What did you think only rich people could afford until you realized you were just broke growing up?

Furniture. Not kidding. Just before we married (almost immediately after graduating high school), my soon-to-be-wife and I found a cheap apartment and then merrily set a weekend aside to go furniture shopping at a huge store called Ethan Allen. We experienced price-shock and went to J.C. Penney's, then K-Mart, and finally Goodwill.

I actually made our first dining table, and when we had our first baby, I built his crib. Later, I built all my kids' beds and some of our other furniture. My own bed was inherited from my grandparents (it was only a few years old).
 
Let's see, where to start...??? Oh, an indoor bathroom, and indoor plumbing for that matter....can't say I was actually
in other's home very much, but likely the weller off people
most likely had more sweller things than our family did!!!!!
 

I wanted a 'Davey Crocket Coonskin Hat'. Apparently, my life was not worth living unless I had one, so I super bugged my parents to get one. It kind of sunk in that they didn't have the money to give me one. And after a while, I moved on-there was this hula-hoop I couldn't live without. Strange I knew we didn't have money, but I never thought we were poor.
 
Murrmurr: Your post reminded me of (former) husband and I when we first married in the "stone age". All we could afford was used furniture - from Salvation Army, Good will and auctions. We always liked "older furniture" (1900 TO 1930's) which wasn't popular then; now after almost 60 years, the pieces of furniture are valued at much more than the price we paid.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
I wanted a 'Davey Crocket Coonskin Hat'. Apparently, my life was not worth living unless I had one
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It was hard, LOL. I remember that too.

My family was relatively middle class, most of my childhood we had a house, 2 cars and a boat. However that meant scrimping on lots of other things. Going out to eat was a real rarity, and our "vacations" usually consisted of driving, non-stop to avoid a motel, to Louisiana to visit family and friends. Food was always packed in a cooler, homemade sandwiches and the like. Also our clothes were never top of the line, and expected to last a long time.

No real hardships, but I suspect everyone wanted more.
 
Everything..!! Not exaggerating.. pretty much everything.. especially holidays.. and cars...

Never even entered my mind that we could go on holiday, because I 'd only heard of rich people going.. none of my friends went on holiday, only the girl in class who was from a well off family..

Furniture.. My father made all of ours except the sofa... so I thought all the furniture that I saw in shop windows was for rich people...

Carpets.. we had no carpets in our house... we had lino in the kitchen and livingroom, but bare boards ( long before they were fashionable).. everywhere including the stairs...

Colour TV... by the time I left home and got married my father still only had a B&W tv...that was '76...

Hair styling at the salon ... only mothers and grandmothers with a cheap shampoo and set , and rich people could afford to go to the salon.. I thought, because we had our hair cut at home.., and the one time my mother sent me to the salon by myself when I was about 14, she'd gathered the money up, as tho' she'd been saving it..

Central heating... never even knew it existed for ordinary homes it was such a thing for the Rich..

Bedding... never had any sheets on our beds.. we slept on the bare mattress.. with only old coats for covers...
 
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I never felt like we were broke because my parents both worked and we had nice homes and owned a gas station until we moved to FL in 1962. But I did make friends with girls who I thought were rich. One girl had her own telephone with a private line. The other one had a swimming pool and the other had a huge house.

So I felt like they were rich but if they were or not I don't know. The one with the phone probably was since her family owned a grocery store and started convenience stores (Handy Way) in Fl. I never felt deprived and my parents were very frugal but we had everything.
 
hollydolly said:
Colour TV... by the time I left home and got married my father still only had a B&W tv...that was '76...
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I got my first color TV in the 80s. As much or my by choice as poverty...
hollydolly said:
Central heating... never even knew it existed for ordinary homes it was such a thing for the Rich..
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We never had central heat either, but in Florida or south Louisiana it wasn't really necessary. What I missed more was no air conditioning... only something for the very rich. Most everyone in Florida and Louisiana now has central heat and air conditioning.
katlupe said:
One girl had her own telephone with a private line. The other one had a swimming pool
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Definitely luxury - beyond our means. I agree those seemed like things for the rich folks, not us.
 
Alligatorob said:
I got my first color TV in the 80s. As much or my by choice as poverty...

We never had central heat either, but in Florida or south Louisiana it wasn't really necessary. What I missed more was no air conditioning... only something for the very rich. Most everyone in Florida and Louisiana now has central heat and air conditioning.

Definitely luxury - beyond our means. I agree those seemed like things for the rich folks, not us.
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Air conditioning ?... we never even knew it existed .:oops:. !! we lived in Scotland where temps get very low indeed.. so having only a little 2 bar fire in the livingroom to heat the whole house meant we woke up with ice inside the windows.. frozen wet clothing hanging on the pulley in the kitchen... and always having to wash in icy cold water...
 
katlupe said:
I never felt like we were broke because my parents both worked and we had nice homes and owned a gas station until we moved to FL in 1962. But I did make friends with girls who I thought were rich. One girl had her own telephone with a private line. The other one had a swimming pool and the other had a huge house. So I felt like they were rich but if they were or not I don't know. The one with the phone probably was since her family owned a grocery store and started convenience stores (Handy Way) in Fl. I never felt deprived and my parents were very frugal but we had everything.
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we never had a swimming pool..we never even heard of anyone owning one... even our Relatively rich Canadian relatives in Toronto didn't have a pool, .. so we kinda gauged most things that rich people could afford by what they had , so not having a pool, meant that we just thought everyone went to the communal public swimming pool
 
hollydolly said:
we never had a swimming pool..we never even heard of anyone owning one... even our Relatively rich Canadian relatives in Toronto didn't have a pool, .. so we kinda gauged most things that rich people could afford by what they had , so not having a pool, meant that we just thought everyone went to the communal public swimming pool
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I lived in FL so there were friends who did have swimming pools. My family swam in the lakes of which there were many. Occasionally we would go to the ocean. I did enjoy swimming in my friend's pool and have happy memories of it. She still has that same pool today.
 
katlupe said:
I lived in FL so there were friends who did have swimming pools. My family swam in the lakes of which there were many. Occasionally we would go to the ocean. I did enjoy swimming in my friend's pool and have happy memories of it. She still has that same pool today.
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that's the other thing...we all thought.anyone who was rich.. and everyone who was rich..lived in the USA, because we saw it on TV.. everyone had big house and wall to wall carpetting ( bewitched).. and pools ( Green acres ) and HUGE cars .. ... etc
 
fuzzybuddy said:
I wanted a 'Davey Crocket Coonskin Hat'. Apparently, my life was not worth living unless I had one, so I super bugged my parents to get one. It kind of sunk in that they didn't have the money to give me one. And after a while, I moved on
Click to expand...
Oh yeahhhhh
Never got one
I learned to covet at around 5 years of age

Later in life, got each of my kids one
The grands would consider me too far gone if I got them one
 
I never felt deprived of anything growing up. My parents took very good care of me until they died at age 9. Our Christmas’s were outstanding. We didn’t have a pool at our house, but I never thought one was necessary. We did have a couple of TV sets, a few phones, modern appliances and carpeting in the house, and, oh yeah, mom and dad each had their own car. This was in the 1960’s.
I had 2 electric trains, a bike and my dog. What else does a boy need? Mom and dad both worked.
 
Growing up both my parents worked in the aircraft industry so we were solid middle class. Dad could afford a modest house for us, mom and dad each had a car, vacation every year, and going and and doing stuff regularly with the family; plus taking care of his latest girlfriend.

Mom quit the job in the aircraft factory and became a hairdresser with a good job, and a boyfriend on the side. 🙄. She often said what was good for the goose was good for the gander.

They divorced when I was 15. Life got poor.
 
hollydolly said:
Everything..!! Not exaggerating.. pretty much everything.. especially holidays.. and cars...

Never even entered my mind that we could go on holiday, because I 'd only heard of rich people going.. none of my friends went on holiday, only the girl in class who was from a well off family..

Furniture.. My father made all of ours except the sofa... so I thought all the furniture that I saw in shop windows was for rich people...

Carpets.. we had no carpets in our house... we had lino in the kitchen and livingroom, but bare boards ( long before they were fashionable).. everywhere including the stairs...

Colour TV... by the time I left home and got married my father still only had a B&W tv...that was '76...

Hair styling at the salon ... only mothers and grandmothers with a cheap shampoo and set , and rich people could afford to go to the salon.. I thought, because we had our hair cut at home.., and the one time my mother sent me to the salon by myself when I was about 14, she'd gathered the money up, as tho' she'd been saving it..

Central heating... never even knew it existed for ordinary homes it was such a thing for the Rich..

Bedding... never had any sheets on our beds.. we slept on the bare mattress.. with only old coats for covers...
Click to expand...
@hollydolly

My circumstances were similar to yours, Hols. I've described it somewhere in another thread on the
forum. Outhouse, no insulation in house, wood-burning stove. Iced-up windows in winter, water from
a well. Tiny ice-box. Winter was difficult. My 2 sisters and I slept on the pull-out chesterfield .. no sheets. 1 blanket with everyone's winter coats on top. I used to lay awake, freezing my nose and toes off.
 
I never thought that we were poor. My Dad worked long hours so my Mom could be a stay-at-home Mom. We went to Wildwood NJ every summer. My Dad place where he worked closed down the first 2 weeks of July. 2 of my Dad's Uncles worked at the same place so we always had our cousins on vacation with us. They were wonderful days.
 
A swimming pool and a vacation to somewhere other than Pennsylvania to see family.

No complaints tho'. I had everything else and other advantages. Only one car but my mom didn't have to work outside the home. We all had top quality clothing and footwear; plenty of food and dined out sometimes 4 times a month; both casual and fancy. We entertained and had lots of friends.
 
I never felt "poor" per se, but I knew there were things the more affluent families had like big houses, pools, eating out a lot, vacations other than camping or staying with relatives, and especially getting to take looong hot showers without someone yelling, "HEY, SAVE SOME HOT WATER FOR SOMEONE ELSE!!!"
 

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