That story really brings back memories for me as well. Mom and Dad had seven children and not much money. Dad worked, but his paycheck paid the necessities and that was it. They had one credit card, Sears, which was put aside for a major emergency; such as a major appliance. And that didn't mean a clothes dryer, because Mom hung up all the clothing outside. I remember them in the winter being as stiff as boards. You couldn't even fold them.

Every Christmas Dad would wait until Christmas Eve when all the people in the City that sold trees had closed up shop. That's when he would get in the car and drive around the City hoping to find a tree that was too disgusting to have been sold. He always succeeded. He would bring the poor thing home and anchor it up as best he could. He would even remove branches from the meatier part of the tree and drill a hole somewhere else to put the branches in to try and fill it out. You've heard of people who would laugh until they cried - well Mom would cry until she laughed. And then we would all go to bed with big smiles on our faces knowing that all was well.

One Christmas the seven of us woke up to a little 45 record player and a complete set of Glen Miller's Best. We hadn't even heard of Glen Miller and I'm pretty sure, in retrospect, that someone gave Mom those 45s and she put them aside for us as our Christmas gift. That was one of my happiest Christmas memories. We played those records endlessly. While other kids were listening to Elvis on their record player, we knew the entire words to songs like Fascination and Chatanooga Choo Choo.

I don't remember ever being unhappy growing up. We didn't have any money, but we had more than enough love.

I remember back when we bought our house. We had a one year old and my DH worked days and I worked nights so we didn't have to have child care. We closed on the house 3 weeks before Christmas, and we were so broke after that. We decided to only spend $25 on each other for Christmas. I went to Burlington coat factory and they had a beautiful jacket that was on clearance for $25. So, that is what I bought my hubby. Christmas morning when he opened it he thought I didn't stick to the agreement, but I told him how I got the jacket on clearance. He hands me TWO presents. I opened the first one and it was a fake pointsetta plant. I was like "um, ok" and he says "You LOVE pointsetta's" (No, actually I hate pointsetta's, but he was going on about how it would look nice in the window of the new house, etc) I didn't say anything, I take the second package and it's a second fake pointsetta. Suddenly I remembered JC Penney's had a display of fake pointsetta's 2 for $25. I said "You SOB you walked in, saw the pointsettas and said cool. I'm done."

I had those things for years and we would laugh every year as I put them out and made a big "fuss" about my bee-u-t-ful pointsettas. That was the last awful present he ever bought. Suddenly he became Mr. great gift idea! And I think he payed Rusty off to destroy them so that I finally threw them away!

my little rant
 

I'm probably younger than some of you (27) because my experience is a little different. I got loans to go to school and I worked hard in the summers so I had money the first 2 years of college (I graduated in 3). The 3rd year I just focused on graduating early and lived on my credit card. I didn't go on shopping sprees but put groceries and gas on it - after all I'd just pay it when I graduated, right? Our parents didn't instill that "don't borrow money" value in us apparently - we had to learn that on our own. My husband had a car loan on a car that was far too expensive for us (his dad co-signed) and right before we got married it started to have mechanical problems we couldn't afford to fix so we traded it (stupid) for a more expensive car (5 year loan, but it's no interest and a lower payment so that's OK right? duh) Then we bought a house 5% down and could only barely afford it so we ended up with up more medical debt and credit card debt.

A few years ago we decided we couldn't go on like that, so we committed to paying off the debt. It is almost all paid off but the last little bit is hard because we have been doing it for so long we feel so drained. We make a decent income NOW, but we haven't ever been on a real vacation and my husband now drives a 15 year old car while we pay off debt. I feel "poorer" now that I can't rely on a $17,000 credit limit, which is really hard because with our income we should be OK. But we have to pay double - for our current expenses and those we charged years ago. We have totally outgrown our townhouse and we want to buy a house, but the Chicago suburbs are so expensive that buying even a modest house will put us back where we started. We are seriously considering relocating to another state just so that we have some room to breathe. The people with the single family houses in our neighborhood either bought their houses after a windfall from their last house or they have 2 mortgages. We bought at the top of the market. People my parent's age got to experience those years of the insane real estate market where a house like my parent's house doubled in value in 20 years while people's incomes did not double. Want to buy a new car? Cash-out re-fi. Want to send a kid to college? Cash-out re-fi. People are going to have to return to reality now and live within their means. We are struggling to live on what we make, but at least we are realistic about it. Our neighbors are still in denial. It seems no one around here knows the word "no" and turning to credit is always the answer. If everyone had to put 20% down on a house they would not ALL cost $300,000+

My grandparents would have never thought of buying something they didn't have cash for. Financing is part of why the market/economy is crashing right now (I'm not touching the political reasons :rolleyes:). IMO the crash is going to hit this area hard because we had such a bubble. People can't afford to buy these huge houses now that they need *gasp* a down payment! 5 years ago a down payment was unheard of here! Everyone did 0% down. Now they are upside down on their mortgages and cars. No one told us we couldn't spend 40% of our monthly income on housing. Someone should have told us to keep renting. But everyone said we were "throwing our money away" on rent. You know what? The difference between rent and our mortgage/taxes/etc. is so much that we could have saved $28000 in 4 years by renting. Instead, our house has gone DOWN in value. What a lesson to learn.

We will be OK but it will take a long time and it's not going to be easy. I know it's not supposed to be, but it's just not what we expected growing up in the tech boom. I probably sound like I'm whining to some of you, but I really do think we will be better off now that we understand how to live within our means. I just wish it wasn't such a hard lesson.

Great stories by you all...I'm going to have to think of something to share with you as I too was born poor, grew up poor and am still not wealthy by any means. We are able to work hard for what we have and for that I am eternally grateful. I suppose it is true that we cherish what we do have more now, because we know what it was like not to have.

I remember getting married so long ago and we went on this terribly expensive honeymoon and when we left we has spent everyting but $1.10. It would get us coffee or get us across the toll bridge to get my hubby's check and release from the navy. We bought the coffee and drove many miles out of our way to get there. :) We cashed the check before we ran out of gas!! Memories;)

I was never so poor that I had to live in a vehicle, but at one time in my life, things were pretty scarce. I was living in this cold, cold house in Maine with a whole bunch of people....they were always changing, moving in and out. We had a hard time heating it in the winter because it was a pretty old place--the windows barely slowed down the breeze. I would go to bed at 7 pm just to stay warm. I was poor, but I got a lot of sleep. Sometimes in the morning we would have ice in the toilet.

I had a car at this time, and I was too poor to pay the registration. One time, while the car was unregistered, a policeman tried to stop me for speeding. He didn't have his siren on, but I could tell he was coming up to me. I turned into a congested area in an attempt to lose him. I was weaving in and out of alleys. He eventually caught me. I had to pay for the speeding ticket AND for an unregistered vehicle. It was terrible.

My sister, who has always earned a lot of money, wondered why I never visited her during those years. I never had the guts to tell her how poor I was. Eventually (recently) I told her. She had no idea.

Things are a lot better now, and I think one reason I am so happy is because I had this period in my life. I have parents who are fairly well off, and if worse came to worse, I could have gone to them for help and they would have given it willingly with no strings. But I was an adult, and I really hated to do that. I'm glad I did it my way.

wow, reading all of these stories about all of you young mom/wives really gives me inspiration! i'm not a mother of a child (just the mother of my yorkie!) but i am a young wife & times have been tough for sure. i think i'm to blame for some of that because for a while i had a SERIOUS spending problem but i think i've got that under control for the most part. being 20 yrs old and living with my hubby for two years now on our own has had its ups and downs but i don't think i'd want it any other way. ask for my being broke stage when my hubby and i moved in together it was a crappy two bedroom apartment with me, him, his brother and his brothers girlfriend... booy was that a lot of people for that place. we had no heat or air conditioning. just electricity (and even that wasn't a definite thing! haha) we at ramon noodles evvvvery night for months!! to this day i can't even look at those things! sometimes we'd have mayo on bread and i can remember eating taco shells... just the shells!! haha. when hubby got a huge raise we finally moved out and are pretty secure now. (thanks to him) but all of these stories are things i can relate with and i find serious inspiration in the stories of young wives who made it!

I can remember living on oatmeal, working 2 full time jobs trying to support a baby who called all the babysitters Mommy and looked at me like I was a stranger and a good-for-nothing husband(finally got smart and booted him out of the door). I remember driving up to a gas station on empty, and digging 47 cents out of my purse for gas (it was alot cheaper then) and telling the guy to only put in 47 cents since that was all I had. He didn't watch and it went over so I yelled at him. He stopped it and told me I had to pay the extra. I had to climb all over the car to come up with the 20 something cents he went over. I got so sick one time that I was coughing up blood, lost so much weight I was down to 103 lbs( I'm 5' 7") and couldn't even keep down water. I couldn't afford to go to the Dr.'s. The sad part is my parents wanted to help me but I am a very stubborn person and wouldn'
t let them. They finally made me go to the Dr. I had bronchitus, upper respitory infection, was going into pneumonia and the flu. I did learn alot about being self sufficient and am now the Queen of fixing anything with whatever I have at hand:).

Well....my pockets are always laughing at me.

This means I am poor, right? :D

This is a good post, a good lesson to learn.

I used to go out with the dorkiest guys to get a free lunch or dinner. And I belonged to like 3 churches to get in on all the potlucks and free food. I think anyone that has gone to college appreciates free food.

I agree with your comment about Erin's post. These are all strangely uplifting.

As for you: So THAT'S why I got the occasional date in college! LOL!

We live very "feast to famine" type of lives with my husband working for himself. At our lowest he went 6 months with no work, no pay, people who owed him money couldn't afford to pay him either. We used CC's to live off of, pawned every single piece of jewelry I had, anything I could find to sell, we did. I sold things to family members just saying that I didn't need it anymore because I didn't want people to know how bad it was.

On the worst days, it was me making whatever I could to feed two kids and hubby and saying that I wasn't really that hungry so they could eat. Or deciding which Christmas presents could go back the day after Christmas that the kids wouldn't notice so we could buy food.

Heck, if you can make it through the tough days you appreciate the good ones. Luckily(knock on wood) those days are gone. If your marriage can survive something like that then you'll be able to survive anything, trust me.

Yes,it truly makes you a stronger person.

Wow...reading some of these stories made me realize that I didn't really have it that bad.

My parents were poor...only dad worked...but they saved every penny they had. We never went out to eat...but eating rice every night did get old. I remember starting junior high with only one pair of jeans and 2 shirts. Some people made comments of me wearing the same clothes all the time, but it gave me a tough skin.

I can remember in college, my freshman year, living with my fiance...working 3 part time jobs and going to school full time. But we had everything that we needed.

I do remember, however, buying a package of lunch meat, some mayo and a loaf of bread and living off of that for a week.

But I remember stories of my mother. There were 4 children in that family and dad would take off for days...if not weeks. I remember her telling me how they had no food and her mother had to go to the neighbors begging for food.

Also, I remember how my dad told me that sometimes, all they had was a potato to eat.

How fortunate we are now days. We may not have fancy furniture, but we live in a nice house and always have food...now if someone would just go in the kitchen and cook it! ;)

OMG I hate them too! I was 18 just married we live in a old house, to dumb and independent to ask for help, the light bill was always higher than the rent, we both worked but was living from paycheck to paycheck, that winter the light bill was over 300 dollars, which was in the early 80's and that was alot of money, do you remember the wall heaters:rolleyes: well anyway we had to eat pancakes for about 3 weeks so we could pay the bills and not ask for money from our parents.:) Its funny now after 26 years and I talk or see my ex that always comes up about the pancakes.:D