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.
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.
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?
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.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!
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.
My dad does, and no he hasn’t exactly. His parents were (and still are) well-off, but they were always… thrifty, I guess. Spent as little as they could except a few big vacations. So Dad now will always try to go without for himself while giving bigly to the rest of us (his family). He is aware now that we live comfortably and he doesn’t need to go without, but he still chooses to out of, I dunno, habit? Trauma? Anyway, he is doing better, but he still has a ways to go.
He sounds well-intentioned. Is there any way you can convince him his own lifestyle is worth spending money on? I bet you’ve already tried.
Mom and I keep on him, telling him he is worth it. We took him (and did alongside him) a class about self-worth. It’s an ongoing process; I do think he’s doing better, though.
That’s super sweet of you guys. I’m happy to hear that he has your support. Not all dads work on themselves by attending such things. He’s more open to working on his problems than many men. Perhaps he has more potential than you all know. He’s literally already going places. Keep it up!
yes, no
it’s actually probably the #1 anxiety thing I struggle with and i have no idea how to fight it
I’m sorry. It’s a lot of pressure and the possibilities of which parts of our lives it can touch is many.
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.
Yes, but they were literally poor and as a child.
I don’t think scarcity mindset is anything to avoid, as it is simply the reality of the world.
I grew up in rural Ohio and AFAIK my family was financially ‘middle of the pack’, so some of it did come from being in an environment where the poor live and having poorer friends.
Of course, my adulthood has been riddled with poverty and I can’t even get a basic job because I’m seen as unemployable for whatever reason.
When the rich are such sticklers for perfection that they need only the world’s greatest JUST to stock shelved and they’re scared shitless of spending any money, you know scarcity mindset is just the reality.
Never really occurred to me that we were poor until after I was making my own money. Even though my dad didn’t get warm water fixed for almost a year and we were eating gruel pretty often.
I guess my scarcity mindset is that I don’t heat for comfort. I’ll reluctantly turn up the thermostat when there’s too much condensation on the windows.
Not to your extreme, no, but I had something similar. Somehow always lacking money despite owning land, going to vacations, building family homes
i also tought we were poor until i started seeing my sibling get expensive toys.
I’m going in the opposite direction, I grew up middle class and have slipped down the ladder ever since then, hitting my face on every rung on the way down. I am significantly poorer than my family by a wide margin, even though I have been working my entire life. Scarcity is a reality for me in a way it has not been for anyone else in my family, and becomes more dominant in my life as time goes on.
