Was your family poor growing up?

[WifeofBath]

I wasn't poor growing up, but my family's economic situation relied heavily on the economy. My Dad was a home builder. When the economy was good= he built/sold many houses=we lived fairly high off the hog with vacations, new clothes, dinners out, etc. But, when the economy tanked=no houses built/sold= scraping by. My Mom was a sahm and always couponed whether things were good or bad. I remember her couponing when I was a kid in the 70's & 80's. She kept all her coupons in old cigar boxes. We would go do a "big" shopping once a month. Two carriages full would come out to @ $250. After qs her OOP would be anywhere between $100-$150. Not bad considering qs were .05, .10, .20 cents off. And she only shopped at Stop&Shop which doubled coupons.
The current housing crisis reminds me of the housing crashes of my childhood. During those times, we would eat a lot of pasta. Bills and the mortgage wouldn't get paid. I'd come home from school to find out that they had sold the house and we would move in with my grandmother. My Dad went bankrupt at least three times (that I know of) in a 20 year span. I'm very glad my Dad is now retired from home building. This recession would have killed him.
So, I grew up with a couponing Mom. She would be so proud of how well I do with qs and the stockpile I have now. She would be absolutely amazed by HCW and all the info the internet has to offer.


PS-Mama22qts-I remember Guess and Girbaud jeans! They were the "in" jeans to have when I was in Middle/high school. My Mom wouldn't pay for them though. If I wanted them, I had to buy them with my babysitting money and they ranged from $40-$60 a pair! Even then, I only would buy them on sale for $20!

[manders13]

i wouldn't say we were poor but my mom shopped at save-a-lot/aldi's and we didn't have alot. My parents divorced when i was 15 and i had to get a job to be able to have clothes and eat. So from the time i was a baby till 15, i didn't have alot but i didn't have to worry about having something to eat(even if it wasn't much..) Now when they divorced, it was a mess. My mom decided to quite her job, and we NEVER had anything. If i hadn't gotten a job, i would have litterally had nothing. Even now, i spend 15% of what she does at the grocery store (she still doesn't work) and has NO incling of trying to save money. (prolly cuz it's not hers in the first place)

Neither of my parents were ever good with money. Maybe that's why we struggled.

Even after we moved out and it was just a plain nightmare keeping stuff in the house or electric on, She always had money for ciggarettes though. But i managed :) I moved out when i was 17 with my now husband and everything has turned out fine.

I promised myself i would NEVER turn into either of my parents. So another way to stretch my dollars is why i coupon. (well that and when i was laid off, i had nothing else to turn to other then couponing!)


i agree with PP, I could be a billionaire, i'd still coupon. WHY (even if i had the money to waste) would i waste on this stuff when i know i can get it free/cheap?! LOL :)

[hotcouponmama]

Funny to see this posted, because like Heidi said, she and I talk about this alot.

My parents were upper middle class when they were married. Then my mom flipped a bolt and succumbed to the crazy gene that runs in our family. My parents divorced when I was six and my dad didn't pay child support - got himself a new wife and kids and never really looked back. My mom turned into vagabond. We moved about 30 times before I finally left home at 19. We were poor, she was on welfare, we lived in shelters - it was awful. And since she thought she could rehabilitate every Tom, Dick, and Weirdo that came into her world, we were left alone a lot, lots of time with no food in the house.

If there was food - it was cereal and no milk. Or peanut butter and no bread. And she was your typical "Foodstamp Frieda" - that's the term my siblings and I use to describe the person on welfare who uses the foodstamps for shrimp, sliced deli meats, etc, and then runs out long before the end of the month.

And we were every religion on the planet - whichever church would give her money was the religion of the week for us.

So when I left at 19, I left and never looked back. My address for a while was the campground at the local river park. I moved in with my dad for a year - that didn't work so well, and I am no longer talking to him over the years again either.

I came to couponing in college because I was living on student loans and had a crap car that barely ran. When Mark and I got married, we were better off. I was working and we didn't have kids until later in life, so couponing was the jewelry fund (and everything else I never had when I was growing up). I had a bit of a spending problem early on in our marriage because I felt like I owed myself a lifetime of wants.

Now things are different. We're actively saving money for Mark to be able to retire from the military in a few years, so couponing is about that for us right now. And we want our kids to understand the value of a buck because I never understood. And Mark never did either because money wasn't an issue for him. So neither of us was very smart about money.

I think stockpiling has everything to do with where I came from. I don't want my kids to know hunger. I don't want them to want for anything. And I want them to know that we value education. School and coupons are what saved me in life (besides having as great husband!).

I think no matter why you came to couponing, you never go back once you understand it.

[everprincess]

Me and my brother grew up very poor. My mom and dad split and my mom went back to school and worked part time jobs. We never went hungry but I know alot of times I watched my mom do without alot just so she could take care of us. A calculator must a must at the store and if it went over you put something back. I have couponed all my life from a very early age. I think it's important to save as much money as we all can. Why should I pay full price when I don't have to? If you saw money laying on the ground would you pick it up? It's the same with couponing. Why should I throw my hard earned money out the window? Oh and by the way both mom and dad think I'm nuts for stockpiling and couponing like I do! But they don't mind getting great deals from my stockpiles!

[sadlady12]

We grew up poor for the most part. While my parents were together, I guess I lived the "high life" and didn't even know it. I got new clothes and all my friends had things and nice houses and I didn't know too much different. When my parents divorced, when I was around 9, we had to move. We moved to the end of a dead end gravel road where my aunt and my grandparents lived. My grandparents had a huge garden and my grandfather fished and hunted to provide for ALL of us. It was a HUGE change in my life, not that I was spoiled before but I just never really "thought" about money being something to worry about. Money was all of a sudden something that we were always short on and always heard mom wondering where we were going to get the money to pay for this or that. My brothers and I were then on the free lunch program at school and we wore thrift store and hand me down clothes. My mom couldn't bring herself to apply for food stamps or welfare so we struggled without it until she was able to get into nursing school and get a job. We ate veggies out of the garden and ate meat that my grandfather provided. Now that my grandparents are gone, I miss all those fresh veggies and homemade goodies that I always took for granted.

Anyway.... I left home at age 20 and married my dh. We often joke that it is apparent I didn't marry him for his money, considering that he doesn't have any, lol. We moved into our first house with one pickup truck load worth of stuff! That's all we had, lol. We have moved a few times since then and we now have much more than one load of stuff to move, lol. But moving here may be one of the smartest things we've done. In moving to this new house, our bills changed drastically and I had to figure out how I was going to budget our income. I started surfing around on the net to find ideas on saving money and cutting costs and I stumbled across HCW. I haven't left the site since! I saw what others here are able to do with simple little coupons that I never really paid that much attention to before. All I saw was .35 cents off this or that and thought, "that's no REAL savings there, not worth my time to bother with coupons". Boy was I wrong! It took some reading and then some more reading and looking at stockpile pics and I was hooked! I hadn't even done my first deal and hadn't even bought my first paper yet, didn't have not one coupon in my possession and I was hooked! I knew I could do this and make it work! I thought, if I can get a stockpile even an 1/8 of what I've seen pics of, then I'll be doing good and can save that money. All of a sudden, I was glued to my computer and searching deals and trying to figure it all out. When I did my first deal, I remember it well.... it was lysol cleaners at dollar general for .50-.75 each, I was so excited and had such a rush at being able to get all I got for as little as I paid. Without really trying to, just excited, I stocked myself for almost a year on all manner of lysol cleaners with that one sale. At home that evening, that's when it really clicked about stockpiling. I knew I had enough to last for a while and could use that money to pay for something else. I was so happy that I wouldn't have to pay full price for cleaners again for the whole year!!!

I wish I could explain it better but I know you all know what I'm talking about. The amazing feeling you get knowing that you did really good!!

After that, when I started learning CVS and Wags and the grocery store too!!! HA!!! IT"S ON NOW!!!

A lottery win.... a sweepstakes win.... just means I have an option to do less transactions, lmao!!!

[jillynoodle]

this is the most interesting thread!! i always wondered what makes us couponers tick!! i grew up poor and sometimes hungry but my mom really tried to make ends meet just some of the food choices i just couldnt stomach so i w3as young i just went without and that was ok...i never really thought much of it until i started to go to my other friends houses and see the cabinets stuffed with good things to eat and my friends would just go and eat and share and it was always ok whatever we took it didnt matter...my house everything seemed to go to a meal so there wasnt much to go and grab to eat kinda thing...i do definetly think i coupon because of the way i grew up...i do need to coupon now because of our income dont get me wrong but the extent of my stockpiling is definetly because i never want my kids to feel bad or even jealous they dont have good things to eat or the name brand shampoos...we had all "no frills" growing up...that was actually like a brand i dont see now...now i see the store brands but the no frills was just a black and white label and i dont know...just dont miss it at all!!! i thank god for this site and just being able to coupon and my stockpile does give me a sense of security that my family wont at least ever be without the basic things, great thread im so glad it was posted i will definetly check back to the other responses i find it so interesting!! maybe a poll should be added??

[shelleyf]

I grew up with alot of money. I wasn't rich but I got what I wanted usually. Now I am poor and it is hard but I am happy. I have a great husband and 3 beautiful kids. Money doesn't make a person happy but I would like enough to not worry. I coupon because I don't know what we would do if I didn't. I do enjoy getting the deals too. I never want my family to go without and this helps bring a sense of security that we will be clean and fed.

[vickib50]

Due to criminal behavior on my mother's part, my dad's parents raised me. My dad was in and out of the house, but, mainly, it was just my grandparents and me. My grandfather always had fairly menial jobs (he had about a 3rd grade education and after he was grown, he taught himself how to read and write) and my grandmother was a stay-at-home. Because it wasn't my parents providing for me, I was always aware of money troubles. I rarely, if ever, asked for new clothes. My grandmother made most of my clothes. I didn't get an allowance, but, my dad was a truck driver for a while and back then, there was a trading stamp program. He would buy his diesel fuel at certain places where they gave out stamps (a lot like S&H Green Stamps, but, I don't remember the name) and they could be redeemed for cash at a local outlet. He gave me the stamps and I would paste them in the books until I had enough to turn in. I got married very young, 17, mainly because I thought I was a burden on my grandparents and thought I needed to move out. At that age and considering the way I was raised, getting married was the only way out. That didn't last long, as you can probably conclude.

I remember sending off for rebates and refunds when I was only 14 or 15 years old. One day when I was 16, $11 came in the mail for me. I was rich for a month! I'm not sure what turned me on to coupons, but, I was couponing since I was about 14 or so. That was 40 years ago. Coupons were for .05, .07, etc.

I put myself through college and worked hard for years, but, became disabled about 13 years ago. I am now far below the poverty level, but, it doesn't feel so bad because of my couponing and my stockpile.

[Cynthiabutterfly]

We were poor enough to know we were poor. My mom worked 2 jobs, and my dad worked at home and worked part-time jobs while watching 7 kids. We had foodstamps, and the church brought us food and clothes.

We just didn't buy new things at the store, ever. We had no AC for years (in TX, people die with no AC) and we learned not to answer the phone because it was always a bill collector.

My mom did make sure we had food (even if it was just what the church brought us) so we ate a lot of pasta and potatoes and my dad told us stories about when his mom lived thru the depression, and that made us feel more grateful for what we had. And it seems we always got presents on birthdays and Christmas, even if all the cakes weren't store-bought, and the decorations were 20 years old or more and falling apart.

For me, I just try to work hard and make ends meet. When DH and I had been living together a while, he was between jobs, and I had to feed us with $20 for more than a week. I remember going to the store and getting bologna, bread, peanut butter and ramen soup.

When I had my son, I vowed that I would NEVER let that happen again- so I used the power of Google to figure out how to save more money, and found a 'coupon queen' site. I knew I could do it, I am a quick learner! The rest is history. We still struggle now, but we have food, new clothes to wear, and plenty else.

I just don't feel like my mom even tried to make us feel good about what we had, because I don't think she felt good about what we had.

I want my kids to appreciate that we have things that other families don't- there is always going to be someone better off than you, and someone worse off, so no need to feel jealousy or pity for yourself.

[julz5272003]

Early on I grew up not wanting for anything, we were the family every one looked too. We would have lobster flown in and ate steak so much I wouldn't eat it cuz I didn't like it. Then at 14 my Dad got sick and with in a year we were on food stamps and barely making it. I remember eating beans and rice for days and on Saturday it was a treat to have hotdogs.

Last year my hubby was laid off, he hated my couponing but I stuck to it and had a great stock pile built up. When he was laid off we lived off the stockpile till I could afford to spend even a dollar. That is all it took for him to decide we can not afford to shop with out coupons.