Rich people started sharing their eye-opening moments, and here’s what surprised them the most:
1.
“My S.O. said, ‘Today I made rent,’ meaning, ‘Today I’ve earned enough/accumulated enough to pay the rent,’ and I realized that this is a monthly accomplishment for someone with no fixed income or salary.”
2.
“Honestly, food insecurity. When we were first married, she would get visibly uneasy if the food in the house was running low. She never overate or anything; she was just always concerned about it. A lot of times when she was younger, she went hungry.”
3.
“Sandwiches. When I made him a sandwich, I only put one thin slice of meat in it. He couldn’t believe that was how I had sandwiches growing up.”
—u/anonymous
4.
“The prevailing mindset in his community growing up was that insurance was something only rich people had. Not just health insurance but also auto insurance. Going without it was a way of life for almost everyone he knew.”
5.
“Credit cards were avoided. For me growing up, we were encouraged to get a credit card in our name and use it as much as possible to build credit. We always had money to pay it off each month, so it made sense to 1) build credit and 2) collect airline miles or whatever the reward was back in the day. My wife always used cash or a debit card when I got with her. She had a credit card ‘for emergencies’ and avoided using it otherwise. It took a long time to get her over her aversion and skepticism (we were fortunate to have two well-paying jobs), though it also taught me a healthy appreciation for what it means to have a financial cushion.”
6.
“He was making good money but came from a poor family. One thing that surprised me was his lack of budgeting and no knowledge of a 401(k) or Roth IRA—retirement seemed like something he’d never get to do. So even though he made good money, he was starting to rack up credit card debt. Now he’s much better at it than I am. He adores budgeting.”
7.
“The stuff he buys—like, don’t buy a $1.50 vegetable peeler because it’ll break the third time you use it. And if a pair of shoes is $19.99, then it’s because they’re crap! He buys so much stuff because it’s cheap; he hasn’t yet gotten the hang of ‘quality over quantity’!”
8.
“I didn’t marry this woman, but when we started dating, she always wanted to chill at my place, never hers—which was fine. She gained 35lbs in just a few months of dating, not that it was a bad thing, but it turned out her family couldn’t always afford dinner. So suddenly, she had a place to eat every night and gorged herself.”
9.
“My experience is from the opposite perspective—I was the poor one. It absolutely floored me how my wife acts when something breaks, like, a car, appliance, or clothes. As a child living below the poverty line, replacing a tire or other necessities was a disaster, requiring tricky trade-offs in the budget or just plain acceptance of how screwed you were. When my wife’s phone broke, I went into full panic mode while she shrugged and said, ‘We can just get a new one this afternoon.’ And then we did.”
10.
“I’m from the poorer family, but I think I can answer for my wife. We have two young kids, and my wife was shocked when I said we should look for clothes and toys for them at local flea markets and garage sales. The idea never occurred to her that we could save money by getting some gently used items—she had never even been to a garage sale in her life. She has grown to love them and now questions whether it is worth it to buy any new item before running to Amazon or a store. Her parents think it’s disgusting that we make our kids wear clothes another child had before, but they don’t pay my bills.”
—u/anonymous
11.
“She just ignored things and didn’t plan. Car needs to be registered? Well, it has a service light on and can’t pass inspection, so I’ll just drive it unregistered. Student loans need to be paid? I don’t have the money for it, so I won’t open my mail from the servicer and will ignore the problem. Need to fly somewhere for a big personal event? Can’t really afford the plane ticket, so I’ll push it off until the ticket is twice as expensive.”
12.
“I was making three times as much as my now-husband when we met. He grew up extremely poor, and his family is still living that way. One big difference is how he’s surprised that my parents pick up the check when we go out to celebrate a birthday or a graduation and that my parents ask him to pick whatever restaurant he wants. To his family, a big meal out is going to McDonald’s and not eating off the dollar menu.”
13.
“This is super embarrassing, but I come from a family just a bit higher than the top 1%. I was walking out of my ex’s garage, and I saw a lawn mower. I asked her why they owned their own lawn mower if they weren’t in the landscaping business. That was the day I learned most people don’t hire other people to mow their lawn.”
14.
“We met in college, and my parents paid for everything, while he had student loans and a part-time job to pay for everything else. If he was really hurting, his parents would transfer $40 into his account, but that was pretty rare, and they’d give him hell if he asked. He was always very anxious about spending money and never bought name brands. He would also buy essentials like toilet paper, two rolls at a time (one-ply only). He didn’t realize that buying so little every few days was wasting money rather than buying in bulk. When we booked our first vacation (a cheap road trip to Georgia), he couldn’t pay for anything and was worried the whole time. The anxiety that kept him up at night made me so sad. He still never fills up his gas tank all the way—only $10 at a time. But now we both have great full-time jobs, and he rarely has any anxiety. He never has to worry about money anymore and is so much happier as a result.”
15.
And finally, “I’m on the flip side of this. I felt it most starkly when we went to the supermarket to buy tuna. I was weighing up the prices of the cans, and then he came up to me holding two giant tuna steaks. Canned tuna hadn’t even occurred to him.”