Hiya all, as you might recall of me, I was a single mum bringing up 4 x kids (plus various others) over the years. I was in a perpetual state of housing and food insecurity for MANY years, but since then, as the kids have grown and moved on, I have gone up a couple of rungs up the financial ladder.
Now don’t get me wrong, I am not rich by any measure. My annual income still falls well below the national average, but I’m comfortable yada yada.
So how come I still think like I’m povvo? I’m about to move overseas as a digital nomad, I have $$ for fares and accommodation and plenty left over to enjoy a decent lifestyle in SE Asia. But I can’t throw my shoes away, the ones that cost me a half a weeks wages back 20 years ago? Or the sandals that cut into my toes that I payed a similar amount for?
And of course I’m looking for the cheapest apartment, even though I could easily afford one a couple of hundred $$ more per month. It’s starting to shit me to tears: I still behave like I have to scrimp every penny, when in reality, I don’t have to do that.
For many years it was a survival tactic that served you and yours very, very well. Humans are wired to hang onto survival tactics that work. The result is that we tend to keep using them even when they are no longer useful, sometimes even to the point they become harmful instead of helpful.
It will take you time to un-learn all these behaviors, and some actual work to do so. It doesn’t just happen.
Keep acting like you’re povvo, that way you will avoid the lifestyle creep that grips lots of us as our income starts to outstrip our expenses. Just don’t stress over it, be a chilled out penny pincher.
My mother is this way, somewhat. It’s really rather bizarre. She was a SAHM with 5 kids, and while Dad always had a good job, we were pretty much very lower middle class, if that. (I didn’t recognize it at the time, but kids don’t, do they?)
Anyway, over the years, we grew up, moved out, and got our own lives and Dad got promotions and did some investing and such. So when he died, Mom had a house that was paid off and a comfortable financial cushion. At one point, she took several of us on a 12-day cruise to the Southern Caribbean. Pre-COVID, she’d often invite a bunch of us (depending upon which spouses and kids were available) to dine in an upscale restaurant that she really likes, resulting in a tab of several hundred dollars.
BUT, she unplugs small appliances that have clocks on them so they don’t use electricity when she doesn’t need them. She keeps her computer turned off unless she’s actively using it, lest she run up her electric bill. She buys the cheapest groceries as she did when she had a houseful of kids and a tight budget. She’ll break out the duct tape and make questionable repairs rather than replace broken household items. She won’t turn on the a/c unless someone is visiting, claiming to like the heat. Her microwave has had a broken display for more than a decade, but she refuses to let any of us replace it for her, because it still heats up her coffee (A replacement would be less than $100, fercryinoutloud!) She rinses out ziplock bags to reuse them. At least she’s not as bad as the aunt who would wash aluminum foil…
All I can guess is that some habits die hard. And, yeah, I do some similar things - like I comparison shopping to be sure I’m getting value for my money or planning my errands so I can refill the car at the cheaper gas station. It’s hard to change the mindset of preparing for “what if…” when the unexpected could truly be disastrous. I honestly don’t know if I could adjust that way of thinking if I fell into a huge fortune. So I understand what you’re dealing with.
That’s nothing. Some of us are still applying poverty tips our grandparents learned during the Great Depression. Seriously, why else does my wife have a hard time throwing out any “could be useful” containers that food came in? Her mother has a whole closet full of old containers of questionable cleanliness and marginal utility. While my wife does usually end up throwing most of those things away, she sometimes talks about the urge she has not to.
I also have some habits left over from the lean years. An annoying one is that when I’m cooking, I will do things like use a small dish when a bigger one would be more appropriate, or hold off on cooking something because I want to re-use a pan that’s already in service cooking something else…it’s an urge to not use all of my resources, although it’s irrational.
Another thing I’ve noticed in my family is that we hoard things we don’t want, so we can pass them to each other instead of donating them. A couple of weeks ago, Mom was trying to give me a very nice picture frame, which she had already tried to give to several other family members. I didn’t want it, but was trying to figure out who I could give it to. My husband pointed out, “You guys are doing it again…just give it to Goodwill!” I do donate things eventually, but it’s not my first impulse.
However, I have learned to pass up free food at work. I don’t want it, and I shouldn’t take it with plans of finding someone else who wants it, as I used to do.
I think there are different types of poverty-mode thinking and certain types are easier to let go of than others , and I also think that which types are easier to get rid of differs for certain people. I haven’t actually been poor since I was a kid but for me the “poverty thinking” that has hung around are the kinds that were never really restricted to poor people - wanting to get the best price or the best value isn’t restricted to poor people , and in fact , poor people often can’t go for the best value - it’s great to get 36 rolls of toilet paper at the warehouse store for $19.99 , but I can’t do that if I can’t afford the membership or if I need toilet paper and only have $2. And then there’s the taste factor - someone who grows up eating inexpensive cuts of meat might prefer them even after they can afford more expensive ones so that might not really be exactly poverty thinking hanging around.
Looking for a cheaper apartment even though you can afford a couple of hundred dollars more a month is one of those things that can go either way , depending on what you get for the extra money and whether that’s worth it to you. If what you get is a safer neighborhood, then looking for the cheaper apartment even though you can afford the couple hundred is poverty-mode thinking. If what you get is a more space or a terrace or a laundry room in the building or use of the yard or … and you don’t care about the space or whatever it’s not poverty-mode thinking - you just don’t want to pay for something you don’t care about. Just like the fact that I’m unwilling to pay 4X the price when I go on a cruise to get a room with butler service has nothing to do with poverty-mode thinking. If I was thinking in poverty mode , I wouldn’t be taking a cruise at all. In fact, I probably wouldn’t be taking any vacation more expensive than driving the 20 minutes from my house to the public beach.
First of all, “povvo”? I had to look it up. I’d appreciate it if you either use a regular word like “poor” and provide a definition at the beginning of a post.
MrsFtG and I both grew up in less-advantaged circumstances and continue to carry that mentality with us to this day to some extent. But overall we are still middle-class-ish in most outward lifestyle aspects.
By not wasting money in general, we are doing just fine in retirement. For example, our current car is a 21 year old model which has been well maintained. And it’s not the only 20+ year old car we’ve owned. The savings doing this are significant.
I’m now retired on Social Security and after a lifetime of intermittent employment it’s the most financially secure I’ve ever been. I’m only now learning to actually replace half-broken barely workable junk with new stuff that works properly.
Exactly this, for our household. My mother-in-law (born 1940) is exceptionally frugal, habits which she learned from her parents, who had to work odd jobs and scrimp to make ends meet during the Great Depression. She passed several of those habits along to my wife, who, like your wife, is kind of obsessive about re-using cheap food storage containers which wander into the house thanks to take-out orders.
We’ve just embarked on the possessions version of boff-marry-kill where we have agreed to pretend we’re moving in a year. The categories are keep until the move–move it–donate. Anything in the first category gets re-evaluated in a few months. Yet this morning I folded the wrapping paper from some gifts. At least it will go in the donation box. It’s hard for me to waste and hard for me to get rid of something I might reasonably need, but I’m getting better through practice.
Ohh, lordy. That’s another one of my mother-in-law’s frugal things. Opening presents at Christmas elicits a series of requests/commands from her: “Don’t tear the paper! Save the bows!!”
I grew up poor, raised by parents who were raised by Depression-era parents. We kept everything, because sooner or later we needed it, and we couldn’t afford to buy.
You have good habits that served you well. Take a look at your spending and think about where you’re economizing. Are you risking your safety anywhere, for example. If so, you should reevaluate that. Think about how much money you’d like to have in savings to feel secure if you need to relocate or if your job slows down or ends. Consider meeting with a financial advisor for what to do with that money. It’s not much now, but it should be protected and with advice can be grown.
In the meantime, don’t judge yourself harshly for your spending habits. Try not to let frugality turn into hoarding (which is my problem). Remember, it’s ok to make the occasional splurge.
One thing I notice is how inconsistent my frugality can be. Groceries are a good example. I hesitate to buy, say, fruit that is out of season because that seems so extravagant: $5 for strawberries seems like something a person with no discipline would do. But I will pay $5 for fast food, when that’s so much worse for me. But see, $5 for fast food is the frugal option if you are eating out, so in my mind it’s a minor expense. But how stupid it it for me to pass on “expensive” strawberries for my son, but buy him McDonalds?
I’m also weird about household stuff. I really struggle to replace old sheets and towels, because the new ones seems so expensive, and the old ones are never totally useless. It took 20 years of marriage for my husband and I to finally declare kitchen utensil bankruptcy and replace what was a hodge-podge of Dollar store and Walmart spoons and whisks and spatulas that we had slowly acquired in college.
But I spend a lot of money on other stuff. I don’t worry about the margins of the electric bill. I do half loads of laundry. I get my house cleaned twice a month. I don’t put energy into watching for sales, or shop clearance. I know people who save a lot of money doing this consistently, but I am not willing to spend the time.
When I first moved out on my own I bought better quality linens than my mom did. She couldn’t afford the better ones, but the cheap ones wore out. They would actually tear and get holes in them. I’ve never had sheets I’ve bought myself that wore out. It was a bit of struggle to donate old sheets when I got tired of them, instead of just keeping them. And what? Think they’d wear out unused in the linen closet??? LOL.
With me, it is more like I avoid spending $ on things I don’t REALLY want, so when I DO really want something, I don’t have to worry about the price tag.
The OP just sounds frugal. Well, not even really, because if she were frugal, she wouldn’t have bought such pricey footwear - especially if it was uncomfortable. But I consider being mindful of expenditures pretty different from reluctance to part with stuff. In the same family, but pretty different mindsets.
For me, I didn’t really start to get comfortable cracking open the wallet and spending on myself until after the kids were out of college and out of the house. Until then, I always had the feeling that I had to be saving for the future. Now, with the kids on their own, and retirement nearing, I’m able to see my financial position more clearly.
I dunno how old or financially secure the OP is, but I don’t really see it as a “bad thing” to be saving a couple hundred $ a month on rent - so log as the cheap apt is sufficiently clean, comfortable, and safe. Wealthy people have always pissed money away on frivolities. My perception is that over the past few decades it has become widely accepted that people of all income/wealth levels ought to be able to spend freely on what previously were considered luxuries.
And I would think if the OP is truly embracing a nomadic life, she will quickly learn to let go of “stuff.” And maybe buy less of it in the future. Please don’t commit the error of asking friends/family to hang on to your shit for you or - worse - pay for storage.
I both tend to buy cheap ones because my mental sense of what stuff “should” cost is not realistic, and I have a real, real hard time replacing things I am just bored with, or don’t work as well as they should. But I’m better than my mom, who only has one set of sheets at a time: she just commits to washing them and getting them back on the bed all in one day. I at least own a second set, even if it is “Amazon Basics”.
I also struggle to pay more for “looks”. I just see my dad staring over my shoulder. Ironically, now that he’s retired, he’s not nearly as frugal himself. But the lesson stuck.
One thing I thought Stranger Things got really, really right was that so much of the shit we owned in the 80s came from the 70s. Too often when they place something in the 80s, everything is sonething that was manufactured in 1985. But hell, in 1985 almost everything in our house was at least 5 years old. Stuff was more expensive, you didn’t replace it so much.
They’re great when you want to send leftovers home with someone! Just tell them you don’t want the container back!
At the end of last year, we bought a boat. We paid cash with a chunk of money in our retirement savings. One side of me nearly wept, but the sensible side realized that this is the retirement we were saving for! We wanted to spend our post-work years traveling on our own boat. There’s still a bit of a cringe when I look at the smaller savings balance, but we’ve got an emergency cushion and a decent retirement income - I still have to remind myself of that periodically…
I was able to glean the meaning of “povvo” from context, but I don’t know exactly what “shit me to tears” means, and I think the exact meaning matters. Is it amusement, annoyance, mild frustration, or are you actually tearful?
It sounds like you might have two different shoe situations. If your 20-year-old shoes look 20 years old but still serve you well, and you can bring yourself to buy a shiny new pair for those occasions that require them, I see no problem. But if you have sandals that hurt you and you can’t get rid of them? Can I help by reaching through the computer and shaking you by the shoulders? Does it help at all to try to distinguish “no longer necessary but harmless” frugality from harmful frugality?
