I’ll never forget the time one of my best friends told me her mom said she couldn’t spend the night anymore because there was never enough food in our house. When you constantly compare your status to that of others, you’re condemning yourself to feel perpetually unsatisfied and crappy. The grass is always greener somewhere, and no matter how good you have it, there’s always someone that’s got it better. This is a lesson that applies to every area of life - from your home to your marriage to your kid’s developmental rate.

I’ll never comprehend why people try to get extra money from people who don’t have it in the first place. When the single item costs $3 and the multi-pack costs $10, and you’ve only got $5 to get you through the next week and a half, you don’t have a choice - even if buying it individually costs twice as much per ounce. And forget about buying anything in bulk, which is typically cheaper in the long run. Same with utility disconnection: Though most of them require nothing more than the flip of a switch to reconnect critical services, they still charge you a hefty fee if, say, your electricity gets turned off. The bank then charges you a $35 overdraft fee, on top of the negative balance - so once you do manage to scrape up $50 to deposit, you’re still $5 short. Say you overdraft your bank account by $20. I am admittedly no economist, but this is something that has baffled me since childhood. Driving a clanking rust-bucket of a car with no air conditioning in the dead of summer sounds like it would suck, but when you’ve been walking everywhere or relying on public transportation, it’s awesome to have your own wheels. Government cheese may manage to be both rubbery and pasty, but it tastes like a gourmet meal when your cabinets have been empty enough to echo and you finally get that box from the food pantry. “Just like a fancy spa,” my mom would say cheerily as I bathed by candlelight. And candles are great if you think of them from a “cozy” standpoint instead of a “minimizing the electric bill” standpoint. I still pour barely enough milk on my cereal to dampen it. I have filled a bathtub in anticipation of having our water shut off and had to make it last a few days until we could afford to pay it. When the amount of usage means the difference between being able to pay your bill and getting your services disconnected, you learn to save that shit. You figure out which stores offer double-coupon days, and every BOGO sale on bread or eggs or milk is on your radar. You can make some things more cheaply at home - laundry soap and fabric softener, for example - for less than you would pay at the store (when you don’t pay for convenience, it’s easier on your wallet). Yard sales and thrift stores can yield some pretty good-quality stuff if you check often enough. Saving money on everyday necessities is practically an art form when your dollars are limited. And she was true to her word, working two jobs and going to night school, pulling herself up by the proverbial bootstraps until the day we didn’t need to rely on anyone else for help. When I would complain about having to use food stamps, my mom would squeeze my hand and assure me that she hated it too, that this was only temporary, that we would only use them until we could provide for ourselves - even if that meant only having the bare minimum. But there are also people, like my mother and countless others, who use this type of assistance as a hand up, not a handout. Sure, we’ve all heard stories of people who take advantage of government assistance because they’re lazy or faking a disability.

I want to clarify this right now because it’s a biggie. Not everyone on welfare is “working the system.” We received government assistance, I sported secondhand clothes, and to this day I can make a mean packet of ramen noodles.īut despite there being plenty of times as a kid when I was so embarrassed about our economic status (like paying at the grocery store with food stamps, which back then were actual paper “bills” you’d peel, very obviously, out of a book), I must admit that it taught me some truly valuable lessons that I carry with me to this day - and I hope to pass some of them on to my own kids. My mother and I moved into a cramped, dilapidated apartment with a tiny kitchenette, a bathroom, and just enough leftover space for one sofa bed that had seen better days. But by most people’s typical, comfortable American standards, my childhood after my parents’ divorce was - at the very least - financially disadvantaged. To those who are homeless or starving, someone living in Section 8 housing with a monthly food stamp allowance probably seems downright well-off.

Growing up poor makes you stronger