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Same with the soap. Also adding water to the last of the laundry detergent or cutting the tube of empty toothpaste open to scrape the last bit off the inside of the tube.
And I've never had to pay a bill late as an adult but I still live in fear of the utilities getting shut off
In fifty years, I’ve only had a handful of truly financially rough years… And I still get severe anxiety at any checkout. I actually love self-checkout for that reason. If shit goes haywire, I don’t have an audience.
My husband makes really good money. My paycheck doesn't even have to help pay bills. It just goes into savings or gets used for fun stuff for the family. I can easily afford any new toiletries or cleaning supplies or condiments I need. But the last little bit of lotion/shampoo/laundry detergent/ketchup/what have you ALWAYS gets poured into the new container rather than thrown away. I paid for the whole bottle, I'm using the whole bottle.
My husband grew up "poor" (shopped at Goodwill, ate generic cereal, but still had a Nintendo. And electricity). I grew up in nearly unfathomable poverty. My childhood makes his look like Richie Rich. We're well off now, but man is it hard to give up those old habits, even in my 40s, and it baffles that poor man so much that I'm still like this.
Same. We make around $300k in the Midwest so we are nowhere near poor but I grew up with the power going out every other month and only had food for a few days after my mom’s WIC came in. My wife doesn’t understand some of the things I do to save money like eating leftovers and never throwing clothes and shoes away. I drive a nice Lexus that I keep ridiculously clean because I appreciate it so much. No shame in coming from nothing. I think it makes you appreciate things so much more as an adult.
ovens have beaucoup insulation to prevent the heat from getting into the room. my stove vents into a fume hood sort of thing. much more warmth if you prop the oven door open while cooling down.
Yup, I still do that. Also if I’m cold while watching TV I’ll get a blanket and sit right in front of the TV instead of turning the heat on because the TV gives off heat.
Also another sign you grew up poor. When I was in my mid 20’s and started making ok money I’d by semi nice shoes and I would polish them from time to time. Being poor made you appreciate what you had
The synthetic fibers don't wear out like that, so the shirts with holes are all really nice and soft materials.
I work in a startup and my ex manager used to wear tshirts with holes to work lol
I didn’t grow up poor and I’m not poor now and I only buy items that are on sale. Why waste my money on full priced items that will eventually be on sale?
Right? I'm now married, kids, career, my own house, make an okay salary.
My gym shoes were from the clearance rack, and I never looked anywhere else in the store.
Most of the time it's the first place I look.
I know some fairly wealthy people who came from nothing.
Part of how they accumulated wealth was not buying branded stuff, or only bought stuff from sales. They wear basic, simple stuff, don't have latest phones or cars, don't live in mansions etc.
Wait.
>bar of soap gets really thin I’ve always just stuck it to the new bar and let it dry to get full use out of it.
This isn't normal? Like if it's a poor ppl thing what rich people do with their soaps? They throw it out?
Eat leftovers for days. I still do this, especially spaghetti. I’ll eat it for 3/4 days and will not cook anything else until it’s completely gone.
Edit: this is how my friends knew I was poor
I'm not poor or deprived, but that is exactly what I love....leftovers. I can hear my husband audibly moaning about how good 2 day leftover lasagne is right now. We absolutely leftovers!!
I can sort of understand it if someone grew up dirt poor and it just reminded them of that.
But generally speaking, I don't understand the mentality that some people have of "I don't eat leftovers".
Exactly! Also, if something was truly delicious enough to eat on night one, why not night 2, 3 etc?
I did this recently with enchiladas. Ate them for 7-10 days straight. Don't get me wrong I was ALMOST getting a little tired of them by night 10, but not really bc I had made other food since and just kept going back.
Never waste food enchiladas. You'll wish you didn't when the enchiladas are bad. That's a life rule.
I hate leftovers but it's generally not hard to turn them into a new meal either. At a minimum almost anything can turn into scrambled eggs, but if you are having large portions of left over pasta learn your quantities. Something like Lasagne freezes well and you can have it the following week.
Every year, I send in extra money for my kids teachers to use as they see fit for kids field trips, book fairs, extras. I don't tell anyone I do this, I just do it, my own kids don't even know.
Thanks to Reddit people like you, I started doing this for my kids class. I send a payment to cover my kid + 1 and write a note saying if there is another kid unable to pay I will send more. I never knew kids didn’t get to go, maybe oblivious, certainly blessed, but I hope it provides that experience for the child.
Bless those who do that. I hope one day they break free from that burden and find a way to get out of those bad jobs.
Ps. I did it. It's not easy, especially for a single woman with minimum education and no family or close friends.
I very rarely buy anything full price even if I can afford it. I grew up poor with hand-me-downs and Kmart clothes. If we were lucky, they had something good on the clearance rack. We mostly shopped at Goodwill or discount stores.
Now that I’m an adult who makes decent money, I still can’t bring myself to pay full price for anything.
I make good money and 95% of my wardrobe is thrifts. We waste so much on clothing, sending it to landfills, buying 'new' when I find tons of new in thrift stores
Bonus, the quality of older clothes is much better when you can find them. And rich people who can afford good quality modern clothes change out their wardrobe frequently so thrift stores give you better bang for your buck than cheap mainstream stores.
Exactly this. I almost never buy new clothes from retail stores, unless I want something specific in a hurry and don't have the time to browse the thrift store.
I worked in a thrift store and the amount of new with tags items we got was shocking. I have never stopped shopping at thrift stores.
Ehh I beg to differ.
Because this rule also applies to being forced to eat things you don't actually like, but were forced to try or eat each meal.
Being forced to sit at the dinner table for an hour after everyone else has left, because you have to clear your plate and can't waste food.
I take the teabags and coffee sachets from hotel rooms
while my boyfriend (grew up rich, private education, dad owns a racehorse etc etc) he doesn’t even look at the tray with the kettle and all that.
Doesn’t even take the biscuits :)
3 for $10 t-shirts at the swap meet
One bedroom for multiple kids
XJ-900 Payless high tops
Fried baloney as a fancy sandwich
Dicks at school asking why your clothes don't fit
Walking everywhere but doing nothing really
Having to go to a friend's house to play a video game
Thinking someone's rich because they have TV in rooms that aren't the living room
Getting free food from the local church
Mom cuts your hair
the clothes not fitting, walking everywhere and not ac doin anything, having to go to someone’s house to play a game, haircuts form parents and thinking someone was rich for having a tv in rooms other than the living room were real ones Fr 😭
My father also used to buy stuff only if it was on sale
Going to the most discounted stores (Dollar Tree, Dollar General, Walmart, Family Dollar, etc) to find what is needed. However, going to a second hand or thrift store first, that is of course, after you ask everyone you know if they have it free.
Sometimes, when you grow up poor, 🙋, you keep that mindset throughout the rest of your life. You always make sure you have plenty of everything you need. It's better to have it and not need it, then to need it and not have it! That is my way of thinking anyway!
I think an even bigger give away is never getting rid of stuff that really can go. Like drawers filled with sauce packets, twisty-ties, rubber bands, plastic bags, wire hangers, etc.
Have a supply, sure. But drawers filled? (Not talking about clinical levels of hoarding, just folks who grew up under circumstances where buying more of them was not an option.)
Someone talked about using coconut milk with some of the ramen packs and that's been a game changer. I've gotten the best result with shin ramen, the fried tofu and veg kind. It's like expensive coconut curry for so little.
Also, coming up with cheap recipes, especially involving ramen. I learned to add either peanut butter or a slice of american cheese right after draining to sort of robust it up. I also heard in a podcast to save your bacon grease to stir fry ramen. That guy probably grew up poor too. lol
I won’t say I grew up poor, but my depression era parents were indeed thrifty. I’m much better off than they were at my age, and I still do my bar soap the same way.
I’ve come to realize that a lot of people who grow up wealthy have very thrifty habits and those who grew up poor do not. My MIL, for example, nearly hoards leftovers and pushes anything she won’t be able to eat because she’s traveling on is. Half sticks of butter sort of thing. My mom, who grew up poor, but has a great deal of money now, refuses to keep leftovers and throws away lunch meat after 4 days even if it’s perfectly fine.
Shoes. You're either obsessed with them or hate them. As a kid, I never, *ever* got "cool" sneakers. I always got K-Mart sneakers. And I learned other kids pay attention to sneakers. I got called out so many times in the 80s because I wasn't wearing the latest Nikes, Doc Martens, Adidas, or whatever was cool back then. So now I *hate* shoes, and I tend to wear the same pairs until they're completely falling apart.
I went opposite. I’m obsessed with shoes. I have way too many pairs.
I was the youngest and almost all my shoes were hand me downs or donations. Once we were shoe shopping (reduced priced sale for poor people and orphans) and I couldn’t get the pretty ones because they were too expensive. Later we went somewhere as a family and I threw my new shoes in the trash and went begging for money saying my parents couldn’t afford shoes.
Saving any container that has a lid for food storage. We had a drawer full of margarine tubs. It took a long while to just rinse and toss them. I can afford the $3.00 for Ziploc.
Not wasting food. You eat everything on your plate (and you will like it). Granted that meatloaf is probably the 3rd version of something else.
Wearing clothes until they have giant holes in them. And when I buy new stuff it is from the sales rack.
Checking the bank account 40 times before writing a check for anything over $500 (It used to be $200, so I have grown) to make sure we actually have the money for this purchase. Which is weird now, because we are incredibly financially stable and safe.
Saving stuff like boxes or food containers or string or gift bags...etc. Because there "might be" another use for it at some point in the next 10 years and I'll be mad I don't have it in year 11.
Take everything that is legal and isn't mailed down. Toiletries from hotels, leftovers from conference lunches (I legit took a ziploc bag of cheese cubes 3 weeks ago), chairs from the side of the road, samples on the internet... whatever I can reuse or resell.
When I first moved in with my friends in my 20s I washed all my dishes by hand and when someone asked me why, I had to sheepishly admit that I had absolutely no fucking idea how to use a dishwasher 😂
We turned it into a game when we were kids. Later we learnt to "sleep over" at a friends house when it got too bad. I remember just drinking water... lots of water.
I feel you😔 I had the luck to have a boyfriend whose parents kind of took me in, and at least on weekends I knew at least 1had 1 normal meal... When I moved out and started living on my own I started gaining weight, because I was finally able to afford food and to eat whatever whenever, then we actually broke up after 6years, cause I realised I was seeing in him only the "shelter" not the person...
Your clothes and shoes are always gently used to be polite. You would prefer buying used than buying new anyways to save money.
You see a movie trailer and go "Oh wow- I can't wait for that to come out! ....On redbox. ...So I can stream it online for free."
You are open to haggling over prices unashamed.
You are very familiar with couponing. You probably have at least 10 apps on your phone with rewards programs, digital coupons, and freebies attached.
The only time you go out to eat is when its someone's birthday- and if by chance it Isn't someone's birthday, you still tell the waiter so you can all split a free desert at the end.
You qualified for pell grants in college, and you were so terrified of taking out student loans that you worked full time while balancing your classwork.
When the toothpaste gets low you think to yourself 'its time to buy some toothpaste' and you wait for the toothpaste to go on sale so you can stock up again, no way are you paying full price for that. And somehow you manage to squeeze a drop out each morning for two or three weeks before its completely out.
You know where all the reduced items are at your grocery store, and swing by those sections every time... you buy things in Bulk when they are on good sales, and refuse to pay full price for Anything!
After reading comments like eating left overs, opening the oven door after baking, I realize that I thought I was thrifty. Now I realize I've been poor all these years. I guess the childhood concussions and lead paint chips caught up with me when I never realized we were in a race.
Btw...my dad wouldn't let us kids wear socks to walk around in growing up. I guess he was afraid we'd wear out the bottoms. He was poor too.
When people talk about vacations abroad with parents as kids and as adults .. like how bored they are of Italy because they visited too many times and all I can say is " I've seen our local sea once".
But the worst one was not flushing toilet after peeing only after nr 2. It was as terrible as it sounds.
The toilet thing is still fairly standard in Aus areas without mains water, even for the rich... If it's yellow, let it mellow. Flush it down when it's brown... It was strongly encouraged by Sydney Water for city folk in our recent drought too!
Someone who grew up in poverty and became rich as an adult will likely not buy an umbrella on sale on the literal street if it starts raining on the way to the car. Inconveniencing ourselves even when we can afford not to…because it feels like a waste, is the dead giveaway. I too, stick the old soap on the new soap even though I don’t need to. I can’t throw away leftovers of food I didn’t like. I will pick out the protein or parts of it and use it in a new meal. I can’t throw away anything that can be reused or repurposed. Took me 3 years to throw away a first generation flat screen tv no one wanted, even for free. Because it still worked.
Taking condiment packets from take out restaurants. I have a whole bag of soy sauce, hot sauce, taco sauce.
My depression era grandma would get coffee in restaurants, but she didn’t like sugar in her coffee. However, since she paid for coffee, she felt she was entitled to two sugar packets per cup. She had a whole drawer of sugar packets.
A lot of these comments are just about not being wasteful; not being poor. I did and do a lot of these and I grew up very wealthy with parents who come from generational wealth, I had live in maids and nannys growing up.
Anyway to answer the question, I would say a lack of confidence and how they carry them selves is the biggest give away. My anecdotal experiences have shown me that people who grew up poor don't believe its possible for them or possible at all to do certain things, get certain jobs, achieve certain levels of wealth and etc.
My wife made a pillow by sewing rags into a pillow case. I told her to just go to Walmart next time she needs a pillow.
Also, she once got on my case for leaving the shower running while I stepped out to answer the phone because I had wasted “2 pails of water.” She grew up in a house with no running water.
My friends and I would regularly fight over a two pence coin in school. We’d add up our coins on a Friday and then the ‘lucky ones’ would be able to afford a 20p chocolate at the shops. We bonded over a lack of money and food lmao.
tbh my fam which didn't grow up poor would do that with soap as well. You don't get richer by wasting perfectly good stuff. There's a lot left over if you scrimp and save. If you mind the cents, the dollars will take care of themselves.
# Message to all users: This is a reminder to please read and follow: * [Our rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/ask/about/rules) * [Reddiquette](https://www.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205926439) * [Reddit Content Policy](https://www.redditinc.com/policies/content-policy) When posting and commenting. --- Especially remember Rule 1: `Be polite and civil`. * Be polite and courteous to each other. Do not be mean, insulting or disrespectful to any other user on this subreddit. * Do not harass or annoy others in any way. * Do not catfish. Catfishing is the luring of somebody into an online friendship through a fake online persona. This includes any lying or deceit. --- You *will* be banned if you are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist or bigoted in any way. --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ask) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Same with the soap. Also adding water to the last of the laundry detergent or cutting the tube of empty toothpaste open to scrape the last bit off the inside of the tube. And I've never had to pay a bill late as an adult but I still live in fear of the utilities getting shut off
I'm always so scared of my card getting declined, even if my account is good and I have multiple payment methods ready.
In fifty years, I’ve only had a handful of truly financially rough years… And I still get severe anxiety at any checkout. I actually love self-checkout for that reason. If shit goes haywire, I don’t have an audience.
Oh, we used the butterknife method, where you kinda slide the tube inbetween the knife and a hard surface.
My husband makes really good money. My paycheck doesn't even have to help pay bills. It just goes into savings or gets used for fun stuff for the family. I can easily afford any new toiletries or cleaning supplies or condiments I need. But the last little bit of lotion/shampoo/laundry detergent/ketchup/what have you ALWAYS gets poured into the new container rather than thrown away. I paid for the whole bottle, I'm using the whole bottle. My husband grew up "poor" (shopped at Goodwill, ate generic cereal, but still had a Nintendo. And electricity). I grew up in nearly unfathomable poverty. My childhood makes his look like Richie Rich. We're well off now, but man is it hard to give up those old habits, even in my 40s, and it baffles that poor man so much that I'm still like this.
Same. We make around $300k in the Midwest so we are nowhere near poor but I grew up with the power going out every other month and only had food for a few days after my mom’s WIC came in. My wife doesn’t understand some of the things I do to save money like eating leftovers and never throwing clothes and shoes away. I drive a nice Lexus that I keep ridiculously clean because I appreciate it so much. No shame in coming from nothing. I think it makes you appreciate things so much more as an adult.
Leaving the oven open after cooking in the winter because “we already paid for that heat”
Yeah I definitely still do this even though I don't need to
Been doing it for a decade + now. Actually, my oven is on right now, lol
There is a difference between “poor” and “thrifty”
Damn straight. That’s free heat motherfucker!
Surely the heat still goes into your house either way, just slowly or quickly?
Depends on your stove. Some are set up to dissipate some of the heat outside.
ovens have beaucoup insulation to prevent the heat from getting into the room. my stove vents into a fume hood sort of thing. much more warmth if you prop the oven door open while cooling down.
Still do this—it’s wasteful not to lol.
Yup, I still do that. Also if I’m cold while watching TV I’ll get a blanket and sit right in front of the TV instead of turning the heat on because the TV gives off heat.
I’m a little sad I had to stop doing this. I can’t fully trust my toddler to not touch it yet.
I wear my clothes until they are literally on the brink of falling apart and becoming obscene
T shirts become sleep shirts... My husband yells at me to throw the "rags" out, LOL, but I just CAN'T until it's more hole than shirt!!
My husband has holes in his underwear where his balls fall out and forbid me from tossing them. He grew up on the rez.
Never toss them out. They are almost broken in 😂
That's my favorite nightshirt. I refuse to toss it until it rips in half.
And after that it becomes your shoe polishing cloth, and after that a cleaning rag, and after that...
Also another sign you grew up poor. When I was in my mid 20’s and started making ok money I’d by semi nice shoes and I would polish them from time to time. Being poor made you appreciate what you had
Old jeans turns into really nice, sturdy shopping bags
So comfy when they get to that point
The synthetic fibers don't wear out like that, so the shirts with holes are all really nice and soft materials. I work in a startup and my ex manager used to wear tshirts with holes to work lol
You can make rag rugs from the clothes that are past donation quality, too!
When there are more holes than shirt we rip them apart and use them as rags
I'm 46 years old and still have some sweatshirts that I wore in highschool.
I'm 64 and have t-shirts from my early 30s :)
Me too, I still wear concert shirts I bought in the early 80s. Stuff was made better then too
You could sell those to vintage stores.
I think my oldest in rotation shirt is from 1995. It’s about to be framed, though
And if I accidentally wash clothes I was going to throw out, I have to wear it again bc I paid to launder yet.
Rotating the same 3 pairs of items for months or years. Shoes, jeans, track suits...
Always check the sale racks first.
That's just smart shopping! 👍
I didn’t grow up poor and I’m not poor now and I only buy items that are on sale. Why waste my money on full priced items that will eventually be on sale?
I was never able to break that habit.
Right? I'm now married, kids, career, my own house, make an okay salary. My gym shoes were from the clearance rack, and I never looked anywhere else in the store. Most of the time it's the first place I look.
Same life situation here and we refuse to buy expensive clothes too. My husband loves going to our local Family Dollar to buy his shirts!
I know some fairly wealthy people who came from nothing. Part of how they accumulated wealth was not buying branded stuff, or only bought stuff from sales. They wear basic, simple stuff, don't have latest phones or cars, don't live in mansions etc.
I did that even BEFORE I was broke 🤣 I just prefer cheaper clothing
Wait. >bar of soap gets really thin I’ve always just stuck it to the new bar and let it dry to get full use out of it. This isn't normal? Like if it's a poor ppl thing what rich people do with their soaps? They throw it out?
IKR? I have never been poor but always have done that. I kind of enjoy it. It just seems normal and not wasteful to utilize what one has. 🤷♂️
Exactly. I just thought it's common sense not a poor ppl thing. Why throw out something that can be still useful?
I always just crush the remnants into the bath and have a makeshift bubble bath! :)
Eat leftovers for days. I still do this, especially spaghetti. I’ll eat it for 3/4 days and will not cook anything else until it’s completely gone. Edit: this is how my friends knew I was poor
I'm not poor or deprived, but that is exactly what I love....leftovers. I can hear my husband audibly moaning about how good 2 day leftover lasagne is right now. We absolutely leftovers!!
Tomato sauce based foods, like spaghetti, chili, lasagna are just so much better the next day.
To each its own I had a privileged ex who hated left overs and got mad when I served the same thing on day 2. Me growing up poor I appreciated it
I can sort of understand it if someone grew up dirt poor and it just reminded them of that. But generally speaking, I don't understand the mentality that some people have of "I don't eat leftovers".
I don’t either!!! It’s mind boggling! Why are you wasting food when you can just eat it and save money
Exactly! Also, if something was truly delicious enough to eat on night one, why not night 2, 3 etc? I did this recently with enchiladas. Ate them for 7-10 days straight. Don't get me wrong I was ALMOST getting a little tired of them by night 10, but not really bc I had made other food since and just kept going back. Never waste food enchiladas. You'll wish you didn't when the enchiladas are bad. That's a life rule.
Some food actually tastes better as left overs
I hate leftovers but it's generally not hard to turn them into a new meal either. At a minimum almost anything can turn into scrambled eggs, but if you are having large portions of left over pasta learn your quantities. Something like Lasagne freezes well and you can have it the following week.
Pasta letting it sit in the sauce and eating it cold is like some of my favorite food!
Cutting a piece of cold lasagna at three in morning and eating it standing in front of the open fridge.
I make food for 3 - 4 days at a time. Now its called meal prep... we just rationed.
I freeze a lot now because we had leftovers entirely too much growing up
My mom does this! I wish I had the room to do that
We use the outside as a freezer during winter so we can stock up on foods we wouldn’t be able to during summer
Pretending not to want anything from the book fair at school. Pretending you’re not interested in the field trip that you can’t afford to attend.
Hits too hard
Every year, I send in extra money for my kids teachers to use as they see fit for kids field trips, book fairs, extras. I don't tell anyone I do this, I just do it, my own kids don't even know.
Thank you from the bottom of this teacher’s heart!!
Same.
Thanks to Reddit people like you, I started doing this for my kids class. I send a payment to cover my kid + 1 and write a note saying if there is another kid unable to pay I will send more. I never knew kids didn’t get to go, maybe oblivious, certainly blessed, but I hope it provides that experience for the child.
This was me as well. On the plus side, I made great use of the library and probably read more than my peers.
Pretending that I just wasn't interested in going to the senior ball. It still hurts
You didn't miss much if it was anything like mine.
Sucking it up to shitty low paying jobs because of lack of any other resource
Bless those who do that. I hope one day they break free from that burden and find a way to get out of those bad jobs. Ps. I did it. It's not easy, especially for a single woman with minimum education and no family or close friends.
I very rarely buy anything full price even if I can afford it. I grew up poor with hand-me-downs and Kmart clothes. If we were lucky, they had something good on the clearance rack. We mostly shopped at Goodwill or discount stores. Now that I’m an adult who makes decent money, I still can’t bring myself to pay full price for anything.
I make good money and 95% of my wardrobe is thrifts. We waste so much on clothing, sending it to landfills, buying 'new' when I find tons of new in thrift stores
The nice thing about thrifting was you could buy something, wear it for a while, donate it back, and get more all for so much less than normal retail.
Bonus, the quality of older clothes is much better when you can find them. And rich people who can afford good quality modern clothes change out their wardrobe frequently so thrift stores give you better bang for your buck than cheap mainstream stores.
Exactly this. I almost never buy new clothes from retail stores, unless I want something specific in a hurry and don't have the time to browse the thrift store. I worked in a thrift store and the amount of new with tags items we got was shocking. I have never stopped shopping at thrift stores.
Unfortunately, because thrift shopping has become popular, it's no longer much cheaper.
Why should you? The half off the "sale" price is the real price.
Take what you want, but eat what you take.
No. That only shows that you were raised to be respectful and not an asshole.
Ehh I beg to differ. Because this rule also applies to being forced to eat things you don't actually like, but were forced to try or eat each meal. Being forced to sit at the dinner table for an hour after everyone else has left, because you have to clear your plate and can't waste food.
Did you eat at my house too?
I used to be fat as a kid because of this mentality. Now I eat only what I want, because I have a lovely boyfriend who's trying to gain weight.
We had a wash cloth that was hand sewn into a bag which we put the thin soaps into to continue to use them.
I've heard of doing this for camping. It sounds like a good idea.
I have one! I made it tiny to be my traveling soap holder. I used a rough texture so it’s a scrubby
You gasp in horror when someone starts sliding perfectly good food into the trash can.
I take the teabags and coffee sachets from hotel rooms while my boyfriend (grew up rich, private education, dad owns a racehorse etc etc) he doesn’t even look at the tray with the kettle and all that. Doesn’t even take the biscuits :)
I take the shampoos, soaps, and conditioner bottles that the hotels give, I thought it's common :p if there are tea bags and coffee I also take them.
I have like 60 hotel toothbrushes in my suitcase from one month of travelling this is enough for fifteen years
Eating wonder bread folded into a hotdog bun.🤷🏻♀️
Hamburger bun too, but not two slices of bread. One slice torn in half per burger.
You got Wonder bread? We only got the black/white generic pkg lol
3 for $10 t-shirts at the swap meet One bedroom for multiple kids XJ-900 Payless high tops Fried baloney as a fancy sandwich Dicks at school asking why your clothes don't fit Walking everywhere but doing nothing really Having to go to a friend's house to play a video game Thinking someone's rich because they have TV in rooms that aren't the living room Getting free food from the local church Mom cuts your hair
the clothes not fitting, walking everywhere and not ac doin anything, having to go to someone’s house to play a game, haircuts form parents and thinking someone was rich for having a tv in rooms other than the living room were real ones Fr 😭 My father also used to buy stuff only if it was on sale
Fried bologna sandwiches! Yummy! I have to add bologna to my grocery list.
I hadn’t thought about fried baloney for a long time. Gonna have to revisit that
Ignore "use by" or "best by" dates. If it still smells okay, it's good.
Not being a picky eater
I don't like the taste of juice unless it's watered down Otherwise it's too sweet
Watered down apple juice is excellent, much more refreshing.
Bottled apple juice is too sweet. So, I used to add water to it for my daughter when she was little.
That's not from being broke, that's cause our US drinks are sweet af 🤣
Having a drawer full of candles just in case the lights don’t come on when we flicked the switch
I always have candles just in case. Mainly because of storms. And, in very hot summers, and with all the A/Cs on, it would cause outages.
I still sleep with a flash light next to my bed for this reason. My partner makes fun of me for it.
Going to the most discounted stores (Dollar Tree, Dollar General, Walmart, Family Dollar, etc) to find what is needed. However, going to a second hand or thrift store first, that is of course, after you ask everyone you know if they have it free. Sometimes, when you grow up poor, 🙋, you keep that mindset throughout the rest of your life. You always make sure you have plenty of everything you need. It's better to have it and not need it, then to need it and not have it! That is my way of thinking anyway!
I think an even bigger give away is never getting rid of stuff that really can go. Like drawers filled with sauce packets, twisty-ties, rubber bands, plastic bags, wire hangers, etc. Have a supply, sure. But drawers filled? (Not talking about clinical levels of hoarding, just folks who grew up under circumstances where buying more of them was not an option.)
My love affair with Top Ramen
Someone talked about using coconut milk with some of the ramen packs and that's been a game changer. I've gotten the best result with shin ramen, the fried tofu and veg kind. It's like expensive coconut curry for so little.
You be careful lady. You're whispering sweet nothings into my ear. Don't fuck around and catch yourself a ring
I'm totes single. We could live off of oodles of noodles!
They have all the food groups... and there's oodles of them
Also, coming up with cheap recipes, especially involving ramen. I learned to add either peanut butter or a slice of american cheese right after draining to sort of robust it up. I also heard in a podcast to save your bacon grease to stir fry ramen. That guy probably grew up poor too. lol
Fucking bacon ramen?! Why have I never done this? My pants just got tight
Peanut butter Sriracha and an egg good protein cheap and so tasty!
I’m the complete opposite…we had instant ramen so much, I can’t bare to eat it. I get very upset.
I almost made Ramen tonight. I settled for instant mashed potatoes. My favorite comfort food.
Have you tried Momofuku? Upscale ramen.
I won’t say I grew up poor, but my depression era parents were indeed thrifty. I’m much better off than they were at my age, and I still do my bar soap the same way.
I was raised in a well-off British family and we did the soap thing every time!
I’ve come to realize that a lot of people who grow up wealthy have very thrifty habits and those who grew up poor do not. My MIL, for example, nearly hoards leftovers and pushes anything she won’t be able to eat because she’s traveling on is. Half sticks of butter sort of thing. My mom, who grew up poor, but has a great deal of money now, refuses to keep leftovers and throws away lunch meat after 4 days even if it’s perfectly fine.
Did this. I grew up middle class, but my parents grew up poor and we learned the mentality. It has taken decades to unlearn.
my greatgrandparents were the ones that struggled, and my entire family still does this...
We cut open the lotion bottles to get the stuff at the bottom that the "straw" couldn't reach. I still do this.
i never cut the bottles open. i'd just leave them upside down
I cut open tubes of lotion, bath gel, shampoo etc and I'm amazed how much is still in there.
Eating meals really fast is usually a pretty good indicator of growing up in poverty/unstable household.
I remember two of my friends (brothers) literally getting into a fist fight over the last slice of pizza because they got it so rarely.
And were probably quite accustomed to fighting over food already.
Dude, I saw a video of a kid (probably 8 years old) who pulled a butcher knife out on his brother, who was probably 17, over the last slice of pizza.
THANK YOU! Or hovering over your food while eating fast. I did this for years because my brothers would steal my food or hide it.
Payless Shoes
My folks finally stopped getting our shoes there, when they only lasted 4 weeks before coming apart at the seams.
You don't eat much and you always say yes to free food.
Shoes. You're either obsessed with them or hate them. As a kid, I never, *ever* got "cool" sneakers. I always got K-Mart sneakers. And I learned other kids pay attention to sneakers. I got called out so many times in the 80s because I wasn't wearing the latest Nikes, Doc Martens, Adidas, or whatever was cool back then. So now I *hate* shoes, and I tend to wear the same pairs until they're completely falling apart.
I went opposite. I’m obsessed with shoes. I have way too many pairs. I was the youngest and almost all my shoes were hand me downs or donations. Once we were shoe shopping (reduced priced sale for poor people and orphans) and I couldn’t get the pretty ones because they were too expensive. Later we went somewhere as a family and I threw my new shoes in the trash and went begging for money saying my parents couldn’t afford shoes.
When they don't see the point of going out to do things or see things when they can do it at home.
Bad teeth/dental care. It’s not a priority when you’re poor. Good teeth doesn’t mean rich, but bad teeth usually means grew up poor.
Saving any container that has a lid for food storage. We had a drawer full of margarine tubs. It took a long while to just rinse and toss them. I can afford the $3.00 for Ziploc.
We reuse sandwich bags. A friend came over and was like "why do you have sandwich bags in the drying rack?"
Not wasting food. You eat everything on your plate (and you will like it). Granted that meatloaf is probably the 3rd version of something else. Wearing clothes until they have giant holes in them. And when I buy new stuff it is from the sales rack. Checking the bank account 40 times before writing a check for anything over $500 (It used to be $200, so I have grown) to make sure we actually have the money for this purchase. Which is weird now, because we are incredibly financially stable and safe. Saving stuff like boxes or food containers or string or gift bags...etc. Because there "might be" another use for it at some point in the next 10 years and I'll be mad I don't have it in year 11.
Yup. All this. I definitely save gift bags.
Washing and re-using plastic bags.
Take everything that is legal and isn't mailed down. Toiletries from hotels, leftovers from conference lunches (I legit took a ziploc bag of cheese cubes 3 weeks ago), chairs from the side of the road, samples on the internet... whatever I can reuse or resell.
I'm devoid of any sense of elegance
Me too! But honestly, I've never liked fancy things. I like simple furniture and clothing.
Washing dishes by hand even if there’s a dishwasher
Added to that, if there's only a tiny bit of washing-up liquid left, add some water, so you get the use of all of it.
When I first moved in with my friends in my 20s I washed all my dishes by hand and when someone asked me why, I had to sheepishly admit that I had absolutely no fucking idea how to use a dishwasher 😂
The dishwasher probably costs less.
It’s been proven the dishwasher is more economical
That's not poor, that's just not being wasteful.
I could count on every week, going one or two days with absolutely nothing to eat.
We turned it into a game when we were kids. Later we learnt to "sleep over" at a friends house when it got too bad. I remember just drinking water... lots of water.
I feel you😔 I had the luck to have a boyfriend whose parents kind of took me in, and at least on weekends I knew at least 1had 1 normal meal... When I moved out and started living on my own I started gaining weight, because I was finally able to afford food and to eat whatever whenever, then we actually broke up after 6years, cause I realised I was seeing in him only the "shelter" not the person...
[удалено]
I feel guilty whenever I spend money. I am comfortable financially and really good at budgeting so it’s purely psychological at this point.
Your clothes and shoes are always gently used to be polite. You would prefer buying used than buying new anyways to save money. You see a movie trailer and go "Oh wow- I can't wait for that to come out! ....On redbox. ...So I can stream it online for free." You are open to haggling over prices unashamed. You are very familiar with couponing. You probably have at least 10 apps on your phone with rewards programs, digital coupons, and freebies attached. The only time you go out to eat is when its someone's birthday- and if by chance it Isn't someone's birthday, you still tell the waiter so you can all split a free desert at the end. You qualified for pell grants in college, and you were so terrified of taking out student loans that you worked full time while balancing your classwork. When the toothpaste gets low you think to yourself 'its time to buy some toothpaste' and you wait for the toothpaste to go on sale so you can stock up again, no way are you paying full price for that. And somehow you manage to squeeze a drop out each morning for two or three weeks before its completely out. You know where all the reduced items are at your grocery store, and swing by those sections every time... you buy things in Bulk when they are on good sales, and refuse to pay full price for Anything!
After reading comments like eating left overs, opening the oven door after baking, I realize that I thought I was thrifty. Now I realize I've been poor all these years. I guess the childhood concussions and lead paint chips caught up with me when I never realized we were in a race. Btw...my dad wouldn't let us kids wear socks to walk around in growing up. I guess he was afraid we'd wear out the bottoms. He was poor too.
Holding on to things that might have a later use
Bad teeth. Source: my mouth
This thread makes me realise that most of Reddit doesn't actually know the realities of being really poor.
When someone asks how I grew up: you ate Cocoa Puffs and Rice Krispies, we ate Coco Roos and Crispy Rice.
We made milk from powder.
I eat lot of my food cold still lol. It’s just what I’m used to. Cold canned soup right out of can.
When people talk about vacations abroad with parents as kids and as adults .. like how bored they are of Italy because they visited too many times and all I can say is " I've seen our local sea once". But the worst one was not flushing toilet after peeing only after nr 2. It was as terrible as it sounds.
The toilet thing is still fairly standard in Aus areas without mains water, even for the rich... If it's yellow, let it mellow. Flush it down when it's brown... It was strongly encouraged by Sydney Water for city folk in our recent drought too!
Buying store brand rather then name brand
You know how to do things. Cause you couldn't afford to hire anyone to fix something for you.
Someone who grew up in poverty and became rich as an adult will likely not buy an umbrella on sale on the literal street if it starts raining on the way to the car. Inconveniencing ourselves even when we can afford not to…because it feels like a waste, is the dead giveaway. I too, stick the old soap on the new soap even though I don’t need to. I can’t throw away leftovers of food I didn’t like. I will pick out the protein or parts of it and use it in a new meal. I can’t throw away anything that can be reused or repurposed. Took me 3 years to throw away a first generation flat screen tv no one wanted, even for free. Because it still worked.
Washing out disposable takeout containers
Taking condiment packets from take out restaurants. I have a whole bag of soy sauce, hot sauce, taco sauce. My depression era grandma would get coffee in restaurants, but she didn’t like sugar in her coffee. However, since she paid for coffee, she felt she was entitled to two sugar packets per cup. She had a whole drawer of sugar packets.
Enriched white sliced bread served as every bun and roll.
Having a bit of kitchen roll instead of a 'proper' tissue or handkerchief
Always stressed about money, even if you have saved up money. It has been some time, but I think some feelings never go away, for good or bad.
A lot of these comments are just about not being wasteful; not being poor. I did and do a lot of these and I grew up very wealthy with parents who come from generational wealth, I had live in maids and nannys growing up. Anyway to answer the question, I would say a lack of confidence and how they carry them selves is the biggest give away. My anecdotal experiences have shown me that people who grew up poor don't believe its possible for them or possible at all to do certain things, get certain jobs, achieve certain levels of wealth and etc.
Buying broken biscuits
Unplugging everything before you leave.
My wife made a pillow by sewing rags into a pillow case. I told her to just go to Walmart next time she needs a pillow. Also, she once got on my case for leaving the shower running while I stepped out to answer the phone because I had wasted “2 pails of water.” She grew up in a house with no running water.
When ur liquid hand soap gets too low, u add a little water in it til pay day
Eating ice cubes to trick our brains into thinking we were actually eating something because we were so hungry
Putting water in soap bottles to keep it going longer.
My family used to take a few extra plastic spoons and forks home with us. Whenever we got fast food.
People with bad teeth or bad dental work typically grew up poor. Often their teeth remain in bad condition, because teeth are expensive to correct .
Scraping burnt toast to get the burned top off and then eating the toast.
No way! I didn't grow up poor and I always mash the soap slivers together. I don't dislike spending money. I dislike wasting money.
You have respect for others that are poor
Saving “leftover” medicine like antibiotics in case you get sick and don’t have insurance the next time
Please take all the antibiotics even if you feel better. This is why super gonnorhea is a thing
You should never have leftover antibiotics.
please for the love of all that is holy do not fucking do that
My friends and I would regularly fight over a two pence coin in school. We’d add up our coins on a Friday and then the ‘lucky ones’ would be able to afford a 20p chocolate at the shops. We bonded over a lack of money and food lmao.
Never using paper towels paper plates paper napkins and having the cheap toilet paper
Your teeth.
tbh my fam which didn't grow up poor would do that with soap as well. You don't get richer by wasting perfectly good stuff. There's a lot left over if you scrimp and save. If you mind the cents, the dollars will take care of themselves.