How wealthy was your upbringing? How has it affected you?

Upper middle-class, I guess. Never wanted for anything within reason (I never got that pony, but I had like five cabbage-patch dolls), never had to share a room with my sister, went on lots of nice family vacations. I never really thought about money much growing up–I was taken care of, my parents never vocally worried about paying the bills, and I never heard “we can’t afford it” unless my request was outrageous (like the aforementioned pony). My friends were all in the same class or above, so I didn’t encounter need there, either.

Looking back now, I know my parents worked hard to give us that kind of life. But they had the advantage of coming from education. Out of all of my parent’s generation in our family, the minimum education level is a bachelor’s (my Mom). Otherwise, there are three PhDs and two Masters. I had no idea how unusual that was until I went to college myself and met so many people who were the first in their families to even attempt higher education. I don’t think I even realized until then that not everybody automatically went to college!

My parents tried to teach me to handle money responsibly. I always had an allowance. When I turned sixteen, they bought me a car but it was a clunker and I was responsible for insurance and maintenance. They also got me a credit card that I had to pay the bill on to help me build credit, and they paid for my college as long as I kept up my grades and held down a part-time job.

I don’t think any of it took very well–I’m not the best at money-management. Maybe because in the back of my mind I always knew my parents were there to bail me out if needed. I’m not horrible–they never *have *had to bail me out, I’ve never been close to bankruptcy or anything, but I’m not good about building savings, or budgeting realistically for monthly expenses, etc. I’ve paid more than a few late fees on credit cards in my time, and I was no stranger to overdraft fees for awhile. Thank goodness my husband is much better at those things than I am. It’s thanks to him we have good credit and some money in the bank at the end of every month.

I don’t know how much of that can be laid at the door of my upbringing, though. It might just be a basic personality thing.

This one is really tough for me to answer. I grew up in a super-poor town in rural Louisiana. My mother and father (when I was young) were teachers and that made us seem rich in comparison to most people. We had a full-time black nanny/maid that I loved very much that raised me from infancy through high school. We also had about 100 acres of land and a nice house. However, my parents got divorced when I was 14 because of various scandals that would make Tiger Woods and a drug kingpin blush. My mother and I were lower middle-class at best after that and I just went to work in the local grocery store for $3.35 an hour and rarely came home except to sleep. I was financially independent at the age of 15 except for simple shelter. I don’t regret it much because I know I have little to fear and it doesn’t take much to survive even in the worst of circumstances.

These days, my father’s side of the family is not just upper-middle class but fabulously wealthy because of giant natural gas strikes on tens of thousands of acres of family property. That pisses me off even more because it is a control issue. My daughters and I are trust fund babies but we don’t see any of it now and get all of the disadvantages associated with that. I really prefer the earlier version.

My parents started off upper middle class, but while we were in the US and my dad was still doing his PhD, his father’s business back in Korea went bankrupt, which meant they could no longer send them any kind of financial support. So when I was very young we scraped by on a TA’s salary and my mom doing odd menial jobs (which couldn’t have been easy - she’d graduated from the best teacher’s college in Korea and led a somewhat sheltered life growing up, I think).

When I was older my dad did research work and my mom had a government job with the welfare department, so we did all right - I never felt like we lacked anything, anyway, although we certainly weren’t wealthy by any means. Then my dad lost or quit his job (I was too young to really know what was going on I suppose) and for a while he sold watches at a flea market (which, upon reflection, must have been difficult for a guy with a PhD, but he did it cheerfully as far as I can recall).

When we moved to Korea, it was a few years before we were properly settled in, but ever since high school I think we’ve fallen solidly into the upper middle class bracket.

I don’t think my upbringing has made me particularly frugal or wasteful. I think I do tend to splurge sometimes on certain things (something my parents very rarely did, so maybe I do it now just because I am able to) but unlike my friends, who come from wealthier backgrounds, I am unable to spend more than a few hundred dollars on anything unless it’s a computer or a plane ticket. I think it’s fine to spend money on whatever you want as long as you can afford it, but for myself I just can’t bring myself to buy a Chanel bag, for example, even though I COULD if I saved up for a few months, and I’ve seen some bags that I’ve coveted.

Yes, your views on money were made abundantly clear in a previous thread about “what if everyone were like you” and you said there would be more income “distribution”. Which is, at its base, theft. Perhaps you see tons of people who got lucky and have wealth, but the majority of people that I know who are wealthy are just plain smart, and a touch clever. Money doesn’t buy happiness, but it sure does buy comfort.

I’m 22, and my parents are 54 and 63 to give context. Both of my parents were born cresting but not solidly in the upper class (architects and doctors on my father’s side, doctors and small business owners on my mother’s side). Both of them fled their homes from terrorists and communists - Kashmir and Cuba - and were poor for formative parts of their childhood. My mother finished medical school in three years, my father graduated second in his class. They both became physicians. As a result, I have a hybrid upbringing - I never wanted for anything, but I also was taught (or shown) to have have incredibly few wants growing up - I was never the best dressed, never bought music or movie tickets, but at the same time I had my own (used) car the day I got my driver’s license. At age 7, I distinctly remember my nanny telling me that I had to put all of my stuffed animals back on my bed when I made it in the morning. Right then, I decided to give all but my favorite one away to Goodwill, so that I didn’t have so much “stuff”. I still find possessions a burden.

To this day mother clips coupons and aggressively shops grocery and target/drugstore sales; sometime in middle school I could calculate the value “per ounce” of detergent, and determine which sized bottle was cheaper. I would vacuum and scrub bathrooms alongside the housekeeper. I cooked dinner whenever the nanny was sick. My mother swore that she wanted me to be able to do anything for myself “in case you ever become poor” - just like she was for a time being. I was pushed a lot outside what would be considered the “comfort zone” of my income level, but I also had a cushion - like the night I burned the lasagna, it was never a question that we were eating takeout that night instead of, say, a bowl of cereal.

Last year, I totally stripped a bathroom of its tile, all the way down to the studs. The workmen at my mother’s property asked what I’d done to deserve the punishment. Hell, I asked to do it, so I could learn. :smiley:

Overall, even at 22, I’m more prepared for life than the majority of my peers. While I don’t worry about money on a day to day basis, I can run a household and repair thing in said house better than most adults. The field I’m going into will yield me a comfortable income, but I have no desire to work 80 hours a week, as my parents did. As I grow older, I find that I have almost none of the hangups about money that other people have - some of my peers who had dual-parents physicians are obsessed with making tons and tons of money, some have no idea how to quickly and easily save money (the kind who would buy toilet paper at the grocery store instead of Target), and some can’t fix anything that breaks to save their lives. Some of my lower-income friends refuse to buy generic drugs (band aids, ibuprofen, etc), even at my insistence, and they especially wouldn’t be caught dead underdressed for any occasion, even the gym. Their battle scars are open and parent to anyone with a discerning eye.

The one thing I’ll never understand is why people who are below what would be called middle class have more than say, 1-2 kids. Even without health insurance, options abound in larger metropolitan areas for hormonal birth control, from PP to others like it. Kids are a huge, huge expense - and I can’t imagine having one without being incredibly financially solvent.

Definitely lower middle class, borderline poor. The house I grew up in was in a ghetto, and moving wasn’t an option. My parents both made good salaries, but they (well, mostly mom) spent it as quickly as they made it. Nevertheless, we never did without for food or other necessities. But yeah, growing up in ghetto, and sweating my balls off every summer because my folks were too poor to turn on the A/C, has definitely affected my outlook on life.

For one, I crank up the A/C as soon as the temperature cracks 76, electric bill be damned.

Second, I refuse to buy cheap crap. I pay more money for better quality goods; it may mean that I have to wait a little longer, but so be it.

Most importantly, though: I don’t do without the things I want. Period. If I want something, I save up for it and buy it; I don’t just do without it and assume I’ll never have it.

These stories remind me of a historical novel of England I once read where the father was a professional gambler. “When father’s luck was in we lived in suites in the finest hotels and had a pair (of horses) and a carriage. When father’s luck was out, the three of us lived in a single room, living on bread and water, sneaking out in the middle of the night to avoid the landlord.” Myself, our family was lower-to-middle class. Dad was a plumber of sorts and later became a manager at the General Motors plant. He built our little house himself, two regular bedrooms (I had one) and a little half bedroom with bunkbeds for my two brothers. One bathroom, tiny kitchen. Later, they finished the basement and made a nice bed-sit for me. Mom occasionally worked a part-time job in one office or another as we got older (we were looked after by a neighbor and has been stated in many previous threads, we were free to ride our bikes and roam around all day in the summer. I spent hours at the public library and the town public pool). We had just enough. Cereal or toast for breakfast, a cold-cut sandwich for lunch, apples, oranges, bananas for snacks, a meat/potatoes/vegetable dinner (no second helpings). I didn’t become interested in fashion until about 7th grade, and got a lot of cheap trendy clothes at K-Mart, mid-level department stores, and a big place much like The Fashion Bug. Two cars, Dad loved his cars. I had an indulgent grandmother and was the only girl, so I made out like a bandit with dolls and toys and spending money. We took a lot of family trips - a cabin in the woods, picnic trips to lakes and beaches, later to Disney World or Sanibel Island once a year…None of us were indulged much. I didn’t drive until well into my 20’s and I took the bus EVERYWHERE. My dad got me deals on a series of cars, but I had to make monthly payments after I got a job. They did send me to business school and I had a series of jobs while I lived at home (paid a small amount of ‘rent’) - things got tense and I finally moved out in my mid-20’s. … Today? I am a total tightwad, and I’m trying not to be, so much - I mean, how many years do I have ahead of me, anyway? But I like being frugal. I love looking through thrift stores and I like sewing and doing alterations. I can whip up a meal out of crumbs a normal person would throw away. I wish I lived on a farm and had a big garden. I really don’t want or need a lot of “stuff” any more - walking through the mall is like visiting another country now, sightseeing…The thing is, stuff costs SO MUCH now, compared to years ago. I can hardly save a few dollars a week to put in my little emergency nest egg. I constantly feel insecure, financially, though my husband has a good job (I don’t work, and maybe this is why I’m so frugal, trying not to spend money recklessly?) … I have everything I need, can buy (within reason) anything I want - don’t take vacations, don’t live in a McMansion, still middle class, and that’s fine. I just wish I didn’t feel so insecure, bombarded with bad news about the economy all the time.

Pretty darn middle class. Although there were a few times when my father was between jobs and things were tight. And that might be why we are a two income family.

Middle class when I was growing up (graduated from high school in 1984) was different though. We seldom took vacations. My mother always drove a very used car. We ate a lot of hamburger hotdish, seldom went out to dinner, and wore hand me downs. But everyone I knew lived like that, even the ‘richer’ kids - the kid of the doctor and the kid of the pilot.

I handle money well, and am the most financially conservative of three children. I don’t think how I was raised was the biggest influence.

HOWEVER, I had a few friends growing up - one disappeared from school (and my life) when her father lost his job - and the family lost everything. Another lost her mother to cancer - and there wasn’t a father in the picture - she ended up living with an aunt who ‘couldn’t afford her.’ Another escaped from Iran when the Shah fell. THOSE things affected me.

I don’t want to go into too much detail because my mother is a doper and I wouldn’t want to upset her for TMI…

But lower class. I remember us always having money problems. I remember hearing my mother and my then stepdad often fighting about money matters.

She was a single mother for a long time, and after my grandparents and great grandparents died it was even more difficult for her, but she always made it work somehow. I remember once she managed to feed us both for a week and a half with 15$. I remember getting sung “You can’t always get what you want.” [The Rolling Stones] If I wanted something that she couldn’t afford and I remember it aggravating me terribly till I started to grow up and understand.

But really, in our neighborhood, I was a lot better off than the other kids. My mom always made sure I had what I needed and then some, she spoiled me before herself, and the other kids were always jealous.

What I lacked in material possessions, I earned a lot of strength. We became a “team” with a Gilmore Girl-esque bond. It made me stronger growing up knowing that there was nothing to fall back on [you had to rely on yourself], and her strength and persistance was always so powerful to me. I handle my money very carefully and save (one might say horde).

I have a difficult time spending money on things that are not essential and I’ll often plan to buy something as cheap as a videogame or movie weeks if not months before I’ll shell out the 30-45$ because I’ll feel guilty if I *waste the money on a luxury.
My cousin on the other hand was very spoiled, had an upper middle class upbringing, and attended an academy in Nashville (that a lot of famous country stars apparently sent their children.) She’s extremely disrespectful to everyone around her, especially her parents. She’s ungrateful and feels like she deserves things just because. She also wastes her money as if it
grew on trees *and is quite aware someone would always bail her out (and did when she got caught stealing). My mom has told me, “Don’t ever get yourself in jail because I can’t bail you out whether I would want to or not.” It stuck.

Also going toHeifer Ranch International’s Global Villagewhen I was 15 really affected me as far as how fortunate I am compared to 85% of the planet. It absolutely affected me and I wish all kids/teens would be required to attend the camp!

My parents made a lot of money–really a lot. They didn’t spend it thoughtlessly, though. We lived in nice houses in nice neighborhoods, and my parents would buy new cars about every 5-10 years. This let us all have our own space in the house, and my parents had reliable, independent transportation. No extra cars, though, and the houses weren’t “flashy”. Same with possessions… we had the usual stuff, and it was reasonably new and nice, but not bought to impress anyone, just to be serviceable and attractive.

I suppose that as an adult, I have an “I can’t afford to be poor” kind of attitude, because of it. I do what I can to make sure that I can afford reliable basics, and that I can afford the most economical and convenient solutions to problems. I had my little experience with crummy apartments and unreliable cars when I was in school, which just reinforced the importance, to me, of having good-quality stuff that won’t fail you when you need it.

I’ve got less of their thrift, though I still buy stuff because I like it and want it, not because I’m “supposed” to have it. For instance, before my husband moved in and brought his single-guy electronics with him, I was watching a 20" TV, and listening to music through cheap iPod speakers. On the other hand, I had a twelve-setting set of blue-and-white transferware dishes, crystal, nice silverware, and lots of new furniture. I wanted the dishes more than I wanted good electronics. So that’s what I bought.

I’ve always been solidly in the middle class. My father worked for over thirty years in a civil service job so his employment was dependable. There were times he worked part time in construction or my mother worked but it was more a matter of wanting the extra income than needing it.

It helped that we grew up in a rural area were the cost of living was low. But we were able to go on vacations, eat out, get nice Christmas presents, and go to college and I know other families that couldn’t afford these things.

Poor at first and then towards the middle class. By poor I mean the kind of poor in the movie “Molly McGuires” and by middle class I mean something like Leave It To Beaver. I would say its made a lot of impacts on me; I’ve known times when the next meal was in doubt and times when you could almost say we had plenty. I know that life changes, extremes happen, and I don’t have to fear them. I can survive with little or enjoy and share the bounty if that’s the card I get handed. When I can buy, I buy the best - it lasts. When I can’t buy, I make do and usually never notice. I do some savings but not much; I came into this world bald, pissed off, and without a penny to my name and I’m willing to leave it the same way need be.

The majority of people I know who are wealthy (and I know quite a few) inherited their money. That’s the trouble with generalizing from one’s own experience. I do know that there are plenty of people out there who made lots of money because they were smart. And then I know a bunch who made a bunch of money because they were greedy and willing to cut corners (I worked on Wall Street for a while).

I grew up solidly middle class. Dad was a lawyer (although lawyers’ incomes weren’t as out of proportion as they are now, and he wasn’t at a big Wall Street firm). The family didn’t have any worries about money. Not vast amounts of excess either – we lived in a rented apartment (although that may be a sign of poverty in many places, it didn’t mean a thing in New York City back then), and there was no vacation home. One car. No private schools. Kids went to Catholic grammar and high schools (tuition ranged from free because of scholarships to inexpensive). The kids all had the opportunity to go to college.

As a child, I had my worries, but none of them were about where the next meal was coming from, or if I could have a new pair of shoes when the old ones wore out.

Really, I was lucky.

We’ve been up and down. My grandfathers were steel mill workers. They worked their way up from the…whatever ground steel mills have. Mom’s dad built his own house to save money for the family with their 7 kids.

My parents both went into medicine and eventually became RNs in various capacities. But when mom got pregnant with my little brother, we got really poor really quickly. As in “We can’t buy food for the next two days” poor. We still had our TV, our computer, our nice cars, but no necessities like food, gas or new clothes. That changed me dramatically and I was henceforth strict with my money. I had more than any other kid my age but I wouldn’t spend it. Maybe I was afraid to not have it?

Because of that, I worked really hard for really long to get to the level I am today. I called myself “upper middle class” in a thread not too long ago, but that’s if you divide the middle class into two categories. If you divide it into 5, I’m in the second one down. So…lower-upper-middle class? Today, I have a lot of money to throw around, but my girlfriend says I’m “cheap in the strangest ways”. I’ll buy an HDTV without a second thought. We’ll go out to dinner any time we please. But grocery shopping…I’ll buy the 79 cent crappy soup because, hey, I just ate a meal for under a dollar! Gas and clothing too.

So I guess that’s what a life of luxuries without essentials does to you.

Professor Alan Parkman says,

I thought that was interesting.

Looking back, probably upper-middle class. Dad worked, Mom didn’t. We had a nice home, we each had our own bedrooms, large lot, great public schools. We weren’t spoiled; we were denied things we wanted only because we didn’t need them. We had things we needed. We took vacations that required air travel; we had a summer home.

We were taught the value of money, the importance of saving, investing and how not to fritter it away on meaningless things. I got a job in high school because I wanted one, wanted to work for my money. I bought my own first car with my own money when I got older; I earned all my spending money.

How did it affect me? It made me realize that hard work was required to allow me to live the lifestyle I became accustomed to. It was the carrot on the stick- if you want this, here’s what you have to do to get it for yourself. Consequently, I worked hard and while I don’t have enough money to do anything I want, I have enough to live a comfortable lifestyle. “Comfortable lifestyle” means something different to everyone you ask, but I live the life I always hoped I would.

Don’t you have to get a job and keep it, somewhere in there?

Hmm, maybe he thought that was implied. :slight_smile:

ETA: You know, I thought that was in the quote the first time I read it, too. Maybe that quote is not complete.

My parents are both professionals. My father is an inventor and once we left Quebec, my mom got a job in finance (she didn’t work while we were growing up in Quebec because her French is spotty). My parents are well into upper middle-class, income wise.

However, because they both grew up extremely poor, they don’t really act like it at all. So, until recently, there were very few pointers to the fact that they make good income. We lived in a very upscale town in MA (Lexington), but my parents bought a modest home. We didn’t have nice furniture or a gourmet kitchen or any of the markers of people who have money to spend on their real estate (we all shared a bathroom!). They aren’t interested in brand name clothes. They didn’t even own luxury cars until very recently. Pretty much the only thing they indulged themselves/us with was a decent trip somewhere as they both love to travel. For the most part this meant going on vacation to India-but not just a family vacation. They used to take us to touristy areas of India to give us a real vacation beyond visiting our [strike]hateful as*holes[/strike] relatives. But they’ve also taken us to England, Mexico, the Caribbean and various locations across Canada and the US.

They were also very generous where our educations were concerned. So I got to go to awesome academic summer camps (boarding school style) once I hit middle school and such. But there was no brand name clothing (my parents have a fixation on brand name clothing and why they won’t buy it), I had a job for about half of high school etc. etc…

Overall, I’d say that both most people here would say that my sister and I have been spoiled shamelessly with time, attention and funds-but a lot of my friends growing up thought my parents were extremely strict and overbearing. And I sometimes have a problem with the word “spoiled.” I think when I was younger and more immature I took my parents’ generosity for granted but now I’m grateful to have the upbringing and parents that I did. No matter how pissed I get with them, I have the security of knowing that I am very loved, that they are very selfless people (gives me pause when I want to have a fight) and that they’ll be there for me.

Somewhere between middle and upper-middle class. My mom was a teacher, and Dad had a government job, which probably would have put us middle class in most areas, but we lived in a pretty poor rural area. So we had quite a bit more than most of the people around us. Plus, I’m an only child so my parents were spending way less on child-rearing expenses than people with multiple kids. They had new cars every ~5 years; we traveled every year including two trips to England, where my parents had lived for a few years before I was born; I had new clothes every school year; I had more toys than I really needed. But they’d both grown up poor and taught me to save money and to spend cautiously.

We’re very comfortable now with two good incomes. We save a lot (for retirement, but also for rainy day funds and for vacations and so on), and we bought a 1400 SF townhouse even though we could have afforded a bigger house. (What would we need that for with just 2 of us? It’d just mean more space to clean!) We usually go to small, independent restaurants when we want to eat out so dinner’s usually under $30 for two of us unless it’s a special occasion. We both love to cook, and now that we can afford it, we spend way more on groceries than either of us did when we were poor grad students. It still shocks my husband to see over $400 in groceries for a month when he used to get by on under $100 for himself. But it’s nice to have nice ingredients when we want them and to be able to invite people over for dinner just because we like to. Both of our cars are paid off. We never carry a balance on our credit cards. We both still have student loans, but with interest rates <3% it doesn’t make sense to pay them off faster. We have nice furniture, but an ancient tv.

I guess what I learned from my parents was balance: don’t go into debt (except for the mortgage and student loans obviously), but it’s ok to have some nice things. Just decide which nice things are important to you and spend on those while saving in other areas.

This entire thread is based on one’s own experience, so your accusation is meaningless. Arguably a large portion of the SDMB discussions are based on one’s own experiences. Sky-high taxes on high earners make no distinction between family owned businesses or Wall Street lawyers.