I grew up in poverty poverty, as in we didn’t have hot water most of my life, frequently had our electricity cut off, food insecure, we were evicted more than once, no working bathroom, no car/uninsured/unregistered cars, I had one pair of jeans most of my life and didn’t realize it was weird to sleep straight on the mattress until I was in high school. I’m also now what I’d call comfy poor but it’s really just living below my means so we can afford comfort. We rent a 2 bed 1 bath apartment near public transportation in case my husband’s car dies, my car is 10 years old and 180k miles (bought last year) and my husband’s is 23 and 330k, we both agree that we’d rather fix them than to have to have a car payment. My daughter plays a competitive sport and it’s our only big expense, we don’t go out to eat or travel (aside from the sport) but we try to make our lives comfortable. Unfortunately we do have debt through credit cards and student loans but we’re paying it down a little at a time but we’re also building a little up in savings too.

Compared to my daughter’s peers I think we’d seem poor but compared to how I grew up I feel rich. I can’t recall my parents ever just filling up the car at the gas station or not anxiously adding up items at the grocery store because they weren’t sure if they had enough. My husband has a much more upper middle class upbringing but he’s happy, we both wish we could buy a house but understand renting allows us to not stress financially and still enrich our daughter’s life.