Were you born poor?

No. I dont know. i know i couldnt get certain things like the other kids were getting but i had a roof over my head and got my own room. we were not rich but i guess we used to be mid-middle class. Now my family (me, anway) are just middle class... not much to it. lol what? You mean "middle class"?

I was born poor, and I am still poor. I hope I am not poor for the rest of my life, but it isn't looking too good so far LOL

We were middle class living in a town that had some great wealth. I can remember going to grade school with kids who left for a month or so every year to "winter" in some resort area with their families and their tutors. Then they would spend the entire summer in places like Bar Harbor while we were lucky to get a week or two down the Jersey shore in the summer. There were a lot of little occurences like this that made us feel poor when we actually were not. It was only when I was much older and working a caseload that I realized that for many children even a day trip vacation is not possible and poverty means going hungry and doing without basics. It's sometimes hard to keep things in perspective because as children we can only judge by our immediate environment.

Yes, we were poor. My dad hunted for our meat most years and Mom had a garden, she canned a lot of stuff for the winter. I remember one year that I had only one dress to wear to school (1960's, girls were not allowed to wear pants) and got made fun of constantly because of it. We always had food, though. Grandpa raised cattle and butchered a steer each year and shared it with us. Grandma had chickens and gave us eggs. Dad worked 2 or more jobs and Mom even went to work once. I didn't realize we were poor until the year I only had one dress. We had what we needed but no more and I thought that was what life was like and I was happy. I'm glad I was raised like that. As an adult, I don't have credit card debt because I know the difference between wants and needs. I have a savings account because I learned it's important to have a financial cushion. And I learned that you never ask for help unless you've done everything you possibly can and truly need help.

Well that honestly all depends. My parents worked real hard to make sure we had what we needed financially, but I would have considered myself one of the richest kids around with the love we had. It all just depends how one looks at what is important I guess.

First, I want to thank you for the laugh. Now to your question. We were poorer than I realized growing up. Because my father was so good at handling money, he paid off our mortgage long before I was an adult. We always had everything we needed and most of what we wanted. Every summer, we went on great vacations around the United States. We never went first class because we couldn't afford it, but our vacations were always adventures. Financially we were boarder line poor, but we had a very rich life thanks to God and my father.

Ha ha How old were you? We were upper middle class.

I never really thought about it until I was grown and planning my own life. My family was upper middle class. My father managed to save for the down payment on a large house while supporting a growing family, then my mother went to work after my youngest sister started school because she wanted to. My parents were big on not being wasteful...my sisters got my hand-me-downs...my mom shopped the sales...we ate all of our food because there were children starving in China...my father had a compost pile and was into organic gardening.

You made me laugh with "middle age"...I knew what you meant, though, because I'm just out of my middle age and going in to the old age part. And I'm middle class all the way... My Dad wasn't stingy, he was thrifty.