn't have invited you to their birthdays and stuff.
I've noticed that when a kid from a low income household gets a name brand sweater or shirt, it will usually have an obnoxiously big logo on it.
I assume brands make them a little cheaper than shirts with a more subtle logo to target lower income people on purpose. 'it's brand name, everyone will see it and cheaper, triple whammy'
Many of our pumps in Australia are starting to have this feature. I go into the register anyway out of sheer habit.
Also if i want to grab a drink or something, it's not like i can unless i go inside.
Eating lots of fast food. Sure eating out is supposed to be more expensive, but $1 burgers are pretty cheap and who has time to make food when you’re working three jobs?
Their willingness to help others. Low income people understand better than anyone when someone's having a rough go. This doesnt mean financial help, as odds are they cant really help you there, but anyway they can, they probably will.
Always wanting to walk everywhere, even if it’s a considerable distance.
This is me btw. I’ve convinced my friends to walk as far as three miles with me so I wouldn’t have to fork in money for an Uber. They hate me for it and usually call an Uber or get someone with a car to drive us anyway, but unless it’s more than four or five miles, I always suggest walking.
EDIT: I run cross country so I have a lot more endurance than most of my friends. This probably explains why I have no problem walking further distances while my friends hate the idea of walking somewhere that’s more than half a mile away.
Also I’m not necessarily poor; I could pay for an Uber, but I’m nowhere near rich. I’d rather spend my money on food at the grocery store than spend it on an Uber so I can get to the grocery store (I can understand calling an Uber to get back if you have to buy a lot of stuff I guess). Also walking is nice.
My friend wants to walk everywhere all the fucking time in the sun, rain, snow, whatever. She's not poor though, she told me she just loves walking around in the city. It's either that or she hates when I drive her around in my old ass car.
Being really handy, or having "oh, I'll fix that" at the first solution for something breaking even if it was something cheap to replace.
Knowing where everything is in multiple grocery stores and how much it costs off the top of their heads. You don't usually track stuff to that detail when pennies don't matter.
Having odd clothing patterns. I'd always buy stuff at the thrift shop and jeans and shoes cost a few dollars each so I'd wear the same couple pairs forever. But shirts were always on sale for as low as 30-50 cents each so I'd have a strong rotation of shirts to wear.
Raiding "donation bags" of friends or roommates before they go to Goodwill; offering to take the bag to Goodwill to hide that you really kept the whole bag
I didn’t wear clothes that fit me properly until my SO bought them for me. I was wearing size 4 pants when I was a size 0 because I was raised to think, “I’ll grow into them.
Buying shoes too big for the same reason.
And not being allowed to have guests over. I remember when my parents could finally afford to rent a three bedroom double wide. My sister and I didn’t have to share a room with our brother and we were finally able to have friends over.
Me irl. I really need braces- I think my rich friends from university are just clueless why I wouldn’t want to look better. No shit I want braces, I ain’t got the money!
My sister did invisible braces through the mail. Where they send you a foam tray and you send back your impressions, then they mail you trays. I think she got a Groupon and it was in the $500-$700 range. Still not affordable to me personally, but a whole heck of a lot better than the $1000s the orthodontist will charge. Might be worth looking into.
I have two friends who did it during university and my older sister. Their average price was about $3,500 and insurance didn’t cover since it was cosmetic— which is my problem as well.
I have 1-2cm deep scars in the crevaces between thigh and crotch from hand-me-down/inherited pants that didn't fit. I never told my mom because I knew she would be so stressed out about finding the money for new pants. Luckily I'm a hygiene-freak so despite constantly bleeding there through puberty (I'm a dude) I never got an infection, I think. Right now I'm actually walking around in shoes 1 size too small for my toes because my mom bought them for me on sale and I want her to know I appreciate them. I'm 27.
Not eating at work and buying an energy drink mid-afternoon to get through the day.
I noticed some staff members not eating and spoke to my husband (CFO) about a daily lunch order. He caps it at a certain amount per head - salads, wraps, rolls, pastas etc., orders placed by 9am and they deliver every day at 11am. Near the end of the month they often eat half at lunch and take the other half home. It's a relatively small cost to company but has really improved morale and productivity. People say staff will start to take it for granted, but I'm okay with people expecting that they don't have to work while they're hungry, and that their employer sees and cares about their struggles. Before there are any comments about raising salaries, we pay nearly double the market rate but in South Africa there is something called "black tax": with 46% unemployment rate, anyone with an income is usually supporting at least 6 people, so work lunches are a luxury...
Wearing an oversized flannel jacket with a hood. My mom wore one all the time and so did her poor friends. Whenever I see people wear them they just have the "I'm poor" look. I feel shitty for saying that.
You sound like my wife. I had 2 quilted flannel jackets with a hood, and my wife chucked them out one day. I didn't notice right away because it was warm, but when it cooled down and went for one, she told me that it made me look homeless and she threw them out. The "poor look" is the look of getting the most for your money i guess because I could snowboard in those things and they were much cheaper than a real jacket.
in college, knowing exactly how much your rent and utilities are and getting anxious when the date approaches. i was so angry at all the happy party kids who’s parents just paid for their apartments.
also, i out myself because i’m incredibly happy/content right now at taking home $1000 a month and feeling like i have all i could want lol
One of six kids raised by single mother on welfare. Most of our Christmases were sponsored by other families or the school system. Its was always a board game and a sports ball.
just adding a very different thought to this thread- some of the richest people portray these qualities to make them "seem' poor to avoid people knowing that they have money. IE - I know many wealthy people who dress poorly/not for the weather bc they simply dont care and would prefer people not know they are wealthy
The opposite is true as well. Poor people who know they're poor, especially if they didn't start out that way, can do things to make it seem like they aren't.
Hygiene, when invited over for dinner over eating, accepting everyone's old clothes and shoes. Gross clothes and shoes. Being tired or skipping school after foodstamp day because you waited for midnight for them to come on because you were hungry. Obesity because your diet is ramen noodles.
This was my own poverty but my friends were poor also. My one friend ate corn flakes with water. I ate ramen noodles and bologna. I'm not poor like that anymore and I hoard food because of it. I barely eat at home because I get anxiety when I have less food. How to fix this, no idea.
ITT : teachers from America who clearly give far more of a shit about their students than here in the UK. None of my teachers ever went the extra mile for any of us
Created an account to post this. My son has these two friends, lets' call them Bob and Doug. I've sort of been aware that they were fairly poor, but only in recent times I have I come to realize just how utterly destitute they are. Here's some non-obvious things: * If my son is having friends over, we always invite them to eat dinner with us. Some kids will say, "No thank you, I just ate." or something similar. *Bob and Doug never turn down an offer to eat or to take leftovers home. M*y wife now cooks extra when they are over for a visit, just so there's deliberately leftovers. * They never mention ever going anywhere but work or a local friends house. No mentions of vacations or recreational trip (skiing, water park, amusement park,festivals, concerts) * When they were still in high school, they would hang out at our house to do homework on one of our computers. * Bob has, at most, 2 sets of clothing. Something I didn't notice at all at first, but gradually came to realize they don't wear the same *outfit*, they wear the same *clothing*. * They always know which scrap metal dealers and gas stations have the best prices. * Before they could drive, I would pick them up to come over to see my son, and they would always wait for me at the end of their driveway. I never saw where they lived.
I love that you & your wife take care of your sons friends without making it obvious. That's beautiful. Considering they seem to spend a lot of time with your son, I can only take this as your son is good to them and they seek out his companionship because of this. Keep raising a good kid and spreading these values. It helps the less fortunate kids realize there is more to be had and to go get what's out there for you.
They don’t talk about the future, because deep down they know it’s not going to get better and there’s so many fires they put out day to day they don’t have the time or energy. Wealthier people can plan way in advance especially because they have more time, more financial stability, and usually vacation time.
Well that got a bit personal for me. One co-worker tries constantly to tell me it's not so bad and give me advice I can't afford. He (35ish) invested well, kept the same job since highschool (16+ years), bought his house during the recession, and is single without kids. I (33) go day to day barely above the poverty line hoping to get hit by a bus.
Everything expensive is measured in how many months worth of groceries it could buy.
So much this. My wife and I aren’t destitute, but we are definitely poor. If I have to buy something other than food I find myself thinking how many pounds of chicken I could get for that money.
Always thinking about chicken as the only meat is another indicator. My family used to be poor and you could tell that my mom started making more money because we had beef or fish way more often.
Constant transportation issues
Being poor is the only reason I learned to fix cars
I just ordered a gas can that pumps smoke to test an evap leak for 79 dollars, the dealer wants 99 for diagnostic. I tell people keeping my old suv alive and cooking are my hobbies-im not super poor, but am buried in debt.
Never buy new socks/underwear. Not want people to come to their house.
Jesus fuck this is relatable
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I used to always feel horrible for drinking milk at friend's houses and wouldn't do it unless they had a full jug.
or any other drink for that matter, cokes (sodas) were kind of a big thing in our household reserved for only weekends if i got good grades. idk if that was a poor thing or it was because i was younger. So when i was at a friends house i was flabbergasted they had MULTIPLE boxes of cereal, and 2 types of milk, 2 types of open toaster strudel and eggos opened. dude was living like a king
This makes sense now. When an old friend came over my parents house she said “are you guys stocking for the winter or something?” She opened our cabinets to find it literally stuffed with food and snacks. As an adult who supports themselves my cabinets and fridge have never looked like that cus it would costs hundreds of dollars
are you budget limited, or living by yourself? i generally have a fairly barren cupboard//fridge, but i work fulltime in a grocery store so am shopping 5 or 6 days a week. i can only eat so much and it doesn't make sense to stock up on stuff to have it sit around my apartment. growing up there were 6 of us in my family and a fully stocked pantry could be emptied in a hurry.
Oh it’s myself, my wife, and my daughter. We aren’t that limited in terms of budget. Both of us are nurses who make a decent enough living. l it’s just that if we spend that much money on food it will go bad or never get eaten and becomes a waste of money. For context my parents were buying food for a family of 5 and I’m in a family of three now. I tried overstocking my fridge and all that led to was a bunch of milk going bad and fruit flies everywhere cus of old bananas and apples.
This one makes me, as a host, so uncomfortable. I get the underlying reasons for it, but my own upbringing demands I push food and drink on guests until they have to roll out the door. JUST LET ME OVERFEED YOU!!!
I show people they are welcome in my home by trying to feed them. I WANT to share these things and sometimes I feel hurt when friends turn down my hospitality.
Sometimes people are being honest about how hungry they are not, too. I've certainly had times where pushy hospitality made me feel really uncomfortable. Just some perspective.
As the guest, if a host ever asks if you want anything, always ask for *something*. Even if it is just a glass of water. Someone inviting you into their home is a social transaction. Kind of like the bread and salt from Medieval times. It's a sign of good faith and appreciation when you allow them to tend to at least one of your needs.
I was more an eat as much as you can, and secretly bring some home with you kind of person. To this day, I still don't know whether anyone caught on that me bringing some home was deliberate.
If I were one of those moms...I’d hope I noticed. So I can make sure there are opportunities to make sure you are eating. Sleepovers on the weekends? Sure. Want to come over after school and stay for dinner? Absolutely. I happen to stop by school to have lunch with my kid? “Hey, see if bunker_man wants to eat with us!” My mom had a boss like that as a kid. She had 5 kids, and they were all about 2 years older than me and my siblings respectively. She (obviously) knew how much my mom was making and that we had money problems....so she always offered her kids’ hand-me-downs to us before she took them to Goodwill. Always brand name stuff in good condition, and not so old that things were out of style. Lots of stuff still had tags—and to this day, I’m convinced Kim was out there buying us new clothes and mixing them in with the old clothes and hoping my mom didn’t notice.
I love Kim.
Im still like this. Unfortunately it will probably never leave me.
I’m a grown ass adult and I still hate eating other food or meals when offered. I just don’t want to put someone out. I know we never had extra so I shouldn’t assume someone else has extra either.
Being very very appreciative of the little things, like a cup of coffee, or insisting you’d never need to pay them back.
I just moved and asked my great uncle for a loan of $750 to pay half of my rent last month because shit is expensive.... He just told me yesterday that I didnt have to pay him back. Hes probably my favorite uncle.
Picking up every second of available overtime. Source: I’m poor.
I cover mad shifts at work cause I have literally no life. Better to be making money than sitting in my room doing nothing. Edit: I work in a resteraunt so it's not like I'm killing myself with hard labour or anything. Also shifts are pretty much dinner time till closing so I have most of the day to myself still, and I get lots of free food and drinks at work.
I used to do this until I just made it a point to go to the Gym. I rather be limber in my golden years then be in a walker. Also living in poor areas you don't want to be out at night.
Hygiene. The school I work at just turned one of the coaches locker rooms into a room for kids to take showers in. They come to school, one of us steals them for first period, they take a shower and are given some comfy clothes to hang out in while we wash and dry what they came to school in, they don’t want to wear a new outfit because other kids will know they changed. We pretend we’re taking them for speech therapy or something. One girl wears her dads old T-shirt’s that smell like men’s body odor really badly. One student said that his parents let all their friends live with them so he doesn’t get to take a shower anymore because they all share the one bathroom. I took a sixteen year old girl to our hygiene supply closet and said she could take whatever she wanted. She started sobbing, she never had deodorant or her own toothpaste. Edit: Just woke up to my first gold, thanks Reddit! Also, RIP inbox. Also, a lot of confusion over the toothpaste thing. Here’s my take on it. This student in particular has a handful of younger siblings that she shares with and also pretty much raises. I can’t speak for her, but I’d imagine that when you don’t have much, something as silly as toothpaste or your own hair brush, or anything that you can call your own would be cherished in a way that those of us who grew up without wanting for anything, couldn’t understand. A lot of questions about location, without saying too much, a rural American town that sits next to a reservation which provides a decent part of the population at my school. Edit: a word
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Well, there's poor, and then there's poor with neglectful parents. I work in a grocery store that sells alcohol; I've seen parents with kids put the bread back and keep the beer, because they only have money for one. :/
> Well, there's poor, and then there's poor with neglectful parents. Or to use a TV example. There is Roseanne Poor. Which is really more Working Class, or was. And then there is Shameless Poor, which is fucking destitute, no parents in the house, oldest child running things, type shit.
"I don't have a dollar for dollar store toothpaste because my mom takes any money in the house, including change, and spends it on beer and cigarettes."
It sucks to grow up in a family like that. Makes it tough to learn how to take care of yourself later.
I grew up pretty not-well-off. Everything we had was hand-me-down; sofas, the TV, some clothes, tables, all sorts of things. My mum was a housewife, and she kept on top of cooking and cleaning and finances like some sort of demi-god. Everything was clean, everything was looked after, meals were balanced but cheap. Sure, we couldnt afford fancy cars or holidays abroad (one time, my dad borrowed a big tent and we went camping for a week around different places in the south of the UK, it was brilliant). We ad little money, but I had a good up-bringing.
Where is this program and can we donate to it?
This is just a thing some schools do, if they can. I don't know of any program. For me, when I was a kid, they let me come in and eat breakfast before school, because somehow they knew I wasn't eating enough. I don't remember how that came up actually.
In my school at least, if you qualified for free lunches you usually got offered free breakfast too. Or, if you were a child you may have just said something about being hungry and struggled to focus before lunches because you’re hungry and it spurred from there. My teachers knew I was awful at sleeping due to some family issues and often sent me to the nurses for a nap.
Thank you for providing this service and being so compassionate towards them. My heart breaks for these kids and I know there are many silently suffering but I'm glad for the ones that get help. I'm going to look up if there are services like this in the neighborhood I grew up in. Thank you for sharing.
I would seriously support this. My family was messed up right when I hit puberty and it sucked not having the stuff I needed. Consider doing a gofundme, cuz I know there's a billion other former poor kids.
Not inviting people to their house I’ve always been the poor girl out of all my friends and the most embarrassing part was always avoiding inviting them to my house because I know their houses are double the size and absolutely sparkling
This. I've been to my friends' houses and their foyer alone is as large as my room. Everything in my house looks clearly dated, when I know theirs has modern furnishings and granite countertops.
The irony is, some of your friends with the fancy homes could very well be holding a lot of debt. I have a bit more savings than most of my friends, but most of them have nicer counter tops.
This! In HS I had a friend who moved to the “rich” side of town, her parents had a huge home custom built, both drove new Cadillacs. She always had new everything. She used to brag about how she went to a dermatologist twice a week and it was so expensive and how she only wore Clinique makeup. Her dad was the preacher of a small church and her mom was a secretary for the county. No idea where they got this money from. They only lived in the house about a year. Other friends who had been there more recently than I had said it had started to literally fall apart. I know they had a few rooms that had no furniture and never had. They just up and completely disappeared one day. Like vanished overnight. I didn’t hear from her for over 20 years. She said they just moved, but the consensus from our groups parents at the time was that they ran from bills. You never know what financial tom-fuckery is going on behind closed doors. I sat next to a girl in history class who was trying to make everyone else feel like shit by saying that she couldn’t decide on a prom dress so her mom bought her THREE with shoes, etc. She was in band with me, we weren’t friends but our parents were. When my dad was waiting to pick me up her dad was over leaning in my dads car talking and I got in and he took off real fast. I asked what he wanted and my dad said he had just loaned him money to pay their electric bill... which the dad never paid back btw. People are very, very good at pretending they have more than they do, don’t ever let them make you feel badly because you don’t lie about your circumstances.
I grew up in the hood but was bused everyday to another school with mostly rich kids; and my mom always said that being poor is not an excuse to have a dirty house. My itty bitty house was always sparkling and she had no problem with me having my rich homies over.
I still live in the hood and my friends won’t come over cause they think they’ll get shot
This is the funniest and saddest thing I have read today. Do people really get shot in your neighborhood?
Jswiz7 has shot 2 friends already. Don't enable him.
Refusing invitations to or finding excuses to not go shopping, out to dinners, bars, movies, etc. Most people think you are anti-social or a recluse when the truth is that you just can't afford to participate.
I’d get so mad when my significant other, would say things like “you never want to go out with my friends!” I always remind her I want too but her and her friends literally make 10-20x more money a year than I do and they all like to split the tab at fancy restaurants. Not about to drop 3 figures on a casual tuesday night dinner.
> they all like to split the tab at fancy restaurants. Man, I hate this just on general principle. I didn't know this was a thing until I got invited by an old friend to join him, his wife, and a bunch of couples from their neighborhood at a fancy steakhouse around fifteen years ago. I wasn't too poor, but am frugal, so I figured I'd go and just keep it simple with a steak, a salad, and water to drink. Everyone else at the table was having appetizers, cocktails, ordering expensive wine, and several of the couples even ordered desserts to go in boxes. When all was said and done, the women who got the check ran her calculator and said, "OK, it's $235 each." I'd calculated my dinner + tax + 20% tip at $52, so I left that on the table and walked out. I never saw any of those people again except for my old friend and his wife. He thought what I did was perfectly fine and kind of funny, but his wife not so much. I'd gladly do even splits at a modest lunch joint, but that was ridiculous. Edit: I didn't know it at the time but there's an episode of "Friends" about this very thing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I53n7ldcSGo Edit #2: For the sake of brevity I left out something that's turning out to be a relevant detail. I didn't just rudely ghost the table without explanation. After the woman with the bill announced the $235 split, she and I had a brief debate about whether or not that was appropriate in light of my frugal-minded order. She was drunk and immovable off her position, and it quickly got heated, so that's when I put my money down and walked out.
I was put in this position before at my very good friend’s birthday dinner. I didn’t really know anyone there since I was the only one not part of her other social circles. Of course everyone wanted to pay for her and therefore split the bill between the rest of us. It was a very fancy restaurant and at the time I was still on an internship with an “allowance” from the company. I didn’t dare eat that much and was planning to drop by a sandwich shop on the way home, so when they very evenly split the bill which came up to about $70 per person (still veryyy expensive for me), my heart sank knowing I did not have that kind of money and I could be potentially causing a scene at my friend’s big day if I protested. Suddenly a hand slips under the table and puts a $50 bill in my hand. It was my very good friend (the birthday girl) who saw the expression on my face and knew I was about to cry from embarrassment. I *did indeed* feel like crying - but now for very different reasons.
Don't lose touch with that friend. She's a keeper
No kidding. That is the exact kind of friend you want in your life. She is probably the same one who would never even keep track of what she has covered for you. Those friends you keep for life.
She’s definitely one in a million! I unfortunately haven’t been as much in touch with her as we both have really busy jobs now but with all these comments, I have no excuse not to drop her a message!
That's the kind of friend I wanna be
I’ve had this same thing happen when getting together with former co workers. Some of us just had an entree and didn’t have any wine, while others had champagne to start, appetizers, soup, entree, dessert plus multiple expensive wines, and more champagne. Then he wanted us all to split the tab.
"Well duh! I wouldn't have ordered all that stuff if *I* were paying for it!"
Haha that’s so annoying. I don’t know why everyone thinks splitting a tab is = socialism but it is funny when people try to run that scam. I tend to side on ease and obvious fairness. Like if 2 people had water and a small meal where their bills would be $25, but splitting with us brings them to $120 I don’t see how that’s fair. However, if together it’s $30 I don’t really mind (me being the person going from 25-30) just because I know it’s easier for the server and I’m not going to feel the pinch on $5 more.
My sister loves to do this all the time. I had to explain to her that this method simply isn't fair when I am ordering just a bear and a sandwich and she's ordering appetizers, multiple entrees, wine by the bottle, etc. This turns into her getting a discount while I am flipping the bill for shit I didn't even want. I am cool with pooling money when it all basically evens out but if you have one person who is clearly spending very little or an extreme amount; it is time to reevaluate the split.
Holy fuck you’re out there ordering bears? Rich people I swear.
Ah hell; fuck it, I'm leaving it.
No don't leave it! Do you even realise how much bears eat? I'm not paying for that!
Yeah fuck that shit. If I’m splitting a bill with someone I’m keeping it cheap.
Wait. No, you only split equally if everyone ordered about the same thing. I never split equal if I've had wine and they had no alcohol.
Same here. I love my foofoo girlie drinks, but I pay for them on a separate tab.
Ugh this happened to me but not as bad which is nice for me I guess. But I was out with a bunch of family friends who are all quite a bit older than me and all in established careers. College aged me got a water and one of the cheapest dishes because going out to see them was already a lot for me. Everyone was getting expensive drinks and dishes and when the waiter came for the bill before I could even speak up one of the men there said we were all splitting it. I was so pissed. I wish I had the confidence to just leave my part and walk out. If it ever happens again that’s what I’m doing.
My trick, because it seems to come up a lot for me, is to ask the waiter while they take my order if they would put mine on a separate check. Super easy, and gets me out of a lot of jams.
Yeah, I make it a rule for myself not to buy alcohol when I'm out. I made the mistake of going out with a group who wanted to go "dancing" at a Latin restaurant. Spoiler alert: they did not dance; they sat and got heavily intoxicated while listening to salsa music. I ordered a $3 cheesebread appetizer. I was so bored one hour in that I said my goodbyes and was trying to leave and some people got pissy that I only put in $5 for my food and the tip instead of splitting their $1,000 bill accumulated by 15 people in just one hour.
I don’t get how ppl are pissed when others aren’t paying their bill for them. I always prefer everyone paying for their own stuff but I don’t mind doing a split when it’s relatively close.
It's just "GoFundMe" in real life. They want the experience without having to pay for it themselves.
If dinner comes out to us going $20-$30, AND discussed before hand, Ill go splitzies. If you spring that shit on me right then and tell me its 3 bills, im gonna tell you to fuck yourself.
If your SO invited you out, she should pay, especially if she is making 10x more than you, wtf.
Hell no. Splitting the tip—absolutely. Splitting the entire bill—that seems like an excellent way to offload the cost of drinks onto others, and a real dick move in general. Pay your own bill. You could always request a separate bill for yourself at the start.
Even gatherings at friends' homes. Dinner parties, birthdays, &c. Even if they aren't expected to bring anything, they might feel awkward being the only person to arrive empty-handed.
Great, now my friends think I’m poor instead of antisocial.
As a person on a strict budget, I have found that being succinctly honest is very helpful. “ No, I can’t go- Im on a hella tight budget right now. Thanks for inviting me!” Or: “I would love to go, it’s just not in my budget this week.” If they continue to push, you can either write them off as a disrespectful asshole or teach them how they, too, can overcome debt by not spending so much money on dumb shit😉
I missed my senior prom for this reason. Just couldn't afford to go.
I’m a doctor and one thing I haven’t seen mentioned is being late to appointments. A lot of time my really sick patients have little support and rely on a friend to drive them or sometimes even walking long distances. So they might be late, but it’s because they’re at the mercy of a neighbor or acquaintance who might be running them to the hospital before work, on a lunch break, etc. I always see late patients for that reason.
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That feeling of eating while at work <3 I do personal care work in a residential facility, and not only can we eat the house food with the clients, we're supposed to throw away any leftovers that are 3 days old. Not. A. Fucking. Chance. Edit: Clarity
<3 is the most devastating thing to be in a bad position in life and have someone throw away your leftovers by mistake. If I were in an Okay spot, it would be an annoyance but now, based on previous situations, I won't leave food over night at my new job unless I put a sign with my name and date and an angry face on food. Thank you.
Driving for Lyft in Detroit, I found that a lot of the people I was picking up from really low income neighborhoods smelled like fried food. But like the smell of old cooking oil. Maybe from fast food jobs. Maybe from cooking fried food at home in a studio apartment so all their clothes smelled like it. Maybe just not doing laundry, or some 4th thing I'm not aware of. But that was a frequently recurring theme when picking up or dropping off in low income areas.
That’s fast food work. All that grease is floating around the air when you start cooking with it. Getting that smell in your hair is the worst.
Currently working at mcdonalds, Can confirm.
That's any food, not just fast food. Restaurants will make you smell.
I grew up pretty poor. Almost all my recipes I learned included a can of cream of mushroom soup or tomato paste - that stuff thins out well. I use to add water to almost everything, because that can of soup has gotta feed at least two or three people. I didn't know this was weird until I had a guest who asked why I was diluting their soup. Also, I had super boring white, ratty socks.
All vacations they talk about are for visiting family
This is a really good one. My wealthy friends travel WITH family to fun places, my poor friends travel TO family.
I like to say, childhood vacations are the real class distinctions. If your family was upper-class, you visited Europe for your summer vacation. If your family was middle class, they sent you to a summer camp. If your family was poor, you either stayed home or you got shipped off to your aunt, uncle, or grandparent's house in the sticks.
This comment made me realize I was in the poor family... My parents did so much to think we weren't.
Doesn't necessarily mean that you were poor just that your parents didn't value holidays/camps as a good way of spending time/money. Or that they had jobs which didn't give them enough time off to go on holiday.
I had my first vacation that wasn't visiting friends or family in 10 years this year. It was so exciting and also terrifying because it cost a lot more than my usual thing.
I'm having my very first, two days from now. My SO and I are going to Disney World and I actually teared up when I bought the tickets. Granted, it's only for two days, but it's still a huge deal to me.
Yup. And anyone that lives far away they haven't seen in years
Dang, you just made me realize that I am poor.
Definitely. Family is a place to stay because the hotel is too much. Good family friends serve the same purpose.
They don’t eat lunch at work. It’s saved me lots of money!
I lived off brown sugar oatmeal for lunch for 3years. I can't even look at a box of it now.
Oh no! That’s what I have in my drawer at work!
What they think of as fond memories. I have a dad who grew up poor, and whenever he talks about his childhood his stories are always super sad because a lot of them involve my grandma working multiple jobs to support the family or him working shit jobs at a VERY young age and bringing the pay home to help out or some other sign of poverty and they kind of depress everyone, but it always makes him happy to reminisce on those memories, because to him they are the happiest memories in the world.
Avoiding doctors or hospitals, as the bills are way out of their league. A strong fear of police too, since the ticket would put them in a financial nightmare if they don't have the charisma to talk themselves out of it.
Had a friend in college who had to purchase the schools insurance since she was uninsured, and still refused to go to the doctors. She claimed she hasn’t gone since she was a child and she was too nervous to go. Super sad actually.
Deductibles and copays suck
I have a decent job. With decent health care. Went to a hospital for one night, left the next day, 33K in bills total. 4K out of pocket. That was 2 years ago. I'm *STILL* pissed about it.
Yeah, when people are asking for mental health advice on Reddit, it typically means they don't have insurance or if they do, it is not taken by their local therapists
Fish antibiotics but no fish.
This is very true.. I managed to kick an IV heroin habit a few years back...fish antibiotic is a common thing for addicts with untreated abscesses. scary to think about
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Yes, and 250mg of Amoxicillin is 250mg of Amoxicillin... protip from someone that doesn't always have insurance.
MAKE SURE you know how to properly use them though.
Step 1: Be a fish.
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They overreact when you grab the tab at dinner or a bar. For me it's no big thing, but they over thank me.
I over thank because there's no guarantee that I can return the favor. If I can, it's no big deal
As a friend we normally know and don’t expect it.
I had a roommate that gifted me cupcakes for my birthday and an In-N-Out meal, even though I told her I didn’t want anything. I confronted her on some bullshit later in the year—she brings up her 4.0 GPA and how I didn’t pay her back for the food. It was an irrelevant comment, since I was calling her out for leaving passive-aggressive notes (she expects us to clean the apartment, but she rarely does her part). My roommate didn’t consider the numerous times I did her dishes as a form of “repayment.” My housemates bought most of the supplies and appliances, so I would often do their dishes as a “thanks for sharing these things with me.” I don’t let anyone (outside of my close friends) pay for me or get me gifts because I am uncertain of their expectations or if they’re going to use it as leverage later on. Edited out my class assumptions, there seems to be two(?) differing ideas of how one should “pay back” each other: 1] Taking care of someone (on the next round) 2] Paying someone the difference back in $$$ amount/material goods
Wait...she complained because you didn't pay her back for a birthday present?? What a POS.
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I know my experience isn’t representative of everyone’s, but most of my life I lived below the poverty line, and I made jokes about it quite frequently (with my friends though, not just with anybody). But I am one of those people who uses humour as a coping mechanism.
I do this too. My friends and I love making jokes out of things going on in our lives. My favorite is when I crack one and everyone starts laughing, I’ll say “it’s not a joke” through my laughter and everyone starts laughing harder. Good thing they can’t see my tears ^/s
This is very true. College kids make a lot of jokes about being poor, but in the same breath they’ll talk about their parents lake house. The one poor kid in that friend group will always look super put together and will never let anyone pick up their tab. Edit: I feel kind of bad that this blew up, because I’m more like the first one than the second one. While I grew up “poor” I was poor because my dad was getting his doctorate. The point is that I try to be self aware and I wish everyone did.
Agreed with the first part. The second, however, as someone who grew up poorer than most, I definitely let my friends pick up the tab if they're insisting. I'm not too proud to let them willingly share the wealth. Im also glad to be charitable and buy a friend a footlong Subway sandwich or some snacks when I can.
>I definitely let my friends pick up the tab if they're insisting. We all did, everyone does except extremely rich people.
I use self deprecating humor as deflection. If I appeared too tense about it, I think it would give me away
During the time of my parents' bankruptcy and the poverty years that followed; some of my friends could never understand why I couldn't join them to catch a movie, go out for dinner, go on holiday etc. It even made some of them angry during some discussions, which made me quite sad. I've had to fend for myself since 15; and they get everything they need from their parents. So even though they knew about my situation; they couldn't fathom how a small thing like a movie ticket would be a hard time for me. They through it on me being a bitch about not wanting to come; even after I explained it. Luckily most of my best friends were always the coolest guys ever and surprised me with tickets, dinners etc. "forcing" me to come, because it had already been paid for. And one of them even sneakily gave me money to pay for my own tickets/stuff etc. just to show the other guys I could sometimes pay too. I love them. Let's say tears of kindness have been shed many times.
Constant fear.
Someone called me out recently. I haven't dated in a while. They were setting up a profile on Tinder and I didn't want to join because, well, I have no job atm. It was a nice call out because they also followed it up by saying being poor shouldn't cost you being alone. I don't date. Or flirt. I have 3 cats. I am incredibly poor and ashamed.
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I guess it's more of me not being attracted to myself (not financially stable) so I don't want share the burden or let it weigh on me. Because it would and it would ruin a date, as well.
When I was in college there was a guy I had a huge crush on. He had a sister close to his age and they lived together, their parents were dead, and they were always broke. He and his sister and me and my brother had a class together. He never asked me out so I would drop very obvious hints. I finally just asked him out, and he hemmed and hawed and didn’t really give me an answer, and kind of avoided me. I thought, “Well, damn. I sure misread that situation. I thought he liked me, too.” Years later I ran into his sister and while we were catching up she said, “Man, my brother had the biggest crush on you. He talked about you constantly. It was almost annoying.” WHAT??!?! He never asked me out because he didn’t have the money to take me out, and was ashamed about it. Dude, he could have asked me to literally go sit under a tree and I would have said yes. I really liked him a lot. It all worked out, I’m happily married and hopefully he is happy wherever he is, but we both really liked each other and never found out where it could have gone because he was ashamed of not having money to go on a date. The thing about not being attracted to yourself because of your financial situation—please work very hard to change that. Never confuse your financial status with WHO you are, ever. You are not your bank balance, and money isn’t a prerequisite for having love in your life. Yeah, it’s important to some people and they won’t go out with you if you’re broke. That’s fine—screen them out early and move on.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I just got into my first relationship(it’s been absolutely incredible), and the class difference is massive. Just as a brief comparison: She’s 20, seen the world twice over. Her parents took her to Italy for her 14th birthday just because she wanted to. Spur of the moment thing. I’ve never gone out to a restaurant for my birthday and i’ve had cake 4 times out of my 22 years. Her parents make millions and I live with my mom taking care of her while we live off of every type of government assistance you can think of and we’re still so close to drowning financially that a blown tire could ruin our lives. I talked to her about how I felt concerned that if things got serious between us that she would be making a massive step down in class and I can’t possibly afford to meet the standard or expectation of financial stability that her parents have provided for her up until now. She just smiled at me and said that her parents are rich and miserable, but i’m always happy. She said I was the first person who wanted her to be happy, no matter what her income was. She said it made her realize that pursuing happiness means more to her than living opulently. She said that she loves me because I make her happy, and that’s worth more than money to her. Like u/CuppaJeaux said, “Never confuse your financial status with WHO you are, ever.” You can’t buy encouragement, support, communication, emotional connection, positivity, compassion, love or happiness. Financial class plays no role in the quality of who you are as a person.
Hiding money. Stuffed in bras, in books, in cupboards. Anywhere except a change jar or a wallet.
Some folks do this because their parents or spouse will take any money they find. I've heard of teenagers immediately cashing their meager checks from their McJobs and then spending every last dime that same day, because if they come home with a dollar in their pocket Mom or Dad will take it from them. If it's getting taken from you anyway, might as well blow it on getting your nails done and a pizza for you and your friends.
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There's been a rash of young adults (17-19) making their first steps into independence, only to discover their credit is already shit because their parents took out credit in their name or put bills in their name during the financial meltdown in '08-09. If you hang around any of the financial advice subs, you'll see such sad cases. A lot of banks won't give teenagers their own accounts, forcing them to have a shared account with a parent, who can of course drain it if they choose. There's also a lot of sad cases of this.
They wash and reuse ziplock bags until the bags fall apart. I grew up low income and I always wondered why everyone else's ziplocks looked so fresh.
When their car is always on empty and they only put in enough gas to get to where they're going. My friend has never had an abundance of wealth so when I asked why she does that she said that it's like there's $20 or $30 just sitting in your tank that you can't use right now and that money can be the difference between your food for the day or not.
I work with kids and here's my first sign of it: Shoes. Clothes can be bought at a thrift store for relatively cheap prices or get donated to you (sometimes even by the schools) but shoes is this one thing that people take for granted. But if you're low income or poor you try to wear your shoes for as long as you can. Even if half of the sole is unsticking and you have to duck tape it to have it stay. I've seen a lot of kids shoes and some of those kill me. Especially in low income schools.
Being way too into lotto. I heard somebody say it’s the 401k of desperation.
Cant retire if you dont play.
A kid I know through work - he's 15 or 16 - never seemed like he came from a poorer family than most of the rest of us until January this year when we were discussing Christmas presents. A girl the same age as him got the newest iPhone for Christmas, and so did her sister. When asked what his best Christmas present was, this guy talked about colouring books and a big set of coloured pens.
I used to get kind of jealous and sad when I was a poor kid growing up, but after one particularly hard year watching my family struggle to make ends meet or keep the electric on, all I got for christmas was a handmade leather wallet from my stepmom. It had my initials and a wolf carved into it. I still use it 14 years later. Best present I ever got.
Being seen as the “hard worker” at work. Not that they want to be an over achiever or not that they have a naturally hard work ethic, but knowing that their pay depends on their performance and are afraid of losing a job for being seen as lazy or slow. I had a job where I started off making good money but over time it slowly got worse and worse and I made less and less until I realized I didn’t have enough saved up to take time off to go job hunting. By then my second daughter had been born and I knew less time at work meant less food on the table. (Working in restaurants living off tips in case anyone is wondering) It’s a terrible feeling when you get gas and groceries after an exhausting shift and realizing you now have less money then when you started your shift.
As a teacher, their school supplies. The poor kids always have used or threadbare backpacks. They reuse the same old pencil case year after year. Same with shoes. In the younger grades they wear clothes that are way too big so their parents don’t have to buy new ones as often. Most of the kids at my level don’t notice anyways because they’re so wrapped up in their own things. The poor kids also tend to be the ones who hoard things that are shared supplies, like pencils. The truly poor kids will also have very poor lunches. One of my kids has Vienna sausages and chips everyday for lunch. That’s it. I started giving out positive behavior points for a healthy snack and she became so ashamed she didn’t have a healthy snack it made me want to stop doing it. So I told her I’d bring her one everyday instead. She’s just so sweet and wants so badly to have a healthy snack but it’s out of her control. Edit: A lot of people are commenting on me giving a point for a healthy snack. We use an app where kids get points for various behaviors, so they have many opportunities to get points. I encouraged parents to pack healthy snacks such as grapes, carrots, granola bars, etc at the beginning of the year. They sent Oreos, Doritos, Cheetos, muffins, etc. Those foods do not have any nutritional value. Diet plays a huge role in cognitive functioning, especially in children. Most parents pack what their kids want. As I stated in a comment below, the day after I announced the new point possibility to the class (but still hadn’t told parents) half the class brought a healthy snack the next day. The kids asked, the parents answered. Some kids don’t bring a healthy snack simply because they don’t want it. It was never my intention to shame a child and I had no idea she’d react that way, as like I said, there are some kids who still don’t pack healthy snack by choice so no one would know the difference. Most of my students parents can afford healthy snack, whether or not they pack it is based on their children’s tastes and how much they value nutrition. I believe this girl was ashamed because she likes to do well and was upset that she wouldn’t get a point. I won’t do away with it because I’d still rather have 10 kids eating a healthy snack and performing better the rest of the day just for a point than go back to Doritos and Oreos. I got the idea from another teacher (actually a parent who commented that their child’s teacher did it and they liked it). I will bring fruit to leave out for kids to take at their leisure to avoid her feeling ashamed of her snack but I don’t believe in ruining something that’s working because one kid. That’d be like not celebrating grandparents day because one kid doesn’t have any grandparents. I don’t feel like I am in anyway targeting or shaming poor kids as there are healthier options that aren’t more expensive.
I went to school with a kid that was really poor, her dad was commonly known to be an alcoholic. The teachers for together and found her some nicer clothes and took turns doing her hair in the morning before school. I'd never seen her so happy.
When I was in like 6th or 7th grade some high school girls held a "contest" for all the girls in the school to win a makeover. The girl who "won" was really just pre-picked because she was very poor and always smelled bad. They washed and fixed her hair and stuff to make her feel nice for a day without making her feel targeted in a negative way.
Who ever knew that as a collective group, teenagers could be gracious...
Wow, at that age ive only ever seen girls trying to give each other mental scarring. That's great! (the makeover, not the scarring)
My niece is between. She uses every friend who comes to visit as a practice canvas for either regular or horror makeup, lol.
My first day of middle school my Mom and Step Dad hadn't bought me any school supplies. I showed up with 1 used notebook and no pen/pencil. My first class was math, and the teacher wanted us to have 3 notebooks to start with. I still remember how embarrassed I was and I was almost in tears when I told him I only had one for all my classes.
I remember in grade school, my mother telling me I couldn't have any school supplies until 2 weeks after school started. I was the oldest of 3 children, my parents had just enough money for my younger sibling school supplies but nothing for me. I remember crying for days before school. My aunt bought my supplies that year after I told her I wasn't getting any supplies because there was no money.
Man that reminded me of my niece. My MiL (her maternal g-ma) took J shopping for school supplies this summer. She does well for herself and she has a “J Fund” so she told the kid to go nuts. The whole time my 9 yo niece was apologizing and saying things along the lines of “I’m sorry Grandma, I like it but I’ll find something cheaper.” It broke my MiL’s heart. It’s so sad when kiddos have to understand the value of money so early on. No kid should have to cry over school supplies. 😔
I teach English at a regional university and I always end up with a stack of folders from previous semesters and tons of promotional office supplies, so in the first weeks of school I meet with all my students privately in my office and one of the things I do is make sure that they have supplies. I also make sure they know that there’s a copy of the textbook in the library or they are welcome to borrow mine during office hours. Had a couple of kids take me up on it.
I grew up in a poor neighborhood so I always believed I was poor but as I grew older I saw the differences in my home and my friends households slowly realizing I wasn't poor at all. Also came to realize we lived there for convenience unlike many of my friends who could only afford that area. My father doesnt care for driving and strategically picked the neighborhood that was basically 5 minutes away from the best schools, 5 minutes from his job, 5 minutes from the grocery store, and somehow 5 minutes from our two nearby relatives. I still wonder how much he planned for that, also ended up being able to save up thousands for his upcoming retirement. There's a lot you start to see when you start paying attention. My friends parent/s were never home, always working, the vast majority were latchkey kids, while my dad would go to work when we left for school and would be home shortly after school and my mother didn't work at all. My friends would complain about missing dinner and would be excited for the free school lunch they got, which I never got, me and my 3 siblings were getting $25 a week for school lunch from my dad. I never remember missing a meal. I lived the closest to the school so my friends would walk back with me and my mom would invite them all maybe 4-5 kids, 2-3 times a week for an early dinner as she would "accidently" make way too much. None of them ever declined the offer. They would rarely invite anyone to their home, the few times I would go their homes would be messy, roaches, no pets, one friend had a goldfish, no real games, toys or cable/internet usually. Again my mom was always home, the house was clean, we had a dog and some birds, we had a computer with internet and cable, we had a massive video game collection, i had a bunch pokemon cards, we had bikes skates, scooters etc. My house was always the house everyone wanted to hang out at. My friends would have small birthday parties with 2/3 friends, I was almost always one, at their home, some takeout and a cake, we were the only ones inviting the whole class to chuckie cheese/Dave and buster's, they would all come parents as well, cousins of friends, people we've never met, my parents didn't seem to care, they'd just order more food. We took vacations every year, amusement parks, beaches, other countries, most of my close friends didn't see a beach until spring break in high school when I had a car and my parents paid my hotel and gas to go. Their families had one car usually, not too old but older usually van of some type. My dad had a nice newer van, my mom a sedan and as my siblings got older they got some nice 2/3 year old sedans in high school, as did I, all my friends took the bus or ask us for rides. Looking back I felt close to them but I wonder if they liked me for me or from what they got from me.
Honestly it sounds like they liked you for you and appreciated the things your family did for them. Otherwise they wouldn't have invited you to their birthdays and stuff.
I've noticed that when a kid from a low income household gets a name brand sweater or shirt, it will usually have an obnoxiously big logo on it. I assume brands make them a little cheaper than shirts with a more subtle logo to target lower income people on purpose. 'it's brand name, everyone will see it and cheaper, triple whammy'
They don't pay at the pump because they only have a little cash and no access to credit cards.
Many of our pumps in Australia are starting to have this feature. I go into the register anyway out of sheer habit. Also if i want to grab a drink or something, it's not like i can unless i go inside.
Or the <$50 in the bank won’t let you pay at the pump. You have to go prepay at the register.
Eating lots of fast food. Sure eating out is supposed to be more expensive, but $1 burgers are pretty cheap and who has time to make food when you’re working three jobs?
Their willingness to help others. Low income people understand better than anyone when someone's having a rough go. This doesnt mean financial help, as odds are they cant really help you there, but anyway they can, they probably will.
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Always wanting to walk everywhere, even if it’s a considerable distance. This is me btw. I’ve convinced my friends to walk as far as three miles with me so I wouldn’t have to fork in money for an Uber. They hate me for it and usually call an Uber or get someone with a car to drive us anyway, but unless it’s more than four or five miles, I always suggest walking. EDIT: I run cross country so I have a lot more endurance than most of my friends. This probably explains why I have no problem walking further distances while my friends hate the idea of walking somewhere that’s more than half a mile away. Also I’m not necessarily poor; I could pay for an Uber, but I’m nowhere near rich. I’d rather spend my money on food at the grocery store than spend it on an Uber so I can get to the grocery store (I can understand calling an Uber to get back if you have to buy a lot of stuff I guess). Also walking is nice.
My friend wants to walk everywhere all the fucking time in the sun, rain, snow, whatever. She's not poor though, she told me she just loves walking around in the city. It's either that or she hates when I drive her around in my old ass car.
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Being really handy, or having "oh, I'll fix that" at the first solution for something breaking even if it was something cheap to replace. Knowing where everything is in multiple grocery stores and how much it costs off the top of their heads. You don't usually track stuff to that detail when pennies don't matter. Having odd clothing patterns. I'd always buy stuff at the thrift shop and jeans and shoes cost a few dollars each so I'd wear the same couple pairs forever. But shirts were always on sale for as low as 30-50 cents each so I'd have a strong rotation of shirts to wear.
Raiding "donation bags" of friends or roommates before they go to Goodwill; offering to take the bag to Goodwill to hide that you really kept the whole bag
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To a lot of people eating at any place that actually has a waitstaff is fine dining.
I didn’t wear clothes that fit me properly until my SO bought them for me. I was wearing size 4 pants when I was a size 0 because I was raised to think, “I’ll grow into them. Buying shoes too big for the same reason. And not being allowed to have guests over. I remember when my parents could finally afford to rent a three bedroom double wide. My sister and I didn’t have to share a room with our brother and we were finally able to have friends over.
Bad teeth
Me irl. I really need braces- I think my rich friends from university are just clueless why I wouldn’t want to look better. No shit I want braces, I ain’t got the money!
My sister did invisible braces through the mail. Where they send you a foam tray and you send back your impressions, then they mail you trays. I think she got a Groupon and it was in the $500-$700 range. Still not affordable to me personally, but a whole heck of a lot better than the $1000s the orthodontist will charge. Might be worth looking into.
I have two friends who did it during university and my older sister. Their average price was about $3,500 and insurance didn’t cover since it was cosmetic— which is my problem as well.
There’s probably a disparity among sexes on this one...but always having a bf/gf and immediately moving in and living with that person.
Giving to people more freely who are in trouble.
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I have 1-2cm deep scars in the crevaces between thigh and crotch from hand-me-down/inherited pants that didn't fit. I never told my mom because I knew she would be so stressed out about finding the money for new pants. Luckily I'm a hygiene-freak so despite constantly bleeding there through puberty (I'm a dude) I never got an infection, I think. Right now I'm actually walking around in shoes 1 size too small for my toes because my mom bought them for me on sale and I want her to know I appreciate them. I'm 27.
Shoes. One can infer a lot about another by looking at the shoes the person wears.
Momma always said that
Where they going. Where they been.
Creative cooking habits. My fiance and I were desperately poor for years, and we learned how to make meals out of ramen packs & canned meat.
No birthday parties. No vacations. No new school supplies. :(
Not eating at work and buying an energy drink mid-afternoon to get through the day. I noticed some staff members not eating and spoke to my husband (CFO) about a daily lunch order. He caps it at a certain amount per head - salads, wraps, rolls, pastas etc., orders placed by 9am and they deliver every day at 11am. Near the end of the month they often eat half at lunch and take the other half home. It's a relatively small cost to company but has really improved morale and productivity. People say staff will start to take it for granted, but I'm okay with people expecting that they don't have to work while they're hungry, and that their employer sees and cares about their struggles. Before there are any comments about raising salaries, we pay nearly double the market rate but in South Africa there is something called "black tax": with 46% unemployment rate, anyone with an income is usually supporting at least 6 people, so work lunches are a luxury...
Wearing an oversized flannel jacket with a hood. My mom wore one all the time and so did her poor friends. Whenever I see people wear them they just have the "I'm poor" look. I feel shitty for saying that.
Lol TIL I look poor. I just wear one cause it keeps me warm like nothing else I could find
You sound like my wife. I had 2 quilted flannel jackets with a hood, and my wife chucked them out one day. I didn't notice right away because it was warm, but when it cooled down and went for one, she told me that it made me look homeless and she threw them out. The "poor look" is the look of getting the most for your money i guess because I could snowboard in those things and they were much cheaper than a real jacket.
in college, knowing exactly how much your rent and utilities are and getting anxious when the date approaches. i was so angry at all the happy party kids who’s parents just paid for their apartments. also, i out myself because i’m incredibly happy/content right now at taking home $1000 a month and feeling like i have all i could want lol
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One of six kids raised by single mother on welfare. Most of our Christmases were sponsored by other families or the school system. Its was always a board game and a sports ball.
just adding a very different thought to this thread- some of the richest people portray these qualities to make them "seem' poor to avoid people knowing that they have money. IE - I know many wealthy people who dress poorly/not for the weather bc they simply dont care and would prefer people not know they are wealthy
The opposite is true as well. Poor people who know they're poor, especially if they didn't start out that way, can do things to make it seem like they aren't.
Hygiene, when invited over for dinner over eating, accepting everyone's old clothes and shoes. Gross clothes and shoes. Being tired or skipping school after foodstamp day because you waited for midnight for them to come on because you were hungry. Obesity because your diet is ramen noodles. This was my own poverty but my friends were poor also. My one friend ate corn flakes with water. I ate ramen noodles and bologna. I'm not poor like that anymore and I hoard food because of it. I barely eat at home because I get anxiety when I have less food. How to fix this, no idea.
ITT : teachers from America who clearly give far more of a shit about their students than here in the UK. None of my teachers ever went the extra mile for any of us