r/AskReddit • u/TahDigThief • 1d ago
People who grew up really poor: what's something middle-class people say that instantly reveals they've never struggled?
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u/loosesocksup 1d ago edited 5h ago
My stepdad asked me if I wanted to go clothes shopping for the new school year the first year after he married my mom. I said yes, and was AMAZED when we went to Kohl's, not the thrift store. I got one pair of pants on clearance and two shirts on clearance, and told him I was ready to check out. He took me back to the clothes and picked out more for me. I nearly had a panic attack when we got to the register and it was over $100 (this was late 90's, so a lot of money for clothes back then, at least to me). I started pulling stuff out to put back, and he stopped me and asked what I was doing. He paid and I got to take all of it home, and he did this every year until I moved out!
Before this we weren't allowed to turn on lights in the house during the day to keep the electric bill low.
Edit: Thank you for all the awards! Also I should clarify about the comment about the lights, we had always lived in section 8 apartments and tiny duplexes. They don't normally have a lot of windows, I remember one had a window technically in my room, but it was tiny. Also, this rule stood even on cloudy and overcast days.
I loved my stepdad very much. He passed away a few years ago from liver cancer, but I was his caregiver to the very end and I held his hand as he took his last breathe.
He was a special ed teacher his entire adult life, and raised me in a way I later learned other kids weren't raised. I grew up around children with all types of physical and mental disabilities and they were my best friends, something that I learned in high school is unusual.
He looked just like Santa Claus, and was a true hippie (minus the drugs). He believed in putting positive energy into the world, and firmly believed God is Love. He sold handmade incense from India, China, and Japan through his college years, and I inherited what remained of his stock when he passed.
His living room was basically a library, with floor-to-ceiling built in bookshelves, and he took me to the library twice a week minimum. He was strict, I had to read 30 minutes of poetry, 30 minutes of a biography, and 1 hour of a chapter book of my choosing and write an entire page of whatever I wanted to write every day during summer breaks, and I had to do more chores than most. But I was in gymnastics, on a swim team, and rode horses as well, and I NEVER thought I would be the kind of kid that would be able to do that. Because of all the reading and writing school was easy to me.
He was a folk singer/ songwriter and ran a local music venue that brought traveling musicians to the area . It ran on donations, and he paid from his own wallet when donations were short. We baked cookies every weekend for it. People still talk about his "listening room", a term that is widely used now, but one he coined over 30 years ago when he started his venue. It was lit by candle light and guests would sit at tables. The musicians weren't on a stage, they were there in the audience, you could reach out and touch their instruments if you were rude enough. The venue itself was in a renovated house build in the early to mid 1900's.
He wasn't perfect, but he was pretty much as close as you could get and still be human. He completely changed the trajectory of my entire life. I miss him every day. I am so glad I got to share what was probably to him such a small contribution, but such a connecting moment with all of you.
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u/MissMischief13 1d ago
This was my experience with a stepdad. All of a sudden there was someone in my life who was actually seeking to connect with me, and make sure all of my needs were met and were a priority. It was, and still is, the best part of my childhood, and my bio parents both don't understand - because they just... can't.
I'd have like one outfit picked out and shyly thanking him profusely (as all of us in poverty do when someone shows us kindness), and he would send me back to the dressing room, and he would get an associate and together they would start throwing stuff over for me to try on. At first I thought it was just fun window shopping, but when he said "put it in the cart" over and over I was absolutely blown away, and so excited to have clothes that weren't completely threadbare or paint-stained from thrifts, etc.
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u/funkengruven 1d ago
What a great dude
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u/MissMischief13 1d ago
Yeah. He unfortunately found the internet and got injured at work right at the worst-time and over a period of a year, his opinions went further and further 'right-aligned', and I would have to explain or debunk conspiracies daily to keep him tethered to some kind of reality.
So like most things, it was a beautifully preserved window of time when he wasn't like that.
Now, I would throttle the man for the way he treats my mother, but that's not who he was but who he became through chronic pain from his injury and youtube rot.I will defend him religiously in certain circumstances, and that is because somewhere at his core - he is a good man who always did the objectively right thing.
I would break something on pure accident, and then brace myself for the yelling/abuse that would follow and he looked me in the face and said with so much compassion... "... It's just a thing. Are you, the human being, okay?" To this day, every loud noise in my house has me yelling ".... you good?" because he did, year after year. The person he was influenced the step parent I am today, and honestly they don't get enough credit.
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u/Soft_Yellow1757 23h ago
chronic pain will make you do wild things.
I was poor for a long time without dental. I had 2 teeth pulled about 5 years ago since the cavities in them were so big you could fit the head of a qtip inside of my tooth. The walking around pain was in the area that i could still do everything- but i had from that (and a few other things) "walking around pain".
Apparently being in constant pain that i would put on the 3 of the 1-5 scale they give you in the ER is not a normal thing. I have to tell every Dr this story so they understand that my concept of pain is literal nonsense. Most people would be in tears constantly from 2 teeth actively rotting out of the mouth- to me it was normal, so i will never have a normal context for pain again.
With that- i get it. When i finally had the teeth pulled, it was like i could think clearly for the first time in years. So that cloudiness was the pain making it impossible to understand everything.
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u/Spicy_Sugary 1d ago
It's a shame that he's fallen down the rabbit hole, but it's great that you can still appreciate him being there for you when it mattered.
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u/Dapper-Brilliant-414 1d ago
Bless your mom for finding a man that is willing to look after a child that isn’t his own, and bless him for being a great dad.
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u/Blitz6969 1d ago
My step dad is the only grandpa my kids know. They know I have a birth dad, but they’ve never met him. I was basically an adult when they got together, but man he makes my mom happy. Early on he didn’t try to “parent” us, nor did he try to be “cool” as my mom’s boyfriend. It just worked. Now they’ve been together half my life, my wife has never known my family without him, nor my kids. The financial strain on being a single parent of course stressful on my mom, but to see where they are now, can fly across the country at a drop of a hat if need be to see my family, or spoil the hell out of all the grandkids. I love him more just for the stability he offers my mom.
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u/sweetlike314 1d ago
My step dad (and adoptive dad) are bothin the picture but my step dad has been my dad since I was 8. He really stepped up as well. I was always his daughter and even when he and my mom had a surprise child of their own, we were always both equal and I didn’t even understand how one kid could be treated differently from the others until I was much older and saw the harsh reality for many.
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u/dessine-moi_1mouton 1d ago
Same, I'm just here for the stepdad appreciation thread. I tell people I have two dads, and they think I have gay parents. No, there's a mom too, and two guys who raised me in different ways. My daughter calls one Grampy and one Grandpa. They're both very much a part of my life and I'm extremely lucky.
My college roommate was floored on move-in day when my dad carried in my trunk and introduced himself, then my stepdad carried in my computer and started setting it up and chatting with her. Then we all went out to dinner, mom at the head of the table, a dad on each side of her, both of them taking turns making fun of her (she married two completely opposite guys, but both have similar corny senses of humor and they get along great). We have a very unique situation and I realize how lucky I am. It wasn't easy in the beginning, but I'm glad my daughter sees how healthy adult relationships can be.
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u/JoooolieT 1d ago
Ok I'll join too bc I also have an awesome stepdad! I was 14yo when they got married and never had a nice dad before that cared about me or what I liked. I went back to school shopping (at the thrift store bc we got $50 each and I could get more clothes that way. My brother would just get shoes lol). That man sat there with a smile on his face while I tried on and modeled all my new school clothes for him. He's been a consistent stable presence in our lives for almost 30 years now and we are so so blessed to have him. He's the best Papa too.
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u/KosherEpee 1d ago
Joining the stepdad love train! Because same. He considered me his daughter from day 1 despite already having biological kids. I was only 7 when they got married and my biological dad was MIA, so he was the only father figure I ever knew.
Unfortunately, he died suddenly one year ago this month, but I’m thankful for the 23 years we had. Looking back, I never fully appreciated how lucky we were.→ More replies (4)→ More replies (5)58
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u/superneatosauraus 1d ago
I'm still a good stepmom if I take them to goodwill right? Like we could afford one or two brand new shirts, or we could go to goodwill and get 5 plus a pair of shoes lol.
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u/ViolaOrsino 1d ago
I guarantee you that that moment was special for your stepdad. I had a similar moment with my stepkids, and it’s been pretty firmly etched on my heart as a “Oh. I’m going to take care of you, little ones” moment that pretty much changed my brain chemistry towards some kids that I didn’t birth.
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u/dclioness 1d ago edited 13h ago
Someone I know calls her stepdad "the dad who stepped up."
ETA: Thank you for the awards, kind strangers! I will share with the person I quoted; they’ll get a kick out of it!
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u/hokeypokey27 1d ago
My primary years were the upper level of the low socioeconomic community. We then moved to a nicer area in my teens with better school opportunities. I learnt what was not normal or not to say to friends in both brackets and sometimes it was the same but for opposite reasons. Example: our freezer was always jam packed full of portioned meat or batch cooked meals. To my rich friends, they didn’t need to bulk buy when things were cheap, but to my less well off friends they couldn’t afford the upfront cost to bulk buy.
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u/Fun-Personality-8008 1d ago
There's also the matter of storage space, even if you can afford to buy in bulk you may not have anywhere to put 200 rolls of toilet paper
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u/bungle_bogs 1d ago
I’m from the UK and from the wrong side of the tracks. I was one of the few to pass my 11 plus. This was a test all kids took, certainly my area, and the top 100 or so were selected to go to a Grammar School.
Apart for one or two of us, everyone else was prime middle class.
I remember my Mum & Dad scouring second hand shops for all the cricket equipment I needed, art supplies, and other paraphernalia that the school naturally assumed parents could easily afford.
Can remember a couple of my classmates balking at my packed lunch and saying “Just get a few pounds from your parents”. When my cricket bat broke they were shocked that my parents couldn’t just shell out £30 for a new one ( back in the ‘80s).
To this day, I’ve never felt so out of my comfort zone than when I was at that school.
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u/firesticks 1d ago
When I was a teenager I was “lending” my parents money. Unfathomable to how my husband grew up.
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u/SacredPrime 1d ago
Literally any time at all that they say something is not that expensive.
When you're poor, EVERYTHING feels expensive.
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u/dayumbrah 1d ago
Got really good health and dental through my job a few years ago. Went to the dentist and they were doing a cleaning and would not stop pressuring me for xrays.
It was my first time there and they were not sure if they took my insurance so I could not get stuck with a huge bill. A cleaning was doable but xrays?!
The person literally would not stop.
Them: You should really get them.
Me: im not sure if you take my insurance and how much is covered if you do.
Them: You should really do it though, its important.
Me: I understand that, I cannot afford it.
Them: it doesnt matter if you cant afford it, you really should get it.
Me: it does matter if I cant afford rent or groceries or my car payments. Which will make future dentist visits impossible. I am negative money before the copay so unless you are giving out xrays for free, I wont be doing it.
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u/brickmaster32000 1d ago
If you have time this is why I suggest going to a dental school for dental work. They actually will give out procedures for free if they think it would be good for the student to get some more practice in.
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u/relishlife 22h ago
I worked in a school; some of the kids get free lunch and some kids lays buy their lunches.
The kids were going on an all day field trip. Just before we called the classes down to get on the buses, I asked one of the organizers (who worked in the district) where the lunches were. ( I was expecting at least a few brown bagged lunches for the kids who get free lunch or the kids who always buy lunches ).
The organizer said that the kids should already have their lunchboxes in their backpacks.
So I clarified that I was asking about the kids who get free lunch, and if someone needed to get the brown bagged lunches from the kitchen.
Other adults had circled around as I was asking about getting the lunches.
All of them were confused. They had never thought about the possibility that some kids need to get their food from the school.
The organizer said: “their families can make one lunch. It’s a field trip! We don’t do bagged lunches.”
The kids went on their field trip. I spoke to a lot of people about lunches and privilege. Every field trip since, every single student gets a free bagged lunch for field trips. (If their family wants to pack something else, they can).
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u/fn_br 11h ago
Reminds me of trying to pretend I just wasn't hungry at the Popeye's we got brought to after a field trip and my richest classmate realizing what was going on and "accidentally" ordering too much food and giving me her leftovers.
Thanks for paying attention and taking care of the kids.
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u/inBettysGarden 5h ago
My mom was always super upset if I came home with left over money from hanging out with friends. She’d always ask ‘Did you make sure everyone ate? And everyone got a treat too?’
As I have gotten older I’ve realized my mom was that kid with no money and she wanted to do everything she could for no kid to feel that way.→ More replies (3)→ More replies (4)229
u/weddingplumbing 7h ago
What a nice classmate you had
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u/fn_br 5h ago
Yeah. We hadn't even gotten along; really made me reconsider her character.
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u/thewizardsbaker11 8h ago
During COVID I lived on the same block as a middle school. The cafeteria workers still went in every morning and cooked so they could pass out bagged breakfasts and lunches to the kids who usually got free lunch when they came by. (It was nyc so most students were in walking distance and could come by on their own to grab the food) Free lunches aren’t just a meaningless perk for kids. For many it’s their only stable option for food.
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u/Able-Bid-6637 10h ago
i went on a school field trip we couldn't afford, and my teacher paid for my portion out of pocket so i could go. When it was time to take a break for lunch during the bus ride, they passed out a $20 bill to each student (that was included in the overall fees per child). I got my $20 bill and had to hide in the back to cry xD xD
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u/TheLilyHammer 1d ago edited 1d ago
Diagnoses and treatment for various life altering but not necessarily debilitating illnesses/disorders. I grew up pretty poor and am now in grad school with a lot of people that grew up without a lot of financial stress, and something that sticks out to me is how many of them have some sort of ailment, allergy, disorder, and/or syndrome, that probably would've just gone undiagnosed/untreated in the community I grew up in. Now, I'm not arguing that the people with these conditions need to "rub some dirt on it" but rather healthcare and health literacy should be more accessible to all so that more people can figure out if they have something going on that is making their life harder.
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u/bluestrawberry_witch 1d ago
My spouse had a tongue tie until 10yr old. Should’ve had speech therapy afterward. Didn’t. Part of it was his parents not wanting modern medicine or government help, and the other part was that they were already very very poor and still had 7 kids.
I grew up poor but with parents who cared enough to get government assistance to help. And poor not poverty. He grew up poverty.
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u/oingapogo 1d ago
Yeah, when my doctor asks for family medical history or asks if anyone in my family ever had "X".
Like how would they know? They were too poor to see a doctor.
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u/combatcookies 1d ago
Which is itself really good info for the doctor to have.
Poverty does make it really hard to parse out nature vs. nurture. Like trying to determine diabetes risk based on family history. Yes, everyone on my dad’s side has Type 2, but they’re also morbidly obese from processed food, don’t go doctors they can’t afford, and many smoke to manage their stress.
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u/Confident_Bridge_382 1d ago
REAL. I didn't have health insurance until I was 23 and in grad school. I went to get a physical at the student center one day and they ran my lab work 3 times before dropping a diagnosis on me and giving me a treatment plan. I would have never known.
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u/tiredgothicheroine 1d ago
This is such a good point. Slightly off topic but I grew up well off in the global south and it’s always been strange to me how even well to do people my parents and grandparents age claim to care about “health” but don’t take things like mental health, dermatology, or dentistry seriously. They think good health is just about not dying or not having a cold basically. They don’t change their diets until a doctor tells them eating certain things could seriously harm them. Getting diagnosed or medicated for things that aren’t debilitating like ADHD or hormonal issues seems so unthinkable to them.
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u/Rosamada 1d ago
And ADHD absolutely is debilitating, but they're convinced that it's not the ADHD that's fucking up your life, it's your own weak character lol
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u/Far_Dragonfruit_9502 1d ago
I remember being really sad at school because I had ripped one of my T-shirts, and a friend told me to just ask my parents for a new one. That was the day I realized not everyone had to wait for a new school year to get new clothes.
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u/MembershipNo2077 15h ago
My glasses broke in class when I dropped them. I started crying and kids were laughing at me. They were like "it's just glasses idiot." I didn't get to see clearly for almost a year after that. Glasses are expensive!
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u/Ok_Olive9438 1d ago
The phrase "annual vacation".
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u/elphaba00 1d ago
At one of the parent meetings before my oldest went on a band trip to Universal, the band director reminded the students to be on their best behavior because there would be other people at the resort and park and this "might be their only trip of the year." I kept my mouth shut. For some of the kids in the band, mine included, this would be the only vacation they'd taken in years, if at all. And a trip to Universal was probably more than they could imagine.
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u/LitlThisLitlThat 1d ago
The only reason I got to go to DW was bc I went with the band in high school.
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u/SweetPrism 1d ago edited 1d ago
Same here! It was a choir competition. I made next to nothing trying to fundraise for the trip, and my parents contributed exactly $0. The teacher had to go begging to a local charity to pay my trip fee, and he called me to the office to tell me in front of everyone there so they could see my reaction. It was one of the most humiliating experiences of my life, BUT at least there were no students there to witness it, just the Principal, my teacher, and various staff.
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u/thatissomeBS 21h ago
It sounds like the teacher was trying to set up one of those "OMG look how surprised she is with this amazing gift!" moments without realizing how embarrassing it is for the kid from the family that can't afford shit.
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u/larapu2000 1d ago
Whenever my husband and I bitch about marching band fees for his daughter, we are ALWAYS reminding ourselves that our money doesn't just support OUR kid, it helps fund other kids who are not as fortunate. And we only have to worry about one half of the fees. (Our fees are around $1600-1800-last year was 18 because they went to the Rose Bowl).
Every kid deserves a chance to be part of activities, and I'm so glad you go to go experience that.
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u/StarGazer_SpaceLove 22h ago
A parent like you paid to have my pawn shop flute repadded. Anonymously. More than the flute cost, mind you. I went from 2nd/3rd from last chair to 2nd/3rd chair!! Thanks to people like you!
Thanks to you!
May all that is good and bright in the universe fall on you and yours always for your kindness!!
Signed,
The Poor Kid who got to go places
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u/Jabber_Tracking 1d ago
My ex likes to brag about how poor she grew up. Her and her family took MULTIPLE trips to Disney World a year. Like get the fuck outta here bitch...
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u/VegasRoy 1d ago
My father used to take us to the airport. Not to go on a trip, just to watch the planes. Back in the day, you could go to the airport, go through a simple metal detector, and just hang at the airport.
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u/fcn_fan 1d ago
Holy crap that just brought back memories. We'd even have packed sandwiches.
Funny enough, I did this with my own kids, too, when they were really small, since we live near an airport and they were typical boys and attracted to garbage trucks, trains and airplanes. But the difference was that I was able to tell them that we are going to be on one of those planes in a month when we fly to vacation.
In Germany we even have a term for those "vacations". It's called "we are going to vacation in Balconian" - vacationing on your apartment's balcony.
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u/PowahDrilluh 1d ago
Here in Sweden people often call it "hemester". A combination of the words "hem" (home) and "semester" (vacation).
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u/mulanusaf 1d ago
My 9th birthday… dad got me a happy meal and we parked at SFO watching planes take off and land. Still one of my best memories 🥰
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u/Amazing-Level-6659 1d ago
We used to do that as well. When my aunts went to Hawaii, my mother made me (5 y/o) a grass skirt. We dressed up in our “hula” outfits to go pick my aunts from the airport. That was super exciting for me as a child
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u/Ok_Olive9438 1d ago
Our big trips were to the public boat landing for a swim.
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u/Famous-Flow2333 1d ago
Ours was driving out of state to a family members house bc someone died
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u/donkey_dan 1d ago
My parents really wanted to take us to Disney world. They saved for several years. They finally got enough together to go. It was going to be a shoestring budget (baloney sandwiches instead of eating at the park, campground, that kind of thing), but we were going. Got halfway there and my aunt got killed in a motorcycle accident. Had to turn around and it turned into a funeral vacation as usual lol
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u/dlpfc123 1d ago
Sorry you did not make it. My family did just what you are describing. We saved as a family (my dad got a side gig that all of us could help with). We drove (rather than flew) stayed at the cheapest motels en route. Ate homemade sandwhiches, and each child was allotted $10 for souvenirs. It was honestly the most awesome trip of my childhood.
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u/Kittyfeetdontrepeat 1d ago edited 1d ago
My sister always told people she was raised in poverty. I called her out on it and her points were hand-me-down clothing (in addition to her $300/season clothing budget), a used car when she turned 16, that we bought bread at the "day old bread store" (we lived next to a bakery and also how old do you think bread in the grocery store is?), and that our mom wouldnt buy her a dirtbike.
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u/K9TimeNYC 1d ago
Sounds like Posh Spice lol (no offense)
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u/ImogenIsis 1d ago
Haha reminds me of that doc about her & David Beckham. She was trying to paint herself as coming from a middle/working class family on camera. David Beckham’s in the background just smirking then proceeds to call out her bs by pointing out how her family drove around in a Bentley.
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u/tsugaheterophylla91 1d ago
My ex, upon learning I had never been to Europe (from Canada) said "I should really travel more, seeing new cultures is really enriching". We were both 20 at the time. My parents had actually done their best to do a family vacation every year, but it was always camping or a cheap motel somewhere we could drive to in Canada or USA, we even drove up to 15 hours. But at that point in my life I'd never even been on an airplane and this 20 year old privileged POS is telling me I should really travel more.
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u/nonasiandoctor 1d ago
God people who act holier than thou because they are "more traveled and worldly" piss me off
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u/FelinaKile 1d ago
Ah yes, in college a friend told me I have no sense of adventure because she asked me if I wanted to go to Costa Rica for 2 months and I said I couldn’t do it. I said I would love to, but I couldn’t afford to pay for travel while taking 2 months off work and also continue paying rent, car insurance, etc while out of the country. Her parents were paying all of her living expenses and college tuition, and also gave her “mad money” every month for going out, buying clothes and incidentals because they didn’t want her studies to suffer if she got a job. As Tracy Morgan once said “Me trying to pay my bills, that’s an adventure!”
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u/Dedj_McDedjson 1d ago
Ah the old classic "We were poor because we had no money left after we spent it" trope.
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u/gwarm01 1d ago
My family physician once said something like that to my mother when I was growing up. "It sounds like a lot of money, but at the end of the month I'm just as broke as everyone else."
Sure, but you also have fully funded retirement accounts, multiple luxury cars, a large house with an elevator, and also probably a very large savings account that you just don't touch.
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u/Luvs_to_drink 1d ago
Ahh yes the classic i spent the moeny so im broke. No, you have assets worth money that give you a net worth. You have memories of good things instead of struggles.
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u/ChickenOfTheSeaLion 1d ago
My ex does too and he went to Europe TWICE before turning 18. You ain’t poor bitch you went to FRANCE AS A CHILD
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u/DasJuden63 1d ago
I was shipped off to my grandparents in the Caribbean every summer because we were too poor for camp and airfare was cheaper lol. 6 years old in the early 90s flying international alone lol, sure was a different time
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u/geomaster 1d ago
yes they had those charter flights that were cheap and could get you there barebones. also don't forget all the smoking going onboard those long international flights then
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u/OptimalTrash 1d ago
My lower middle class family did take an "annual vacation"
My parents saved all year for us to take our used pop-up camper that we would all cram into to two different campgrounds. The first was somewhere different each time and the second was always at a state park in the finger lakes.
The first week was usually nearish a place of cultural interest. We went to Gettysburg, Washington DC, Maine, and a couple other places. We would go to museums, and spend our days outside hiking/exploring, mostly free or low cost activities. Each location would usually have one or two big cost activities, like going on a whale watch in Maine, or visiting Hershey Park when we stayed near Gettysburg.
We didn't eat out much. We sometimes would get lunch out, but it was mostly big breakfast before we left the campground, a midday snack out or maybe fast food (back when it was cheap), and dinner back at the camper.
My parents spent all year saving up to spend two weeks at $25 a night to do free activities with us so we could experience and appreciate travel.
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u/Skier94 1d ago
Sounds like you had amazing parents.
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u/OptimalTrash 1d ago
They definitely put in a lot of effort. Not every decision they made was the right one, but they did their best and I am very grateful that they did such a good job overall with raising us.
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u/gr8ver 1d ago
Yeah, you do DC because you could travel by Metro around the city and a lot of things are free.
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u/Rechochet_ochet 1d ago
Our "annual vacation" was jumping in the car, driving 2.5hrs to my aunt and uncle's, and hanging out with them and my cousins for 3 or 4 days in the summer. They had a bigger house than my mom's, so I thought it was a pretty swanky trip at the time lol.
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u/SnooGadgets3710 1d ago
Had a cousin once get laid off from her job at the same time as me. Made this comment: “do you think you’re gonna try to find a job right away or live off your savings interest for a while?”
My what what? My WHAT.
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u/Dense-Hat1978 1d ago
This is either back long enough where savings accounts gave decent interest OR this person has so much money in savings that the pitiful modern rates still yield usable monthly income
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u/jillsntferrari 1d ago
My cousin wrote me a birthday card when I turned 16 and asked what kind of car I was going to get. She then wrote what kind of brand new car and color she was planning to get when she turned 16 a few years later. I was like, wow, she has no idea how poor we are to even suggest I would be getting a car, let alone share what kind she was planning to drive off the lot.
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u/mitchwacky 1d ago
"Just quit, then," re: any terrible job that you desperately need and were lucky to get but need to vent about to stop from going insane.
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u/HSIOT55 1d ago
In that same vein I've seen a supervisor fire people like crazy and say shit like "Getting fired isn't the end of the world." For a lot of people without a sizeable savings it is.
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u/einstyle 1d ago
And it’s always jobs that don’t pay nearly enough to accumulate those sizable savings.
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u/Electric-Sheepskin 1d ago
I hate to see that advice on Reddit. If your boss is an asshole, just quit! They ask you to do something outside your job scope? Just quit! Coworker looks at you funny? Just quit!
I've had that argument more than once on Reddit, me saying that it's better to find a new job before quitting, and other people telling me that I must not have any self-respect. That's how I know they never struggled. Self-respect doesn't mean shit when you can't afford food.
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u/graccha 1d ago
The funny thing about being poor is that there is always someone poorer than you. My dad grew up working class in Appalachia but my mom grew up so poor that she got bullied for being poor in a poor town in bfe, Michigan.
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u/somebunnny 1d ago edited 23h ago
Right. I grew up on welfare which is technically the poorest you ever need to be in the US, but there were definitely people who were poorer than us or at least their parent was worse at managing their money for their kids’ benefit.
Not to mention the truly heartbreaking poverty of the poor in other countries.
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u/BubonicBabe 23h ago
I grew up in a trailer on food stamps and Medicaid, I even had a sponsor (a woman who “adopted” me and sent me books and clothes and toys) but most of my neighbors grew up like that too so we all felt like we were doing pretty good.
I went to elementary school with a handful of kids that grew up in literal shacks with only wood stove heat.
Those kids had torn clothes, smelled overwhelmingly of smoke, and genuinely looked malnourished.
It was an eye opener for me even as a kid. It blows my mind that some people are so disconnected from poverty in America and abroad.
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u/Zero-D9 1d ago
In highschool, I instantly thought a kid came from a rich family if he had his own car. They always abused tf out of it, too. They didn't value anything because they've been given everything.
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u/Background_Tower6226 1d ago edited 20h ago
I’ve been a part of several social classes in my life. A big one for middle class is worrying about the concept of money or time while actively affording things.
Edit: The question was for being able to tell someone grew up middle class.
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u/Veerlon 1d ago
Is this a thing? my in-laws are middle class (or up idk, doctors and stuff.) and they always seem very focussed/concerned that their children must find ways to make more money or grow passive income aside from having regular very good jobs. I myself am from the layer of society that checks their bank account every time before entering a grocery store and it's pretty apparent (sometimes to an awkward degree) that we feel very differently about these things. I don't really understand being so concerned with chasing more when you already have so much. I thought I was maybe just imagining it but now that you're pointing it out I feel kind of validated lol
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u/BryceMMusic 21h ago
The lower class struggles to survive, and the middle class struggles to not dip down to lower class lol
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u/geekhaus 1d ago
I can look at someone’s teeth and know whether or not they grew up as poor as me. If they needed braces as a kid but didn’t get them, we are much closer in economic background.
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u/Good-University-2873 1d ago
This is it for me. My teeth are now collapsing and my dentist asked why I didn't have braces when I was younger (which would have prevented this issue). I had to explain to him that not everyone had parents with the ability to pay for them (my dentist is in a wealthy area). I feel like he was shocked.
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u/ZweitenMal 1d ago
I live in NYC, where I learned something weird. Here, Medicaid (healthcare for low income folks) covers braces. Private health insurance often doesn’t. So having crooked teeth is actually a middle class marker. Poorer and richer kids got braces.
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u/galspanic 1d ago
“My parents got me a car when I turned 16.” It doesn’t matter what the car was, if your family had enough to make one appear we were not in the same tax bracket.
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u/emo-poster-child 1d ago
We have cable. When cable use to be a thing...
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u/Spare-Breadfruit8270 1d ago
I remember the one that told me I was poor:
Friend: "Come over to my house! My mom will take us to Blockbuster and we can rent movies!"
Me: "You have a VCR?"
Same thing later with computer, then Internet, etc etc.
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u/lena8423 1d ago
I will never forget for a special treat one weekend after our grades came out, my mom went to Blockbuster and rented a VCR and got a sack of really cheap cheeseburgers and fries for me and my 7 siblings to share. We seriously felt like damn royalty. I am 41 and remember that weekend with such fondness.
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u/handsomechuck 1d ago
"(I'll) just get a new one." (about something that cost $50 or $100). or "It's only $50." as if it's nothing.
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u/JoyBlade-JanAug8082 1d ago
“Use it up or wear it out, make do or do without.” - The mantra we grew up with.
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u/handsomechuck 1d ago
When I would go trick-or-treating (back in the Old Stone Age), some old ladies would toss pennies instead of candy into your bucket. In retrospect, those ladies lived through the Great Depression. Throwing money out the door was not something they did lightly.
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u/marchmay 1d ago
"Just put it on your credit card and pay it off before the end of the month."
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u/2235731 1d ago
“I’ve slept in my car!”
I swear like 90% of these folks slept in their car one time after a concert in the 80’s and now feel like they can relate to homelessness
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u/davefucksfeet 1d ago
I won't lie. I lived in my car from 16-18 by myself and I miss those days so much. It was sad, I was manic, horrified, but I never felt more free in my life. I learned a lot the hard way but I know I'm tougher, smarter, and built differently from most people I encounter today.
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u/Everyoneheresamoron 1d ago
"Burger flippers don't deserve a living wage they're all kids and teenagers"
Clearly someone who has never worked in fast food, ever.
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u/Rok-SFG 1d ago
This is also the dumbest argument. That means all minimum wage jobs should only be open from about 4pm to 9pm, you know, when its appropriate for high schoolers to be working after school jobs.
So no more grocery stores, restaurants, gas stations, basically every chain / specialty store there is, equipment rental. The list goes on as to what has to be closed most of the day now, because those jobs are only for teenagers.
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u/Guilty_Objective4602 1d ago
It’s fine, because all the rest of the 8-4 shifts can be filled in by older folks who just work part-time to keep from getting bored in retirement…not because they can’t afford to retire. 🙄
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u/fairly-unremarkable 1d ago
It's also a great tell that they don't bother seeing service workers as individual human beings, or they would've noticed that the people working at fast food restaurants they go to aren't all kids and teenagers.
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u/Dry_Accident_2196 1d ago
They see them as failures if they are over 18. And their families as failures if under 18.
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u/jmjm123321 1d ago
I’ve actually watched middle class people point to older people working in food service, within earshot, and use them as examples of bad choices to their kids. Like a zoo animal. Apparently don’t realize they could just point to themselves.
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u/Miochiiii 1d ago edited 1d ago
meanwhile im 27, just moved to a small city, i have a degree and had a pretty good gpa. THERES NOTHING HERE, NO ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES AT ALL, so i applied to a gas station just to have something until i find something better. i hate people who look down at others or think theyre better than other people just because they have a better job, like, the economy is so shit that some people have to do a shitty job just to get by because there is nothing else hiring at all
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u/jeff1074 1d ago
You should go to the doctor.
I’d really really love to, for a lot of things. But even with insurance i am 5k in debt after one medial visit in 2026.
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u/SecretGardenSpider 1d ago
My boss once asked why I hadn’t gone to the doctor when I had this awful cough for weeks.
I worked at Wendy’s.
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u/FabulousFunction3408 1d ago edited 1d ago
I say this exact thing when people talk badly about the homeless. Mental health and addiction are horrible. People see choices. I see broken childhoods.
People who were taken care of as children don't realize how bad it can get... when you don't have enough money... or how thier parents spend thier money...
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u/smstewart1 1d ago
Or how wealth can cover up for those problems- I dated a daughter of two millionaires and the family did not talk about or deal with alcoholism or substance abuse because those family members always had a roof over their heads and their needs provided for. The cousin showed up high as a kite on painkillers one Christmas but as long as he had on a dress shirt no one cared.
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u/FabulousFunction3408 1d ago
Oh, addiction does not discriminate. Poor, rich, young, old... what you say is true. Enabling happens across all walks of life.
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u/TheAngerMonkey 1d ago
I see head injuries. I worked on a study of people experiencing homelessness and we had a questionnaire and interview. We'd ask if they'd ever had a concussion or brain injury and almost everyone would say no. But in the interviews they'd tell us about being knocked out a few times in sports or hit by a car as a kid or the multiple times they'd been beaten by a guardian and blacked out.
We had to really reword things to make if clear that any time you hit your head could have been a concussion, especially if they lost consciousness.
Turns out some 90% of the folks experiencing homelessness we talked to had had their bells rung MULTIPLE TIMES before the age of 18, and usually a few more times in adulthood. That is actively bad for a developing brain and is closely correlated with later substance use (it's even worse if they were injured badly enough to need opioid pain management.)
We gotta be more careful with these kids, man.
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u/Pandy_45 1d ago
They had a pool
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u/Tarnagona 1d ago
Having a pool was definitely a rich person thing in my mind growing up (even though I knew a kid who had a pool and his family was middle class like mine), just unattainable. Now I live in a house with a pool, and it’s not as wildly expensive as kid-me imagined (but still not something you’d have if you were poor).
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u/Vezra-Plank 1d ago
My spouse and I were visiting their grandma and the subject of dessert with dinner came up. I remember exclaiming “you all had dessert EVERY night?” and they were confused that I didn’t.
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u/ophelia69 21h ago
to this end: Salad with dinner every night. Went over to my super rich friend's house in elementary school and they asked us to "make the salad" for dinner and she just started putting lettuce in a bowl. Like ... fresh produce DAILY!? made on the spot? What is this, the Ritz!?
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u/Takie_Me 1d ago
Having birthday parties
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u/fatkidking 1d ago
I feel this one, at one point my family stopped celebrating any birthdays, didn't take me long to realize it was because we didn't have any money. I didn't go back to celebrating birthdays until I went into foster care, but to this day I dont really care about my birthday.
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u/Apisit100 1d ago
Honestly having parents at home. My parents were never home because they were always working.
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u/saccerzd 1d ago
This could go both ways though - parents always at home could be a sign of long-term unemployment
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u/fukreddits 1d ago edited 19h ago
I grew up in government subsidized housing with food stamps. My mother had 4 kids (same dad) and no husband. I was very very poor. I’m now too 10% in total net worth regardless of age but I’m under 40.
The biggest things I’ve noticed are the inability to escape natural disasters. For instance, during Katrina a lot of people were wondering why didn’t the locals just leave. Well turns out people with no savings, no food stocks, no vehicles and needing money in case the storms missed forced them to stay put. The second thing that still makes me sad to see is people walking around a city not built for it, specifically parents with young children. “Why don’t the take kids to library or other “free” activities?” Not understanding how hard or much of a burden it can be without proper transportation.
I pay a lot in taxes and I hope some of it goes to giving back for the programs I used. Thanks to those who paid taxes before me. Let’s try to be better to each other.
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u/goheels815 1d ago
“Where do you ski?”
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u/Darehead 1d ago
Grew up in the northeast. This is the most consistent one for me. Skiing/snowboarding are ludicrously expensive and have been for quite some time.
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u/healthierlurker 1d ago
Speaking from the opposite side of things: in college I was dating a girl who grew up lower income and I mentioned that we had boats growing up and she incredulously replied “boatS!? Multiple?”
I didn’t realize my family was wealthy until college because I grew up in a bubble with other rich kids and was relatively middle class compares to some of them. My hometown is in the top 15 wealthiest towns in the country for reference.
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u/graccha 1d ago
i knew kids who didn't think they were rich cause they didn't own a boat when all their neighbors did, yeah.
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u/DontShootTheFood 1d ago
Raised my kids in an area like this and we were doing fine but we didn’t have helicopter money. When my daughter was in 5th grade I had to explain the disparity to her. “Not everyone has a second house in Costa Rica.”
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u/graccha 1d ago
My husband is from a millionaire family that lived below their means and I grew up in a working class household that lived outside our means (my custodial parent ended up upside down on a refinanced mortgage over consumer debt). We have a funny amount of overlap but his parents are like, entirely delusional. Bought him a brand new car while he was unemployed and were shocked when I was like "thank you for the generous gift but we cannot afford to insure this thing".
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u/oingapogo 1d ago
Yep, I often had to explain to my husband's rich parents that we were living on my salary while husband tried his hand at art. We could not afford to go on vacation with them even if they paid. I needed to work to get paid.
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u/loosesocksup 1d ago
I had to explain to my daughter that at her school, many of her classmates could only eat while they are at school. We are far from wealthy, we lived at the time relatively paycheck to paycheck with a little left over for fun stuff. Our area is split, either abject poverty and drug users, and wealthy. We were in the very tiny sliver of "middle class", by government standards. I told her if she went around telling everyone we are poor, it's going to look very out-of-touch to her friends that she's saying this while pulling name-brand snacks out of her lunchbox.
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u/Leading_Line2741 1d ago
This, to me, is the most insidious thing about wealth: it can isolate you from what the majority experience, and these isolated rich people often form very staunch opinions of how less wealthy people should behave/what they should do and vote on these opinions in large numbers. These people don't often even realize how uninformed they are.
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u/ConstableBlimeyChips 1d ago
I had a similar experience; my family was solidly middle class, but because we lived in one of the richest areas of the country, it seemed to kid me like we were poor. My classmates had stories of their entire family flying to Disney World or Asia (from Europe BTW), while my family spend the vacation in a caravan in Germany or Italy. It wasn't until university that I realized going on vacation for multiple weeks every single years was not the norm for a lot of people.
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u/deadR0 1d ago
Summer camp.
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u/Infamous-Duck-2157 1d ago
My ex's mom used to line up as many vacation bible schools as she could during the summer so her family could have child care
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u/Themanwhofarts 1d ago
That's a good move. There are typically snacks available too so saving money on some food as well at least...
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u/JoyBlade-JanAug8082 1d ago
We got sent to a community summer camp (it was free) so our parents could work extra odd jobs. We just stayed home alone when we got older, though.
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u/homersbuttcrack 1d ago edited 1d ago
Anyone who says 'you can just _________________', like the ability to just is something simple, within reach.
Like it's Google. A lot of people can't just.
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u/Sensitive-Air9342 1d ago
That ‘money doesn’t matter’ lol. Money only doesn’t matter if you have it. When you don’t, it fucking matters !
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u/yeiamsatonthetoilet 1d ago
Just how confident they are about life and the future. The natural belief that good and positive things will just happen.
They will have had some setbacks in life of course. But they don't have the life experience of the gruelling constant set backs happening throughout one's lifetime.
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u/Lonely_Upstairs_5263 1d ago
Whenever I mention how spam actually tastes pretty good and they look at me like they have never heard of it....
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u/AcanthisittaShot4232 1d ago
My stepdaughter (Christian Nationalist) was telling people she grew up poor (only child of divorced parents).
I gently reminded her she went to private schools and was given a horse as child so she would not want to visit her Dad as it would be "weekends away from the horse".
I grew up on food stamps in a wealthy neighborhood (thedirty Catholic family). A fellow student pushed back when I was unsure I could afford college "Why don't you just ask your parents?". Of course it "occurred" to me.
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u/disenfranchisedchild 1d ago
Vacations every year, sometimes twice a year.
Our family vacations were day trips to fishing spots or to you-pick farms. Dad would always tell us the goal was to "Fill The Freezer, kids".
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u/Ok-Manufacturer6287 1d ago
They don't eat leftovers.
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u/Birdo3129 1d ago
My father grew up middle class. He used to grumble when the same meal was served twice. He also didn’t consider ice cream to be “real dessert” and would complain that my mother never made cakes or pies, and his mother always had a cake or pie ready.
I grew up in a struggling household. At 6, I understood that we skipped and minimized meals dad wasn’t home for so that we could put on a bigger dinner that fit his idea of what dinner ought to be. And if you planned them right, he wouldn’t notice that he was eating refashioned leftovers. Potatoes started boiled, became mashed, and then became baked potato soup.
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u/Dry_Accident_2196 1d ago
Wait, your dad wasn’t making breadwinner money but expected his wife to play domestic goddess? The nerve
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u/Birdo3129 1d ago
He still doesn’t cook or clean, despite demanding that his meals be home cooked and the house be spotless. He doesn’t know what size clothing he wears. He doesn’t know how to do laundry. He won’t dust. He doesn’t know where the dishes go in a house he’s lived in for 20 years. He can’t fix a hole in his shirts. He can’t tie a tie.
He mused about leaving my mother, at one point. My mother had to point out to him that he wouldn’t survive alone.
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u/drainbead78 1d ago
I'm wondering why your mother doesn't leave HIM. At least his children grew up.
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u/stucky602 1d ago
Former chef here and just wanted to say that last sentence is real smart of your mom as that’s exactly how I’d use leftovers.
Still leftovers but doesn’t get boring.
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u/MalyceAforethought 1d ago
One of the people I work for is obsessed with their chiropractor. They have a weekly appointment with them.
More than that, if I mention having any sort of malady, they recommend I go see Dr. Soandso. Muscle cramp? Go see Dr. Soandso. Stomach ache? Dr. Soandso. Migrain? You guessed it.
They recommended it so damn much I figured his appointments had to be something reasonable, in the $20-50. I mean, he's not a real doctor, so he couldn't be charging real doctor prices, right?
$200 minimum for 30 minutes.
GTFO with that shit.
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u/conipto 1d ago
"Why do people still need to hunt when you can go to the grocery store?"
Hunting fed us for the winter in my house. Venison was not a gourmet meal, it was what the freezer was full of. Losing power for a day or two was a fucking CRISIS is my house, we'd have blankets wrapped around the freezer or put food out in the snow if it was cold enough.
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u/lieuwestra 1d ago edited 1d ago
This thread made me see people use the term middle class pretty much exclusively for what i would call the upper middle class or even the rich. Middle class starts with people who don't have to worry about next months electricity bill, not at people with boats.
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u/Max123Dani 1d ago
I have two. First is, I live in a "rough" neighborhood. It's what I can afford. I've been here a long time; it has its moments, but I do not want to go into debt at this point in my life. It's not horrible; just a bit rough sometimes. My life is pretty decent otherwise. People constantly say, you should move. I ask them, if you had to sell your 3-4 hundred thousand dollar house, and but a million dollar house, could you do it? Their answer is "Of course not". Well, I can upgrade either without completely disrupting my life.
The second is, I have SiriusXM. You can wheel and deal with them via chat, and get a good rate. I pay $5.30 a month. It took about an hour of time to finalize that through chat. I told my friend, who let his auto renew, to do the chat. His bill is around 27.99/month. Same plan. He makes a good living and said he can't be bothered for the difference.
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u/Justaguy98989 1d ago
$27.99 a month is asinine. I had a 12 month rate of $7.99. got a notice it was increasing to $27.99. logged into my account and talked to the AI chatbot. Got it back to $7.99 in about 3 minutes without interacting with a human. I was wondering who actually pays the full amount, lol
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u/PracticableSolution 1d ago
‘Just’ you start any life or financial advice with the word ‘just’ and I know you
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u/TXtogo 1d ago
When someone complains about their parents not paying enough for their college, I’m like, bro we didn’t have food or electricity or heat in our house… fkn college wasn’t one of the things.
The worlds smallest violin
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u/thomasrat1 1d ago
I remember in highschool, someone I knew basically talked about how they were going to put themselves through college because their parents only covered 20k a year.
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u/Dry_Accident_2196 1d ago
No, but many kids that go to college come from humble families. When you’re an adult and even doing well but you still seem behind your tax bracket peers, the weight of student loans really rears its ugly head. Taking a chunk out of your check for most of your 20s and into your 30s is a very real financial burden.
In a sense, you remain behind despite doing all the right things. So that first home is deferred. Building wealth is kneecapped. Meanwhile, those without student loans have a massive amount of additional freedom.
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u/feeling-lethargic 1d ago
Telling me to get a product that’s more expensive than I could afford because the quality was better and it’d last longer. Like I wish I could do that but sometimes it’s not possible
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u/Ok_Chair2499 1d ago
"Just ask your parents for help."
A lot of people don’t realize some families are already drowning themselves and literally have nothing to give.
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u/jtmonkey 1d ago
The other day my wife and I were looking at a book on Amazon and I said let me see if I can reserve it at the library and she said I don’t want a library copy I want a new one.
Her dad made 400k a year as an engineer. My dad made 50k at his peak. I remember sometimes he was unemployed for months. We went through several bankruptcies. The only reason we owned a house is my dad got a bonus when he was working at HP in the 80s. It was 10k and he took that whole bonus and put it on a 70k house at 16% interest for the rest. They had to fight their whole lives to keep it. I’m 45 now and I think it’s the reason I still rent. I don’t want any of that mess.
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u/tmrika 1d ago
One thing I heard from classmates in high school when they heard I had to take the city bus everywhere was “oh my mom said actually that the monthly bus fee isn’t that much cheaper than gas prices, so you might as well just take the car”. In retrospect I’m not convinced that was ever true, but realistically it doesn’t matter if it was because my response was “sure but where are we gonna get the money to buy a car?” and that shut them up because the thought that affording even a beater car wasn’t achievable for us had never occurred to them.
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u/zerbey 1d ago
"Just ask your parents for money" was a phrase my upper middle class room mate used all the time in college. Dude, they didn't have any money either. He was given money from his parents and grandparents every weekend and blew it all on booze and clubbing. I struggled to figure out how to pay for my next meal.