I’ve Never Been Poor: Growing Up Middle Class and the Grocery Store Test
What shopping for groceries can tell you about money, life, and social class.
I came to an interesting realization a few weeks ago: I’ve never been poor. I vaguely knew this — my parents always had more than enough to provide for me and my sister, and I’ve been into personal finance since I was a teenager. Managing money well is something that I’m pretty good at.
However, this realization came into stark relief when a random Tumblr post came across my dashboard. It changed how I view what it means to be poor, and it was framed in a trip to the grocery store.
When you’re poor, you count pennies. Everything that goes into your cart is added up, tax is accounted for, and the amount you can spend is set in stone. You cannot splurge on some random thing because that would take away from one of your essentials. Going $1 over your budgeted amount can mean a $35 overdraft fee, which could wreck your finances for the foreseeable future.
When you’re not poor, this is not an issue. You can grab the odd splurge without risking your bank account and wellbeing. You can afford luxuries like ice cream on a regular basis. Essentially, you can afford whatever you want (within reason for most of us, that is). Counting pennies is unnecessary.
As this snippet made the rounds in my circles, there were a lot of comments of “I feel this in my soul” and “This brings back horrible memories” and “I still do this because I have to.” Almost everyone in my feed had some story about living this way for an extended period.
In particular, my wife told me stories about this type of budgeting in her life. This was her life as a child and adolescent: managing every cent of their grocery budget to ensure that they were able to eat. I don’t think she ever went hungry, but money was tight.
As my friends talked about their lives spent adding up every stick of butter and jug of milk, I thought about my own experiences. I never experienced this growing up — as I said, I grew up solidly middle to upper-middle class. I lived with my parents in college, so my food was taken care of that way, and I had a job as well, so I could afford to have meals out. When I moved out, I had two roommates and two jobs, and was thus able to afford all of my necessities, put money into savings, and also pay extra on my student loans.
Eventually, I bought a house with my partner, who doesn’t work, and I’ve been able to support the two of us and our four cats without having to count pennies the whole time we’ve been here. I paid off my student loans before I turned 30, and the only debt I have other than my mortgage is at 0% and will be paid off before I can ever pay a cent of interest on it. I never carry a balance on my credit cards; on the contrary, I’ve paid interest on my card once in my life because I was new to it and misunderstood the way the payment cycle worked.
That’s why this perspective is so striking to me: I have a fundamental misunderstanding of what it feels like. And yet, many people in my life have lived this for long periods of time, and many are still living it. I hate that I can do my best to empathize with them, but I can’t really understand the feeling.
Honestly, living in a world where this is a necessity for so much of the population is kinda depressing. We’re the self-described greatest country in the world, yet so many of our citizens live paycheck to paycheck, counting pennies to make sure they can get to next week. The payday loan industry is predatory and horrific, and there is a whole group of people who don’t have bank accounts or credit scores. That’s not necessarily a bad thing except that everything in the modern world relies on having those things. Don’t get me started on the state of healthcare in this country.
I have a lot of opinions on how to help with this. Universal Basic Income would be nice, as would an increase in the minimum wage. At this point, the Fight for $15 has been going on for so long that, thanks to inflation, it should be the Fight for $19 at this point. Obviously, free-market capitalism has failed a significant portion of our population if so many people can’t afford basic groceries without keeping track of every penny.
I count my lucky stars that I have been able to escape the feeling of being poor, but I also recognize that it is as much a function of my circumstances as anything else. I grew up in an upper-middle-class ZIP code with a great school district and loving parents who supported me however they could. I was given every opportunity that many other kids wouldn’t have had. I’m a white guy, which gives me quite a few free passes by itself.
The idea that someone would have to experience this thanks to their ZIP code, or the circumstances of their birth, or their skin tone, or their gender, or any other basic demographic makes me sick. And, before anyone jumps in with “well, life’s not fair,” why don’t we try to make it more fair? We are social creatures and have made it this far as a species by supporting each other. Why not support those most in need by making society more fair and equitable? Why not break down barriers to success for everyone?
I don’t have all the answers, just a set of ideas that I’ve collected through research and random stumblings through social media. I can’t even directly relate to the sensation I described. I just do my best to empathize and push for whatever changes I think will help.
I’m not sure how to wrap this up, honestly, so I’ll leave you with this note. There are two types of people in this world. The first type looks at their life and says “If I had to struggle like this, so should everyone else.” The second type looks at their life and says “I had to struggle like this, so I will do whatever I can to make sure nobody else has to struggle as I did.”
I know what I’d pick.
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