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.
I have a little brake in the back of my head that squeaks whenever I spend anything over $25 at once, or anything that’s not rent or groceries. I’ve gotten better at silencing it though.
The one thing I have consistently been spending money on is small edible treats, often baked goods and stuff. And when I’m employed I can easily buy a $15-30 game without thinking twice, because I know I’ll get at least 10 hours out of it.
Weirdly enough, most of my big expenses over the past few years have been direct transfers to other people, to the point where I’ll send $200 in c/mutual_aid but be really reluctant to spend $100 on my own bike.
I was not raised in poverty but I never really had access to my own money until adulthood.