I went through things like growing up underweight for a while and sneaking food that was withheld from me. Those things still affect me. Looking back, one of the worst parts of this was that my caretakers were not poor. We went on vacations around the world each year along with wealthy families(one of them was a millionare family) usually staying in impressive hotels. Yet I was somehow always under the impression that we were desolately poor. I remember a teacher making an embarrassing call in front of the entire class to my childhood caretakers to tell them I needed new clothes. They sold this myth to me that they could not possibly buy me many basic needs, and I believed it more than the proof of these vacations that we were actually well off.
Someone in my current life repeatedly told me I can heat up canned food instead of eating it straight from the can. The idea of taking the step to heat my canned food still feels forgein. If canned food prices weren’t through the roof now, I’d try to keep practicing what they told me.
Yes, no.
I did grow up poor, though, so it’s pretty hard for me to understand that I’m not poor anymore. I’m actually doing pretty well as a welding press operator, I have savings and stuff, but yet still I’m so afraid all the time that I’m not using my money the most efficient way possible. It’s like there’s a part of me that just knows this won’t last and I’ll fall back down the income ladder.
Math helps, though. If I can assign numerical values to cost and benefit, I feel a lot more comfortable about spending money or disposing of things that I don’t need.
Congratulations on doing better financially. It sounds like you have a skill that wouldn’t leave you out of a job for long. I hope you’re wrong and that your nervous system is just overreacting.
I still don’t really know how much things are supposed to cost. It all seems like way too much. Like how nearly every piece of clothing that lasts as long as I hope it’ll last now costs like $100-$200 US dollars. I can’t buy that stuff. Everything else seems to break apart within several months to a couple years of regular use. Idk if that’s normal. $15 clothing used to last years longer. Some of my low-cost highschool clothes still last me while my new, equally expensive to much more expensive clothes, do not. I’ve found this extremely anxiety inducing.
Yeah, everything costs too much and is designed to fall apart. I know I try to make my work jeans last as long as possible which means sewing patches every time I wear down the thighs and then replacing those patches when I wear those down too. Eventually the math works out to it being more time-expensive to keep mending my pants than it is to buy new ones, but I probably keep my jeans limping along longer than I need to even when the math tells me it’s really time to buy new pants lol
I have no idea how to patch the crotch and butt area of the pants. Is the there a method you use where they won’t burst the second you squat down?
I use a little extra material for the patch so there’s some room to stretch, cut away the worn fabric on the pants themselves because it won’t be strong enough to hold a stitch without busting, double-up the thread so it’s a bit stronger, and then try to line my patch seams up with the factory seams on the pants since those are the strongest locations that tend to be away from areas where stretching or rubbing matter.
Nothing more specific than that, I kind of just got a feel for it from hours and hours of sewing and resewing my mistakes when they did burst.
Dental floss is strong thread.
With the way I double up the thread it’s actually very convenient, when I reach the end of the stitch I have two threads I can knot together.
So I’m not disagreeing, I also bring the ends of the thread together to make a big loop them knot it. I just got tired of sewing and resting the same thing in short time frames, so when someone years ago suggested dental floss, I tried it, and it stayed. I think your environment will be more punishing, but of course you’re free to try it or not!
Yeah sounds like it would work pretty well since floss is definitely stronger than thread, I just never thought of it.
Just busted the crotch in my jeans today. Although it wasn’t the side I mended, so maybe it’s how I move.
I do most of what queermunist says, though I don’t double up the thread but instead I start and end it with some kind of mangled form of backstitching I do.
The best way is to have a sewing machine and sew over the threadbare area or patch a bunch until it’s covered. I use the decorative angled swirl stitch built into ours.