This is frustrating.

[TanksHill]

Wow, where have I been the past two days????

I grew up with almost nothing. Then I got a job and supported myself. Met my dh and he supports our family now. I do everything I can to supplement that income. Gardening, sewing, all of the wonderfully frugal things I know.

I do admit for a while we were out of control. Now we are paying for it. Literally. But that is our responsibility. I am not going to moan and grown about how I "have" to shop at good will. Or that I bought flip flops for my kids at the $1 store for their summer shoes. I am just doing what needs to be done.

It is very hard for the average person to break the cycle. I teach my children what I can and try to explain to them that x box and direcTV are not the norm for many people.

But then we have family.... I try to expose them to both sides. The poor living with nothing as well as the wealthy living with more. I think this shows them how the world works. That by working hard and getting a good education they will be able to choose their own path.

If everyone who got themselves into a mess could just buckle down. They would all be better off some day.

But there will always be those people who have blinders on and just don't get it. That's why there not here with us.

And that's something I just have come to live with.

 

[Wifezilla]

My SIL was 'bragging' about how she got a couple pairs of jeans on sale for only $85!

For $85 dollars I can clothe me, hubby and my youngest.

I was at Goodwill the other day and got 3 t-shirts and 4 novels for $6.

 

[FarmerChick]

yea I used to buy $85 jeans and wouldn't think twice on that purchase

now I would rather spend that money towards a good vacation then denim lol

eveyone puts their money where they want and no one will ever agree on the best spending for that money lol

 

[lorihadams]

I'm going to goodwill today, and the used bookstore (to trade books for credit) and the secondhand childrens store to sell some stuff for cash!

My dad is a brick mason and when you are in construction it is feast or famine. I can distinctly remember a time when he got paid in cash for a job he did and it was several thousand dollars. He got home after the bank closed and when he showed up with all that cash my mom, in a fit of silliness, threw it up in the air and we all rolled in it like something out of a movie

My dad asked her what she was doing and she said "that's the most money I'll ever see in my lifetime I figured I do something fun with it before it goes to pay the bills!"

I grew up in an 800 sq ft house. My clothes were always out of style. My mom worked a job after we got in school to pay for "extras" like clothing, stupid food, and toys for us. If we didn't have the extra money we didn't get anything. My mom uses a credit card but she always pays the balance off every month. My brother does the same. He knows how much he can spend every month and he doesn't go over.

We are in debt up to our eyeballs right now but that's cause we were GIVEN a mobile home and land, praise Jesus. When we sell our house we will be very close to being debt free. No more mortgage payments. People ask us all the time why we are leaving a stick built house to live in a trailer and we look at them and say, "because its paid for" and they just don't get it. Having a mortgage is soooooo the norm now that people cannot fathom NOT having one.

We have seriously cleaned out our home during the move and have sold/donated a ton of stuff that is just useless. We got a Wii for xmas and we have never bought a game for it and hardly use it. I have pretty much stopped buying books (a serious obsession of mine) and now use the library faithfully. We are trying very hard to teach our children to be frugal and THINK about whether or not they REALLY NEED something before they buy it.

We love to practice that at the Target dollar bin or the dollar store. They each get a dollar of their own money from their piggy bank and they have to decide what they really want.

Its killing me not to have a garden this year because of the move. Next year, watch out! My BIL cannot understand why we would put in a garden when we could just go to the store and buy stuff. He's the one that's gonna be house poor while I'm sitting pretty with no mortgage

I understand the credit card thing too....I had 4 that were maxed out in my early 20s and it killed me. I hate using them but I'm trying to teach my children responsible credit and we try to pay it off completely every month. We've been pretty good about it.

I think part of it is that parents don't teach their kids about saving and responsible spending anymore. Kids nowadays are so spoiled it is ridiculous.

 

[noobiechickenlady]

I love being "weird"! It's ever so much better than being broke

We're not quite on the fragile edge, but we are sure not rolling in the dough. I'd much rather spend $85 on feed for the critters than on jeans. (She says as she models her $2 pair of designer jeans bought at a yard sale last week)

I have friends like that. Their car was raggedy, needed several repairs, probably totalling $1,000 or so. She drives 35 miles to work one way. When they got their tax return back (little over $2k) they bought a flat screen tv, an x-box 360 and new clothes for all three kids.

When they were showing off the new tv, I just said "I'd love to see you drive that thing to work." They laughed. Laughed!!

And, they're on assistance. Same folks I mentioned before, that can't make $700 last a month for non-taxed food. *sigh*

 

[curly_kate]

I grew up very comfortably, but we did live very frugally. The problem I discovered as I got older was that we never talked about money. It was in "poor taste." My parents used credit cards, and paid them off every month. DH thought it was so strange that I felt so uncomfortable talking about money because I'd always been told it was impolite. I'm sure my parents talked about paying bills, etc, but we were never party to it. Happily, tho, we have no credit card debt now, and only have 1 credit card that we use only for gas because we get 5% back. We pay that bill off every month.

 

[bibliophile birds]

I was at Goodwill the other day and got 3 t-shirts and 4 novels for $6.

i have no luck shopping at Goodwill. i will admit that at least 1/2 of that is because i've gotten picky about clothing over the years. which is strange, seeing as how i shopped at Goodwill ALL THE TIME when i was in high school- not because i needed to, but because i thought it was cool. go figure.

so instead, i hardly ever shop. i go about twice a year and get a few basics. i usually find stuff at Old Navy (one of the only places that carries stuff that fits me and isn't hideous) in the clearance section that's out of season. like, the other day i got 3 long sleeve cardigans which are very stylish for $10, total. the most expensive one was $4.50 (originally $40). and that's brand new clothing only a season old. so, in the winter, i'll go and get summer shirts.

 

[cjparker]

If you ever want to "amuse" yourself, go sit in a welfare office parking lot for a couple hours. I recently took a friend there who desperately needed food stamps after being injured. While I was sitting in the car waiting for her, I noticed that I had the oldest car there! I assume that most people who went into the welfare office were "clients". Couldn't tell by their nice clothes and expensive shoes tho............and how come so many of them were smoking???? Cigs are around $8 a pack here. Gee, must have been my tax dollars at work.

But the other side of the coin is ugly, too. I used to work for a multi-millionaire. I mean this guy had a real fortune, used to get more money in monthly interest than I'll earn in a lifetime. He was so tight that he served unsweetened Kool-Aid and dollar store cookies as the only refreshments at his wedding reception. Pathetic.

I think I'll stick with what works for my family. We try to live lightly on the land, don't waste money or other resources, spend a little, save a little, pay our bills as we can, and thank the Lord that we don't live like those wackadoodles mentioned in all these posts.

 

[ORChick]

I grew up very comfortably, but we did live very frugally. The problem I discovered as I got older was that we never talked about money. It was in "poor taste." My parents used credit cards, and paid them off every month. DH thought it was so strange that I felt so uncomfortable talking about money because I'd always been told it was impolite. I'm sure my parents talked about paying bills, etc, but we were never party to it. Happily, tho, we have no credit card debt now, and only have 1 credit card that we use only for gas because we get 5% back. We pay that bill off every month.

Oh yes, the old "one HAS money, one doesn't TALK about it"! We always had "enough", though we kids never knew what the financial situation was. My parents were frugal, but it wasn't really obvious; we always had what we needed, and didn't lack for anything. We lived in my grandparents' home, so my parents never had to deal with a mortgage (that I know of; my father hated debt, but it is conceivable that they had a second mortgage at some point). The only financial advice I remember getting from my father (an accountant) was to "live from your interest, and never spend your principal", after which he added "like your uncle has done, not as I have done". I thought at the time that that was pretty useless advice if one didn't have any principal OR interest! (I was about 16). However, I always have remembered it, and have always put a percentage of every dollar earned into savings. Luckily, I married a man with a similar mindset, and we were able to retire early because of our saving ways.
I remember my DH went to a birthday party at his boss's house. His boss was in management in a computer firm before the dot.com bubble burst, as was his wife. The 2 of them probably earned at least 4 times what we did. They lived in a MacMansion, with all the latest gadgets, bells and whistles. DH said they had 3 late model expensive cars in the drive (for just the 2 of them). The boss said to DH, who was on the brink of retiring, that he envied him - it must be so nice to be able to retire, but he just couldn't afford it!

 

[ORChick]

Edited: double post