"poverty mentality"

scrabbles_2

Molly41 wrote: »

Well thank you for that. I really appreciate your psycho-analysis - you are obviously a much better person than I am!

If you want to take it that way, fine. It has nothing to do with being 'better', just happier.

Like I say, I hope you find happiness.

carefullycautious

Molly41 wrote: »

I do think you can take OS too far. Like my parents for example. Their thrifty (miserly) approach to life - albeit established by their experience of World War 2 and rationing - made for a miserable childhood. Our house was cold, I had minimal toys and no fashionable clothes and a home-cut hair cut that made me a target for bullies. As they grow old (now in their 80's) they get worse and my nightmare fear is that they will found dead as they have either been gassed by their heating or from hypothermia - I kid you not! They probably have pots of money - but it is not for spending!

Oh how I relate to this

[Deleted User]

I am frugal because I prefer to spend any left over cash on my family who give me so much more in return.They don't do it for any other reason than love.I had a smashing birthday yesterday, and in the evening I was with my DD, her OH, & four of their five children and my oldest friend.My DD doesn't have a great deal of spare cash but makes up for it by caring and making sure that we are all felt loved and wanted.I use my extra left over lolly to help them out during the lean times.
I sadly didn't have a Mum to call on when i had a young family as she had died when I was 16 so I derive a great deal of pleasure being part of and joining in with all the family things whether its a walk in the park with the kids and dogs, or when we all go away on our family holiday in August.Even if I had lots of money I wouldn't be any different as to me my family and grandchildren are a huge part of my life.The children know that 'Grannies ways' mean they can maybe have a few more treats than they would normally have and its rubbed off on them as they know the value of money and never ask for anything outrageous when we are out.
One of the boys is 10 and he loves to think that by having picnics instead of take-aways it means that we go to more interesting places.In fact tonight one of the boys was researching where we can go next week on half term that won't cost much.My eldest DD as part of my birthday gave me a National Trust membership and my four grandsons are on it so we can go to lots of places with Grannies ticket and get in for free.
They enjoy kite-flying (I keep one in my car boot) 'Crabbing' (we have had the same lines and buckets for three years and when ever we go we always wrap the lines back up carefully and clean the buckets out for another day.)I hope that they will grow up to be sensible young men who don't get into debt, yet can enjoy the things in life that don't cost a lot.Not a bad legacy to give them

Living_proof

This is indeed an interesting thread, and interesting to me particularly as I have recently begun to question aspects of my frugality. I think I sometimes do it from habit and not from necessity and sometimes in retrospect it is meanness. Following a recent unhappy and abrupt event in my life I have decided to spend some money on myself, quite a lot of money, simply to make myself feel better about myself. I have also decided to buy (new!!!) a king size electric blanket, although two hot water bottles have sufficed in the past.

I do think you can lose your drive by living frugally. For a lot of us it is quite easy to live within our means without struggling overmuch and save at the same time. If we had the necessity to earn more simply for our family to survive we might strive and achieve more, but I can see the poverty mentality creeping in - 'that will do me/see me out' etc. On the other hand it is great to be able to splash out now and again in the certain knowledge that if everything around me collapsed I would manage to survive as I already have those skills.

Things which I think are highly detrimental are the admin fees levied by government departments on things like six-monthly tax discs, or interest charges on monthly insurance payments. It is back to the cardboard boots but is exactly the things which keep the poor poor.

Molly41

scrabbles wrote: »

If you want to take it that way, fine. It has nothing to do with being 'better', just happier.

Like I say, I hope you find happiness.

I am very lucky and very happy, thank you. I have a wonderful husband, 4 lovely children and I have had a fulfilling career as a midwife.

I am glad you had a happy childhood and your experience of a poverty mentality was a positive one. My lived experience of living with a poverty mentality was very negative. My parents took it and still take it to extremes. If only I had a mum or gran like Jackie O - then maybe life would have been different (I know Jackie from the OS thread and often think that). I think she has the balance just right x

sparrer

Haven't read through all the posts, but I scrimp so I can enjoy myself. I make a teabag do 2 or more cups of tea (don't like it too dark anyway), dilute whole milk (any idiot can buy ss but what a waste!), I go straight to rtc section when I'm in a supermarket (and eat extremely well!), I wear two pairs of jimmies, bedsox and a fleece cardi in bed rather than have the heating on (and am always so toastie warm I don't want to get up in the morning), etc etc. A normal day in my home and the way I live would make some people's hair curl! However...

I never, ever scrimp when I have visitors, they have the best of everything home made, from table cloth to food, from the beautiful guest bedroom I spent ages doing up on a budget to trips out wherever they want to go. Last year I went to India, and on a cruise, this year I'm taking DGD2 to Italy for Easter and the Edinburgh Tattoo in August, and have friends visiting through the year. And that's only what I have planned so far, which doesn't sound like a poverty mentality to me. Unless I'm missing the point.

RAS

Living_proof wrote: »

Things which I think are highly detrimental are the admin fees levied by government departments on things like six-monthly tax discs, or interest charges on monthly insurance payments. It is back to the cardboard boots but is exactly the things which keep the poor poor.

When I first got to have some money, I slowly transferred all these bills to annual payments. It saved me money.

RAS

Thinking about the "poverty mentality", someone mentioned that you may get what you expect with regard to partners.

We were recruiting staff in the darkest days of Maggiedom. There were some good applicants. One whose personal statement was excellent and had relevant technical experience had been made redundant twice.

He was the last interviewees and the previous but one had been late. Since he arrive early, I could not take him on the tour immediately because I was doing a late show for the late person, and had to leave him in the capable hands of the staff.

I came back to find him in deep conversation with our most nervous member of staff. I showed him round and he went into interview.

My colleague came out for a break, exasperated because this guy was doing so badly in interview. I reported on the performance of the last three interviewees and that our last one was the best with our staff group by a long shot. We decide to have a tea break and I joined the team.

We then asked him point blank why his performance at interview was so at odds with his application form and his perfomance with the staff? It took him a while to speak, but he had taken a huge knock being made redundant again and being rejected repeatedly for jobs. He was convinced we would reject him because of his age and job history.

So we asked to start again.

He got the job because he had experience with our staff group as well as the technical skills needed, even if he had never been employed working with them. He nearly lost the job because of his initial conviction that he was a loser. He proved to be excellent.

Mistral001

RAS wrote: »

Thinking about the "poverty mentality", someone mentioned that you may get what you expect with regard to partners.

We were recruiting staff in the darkest days of Maggiedom. There were some good applicants. One whose personal statement was excellent and had relevant technical experience had been made redundant twice.

He was the last interviewees and the previous but one had been late. Since he arrive early, I could not take him on the tour immediately because I was doing a late show for the late person, and had to leave him in the capable hands of the staff.

I came back to find him in deep conversation with our most nervous member of staff. I showed him round and he went into interview.

My colleague came out for a break, exasperated because this guy was doing so badly in interview. I reported on the performance of the last three interviewees and that our last one was the best with our staff group by a long shot. We decide to have a tea break and I joined the team.

We then asked him point blank why his performance at interview was so at odds with his application form and his perfomance with the staff? It took him a while to speak, but he had taken a huge knock being made redundant again and being rejected repeatedly for jobs. He was convinced we would reject him because of his age and job history.

So we asked to start again.

He got the job because he had experience with our staff group as well as the technical skills needed, even if he had never been employed working with them. He nearly lost the job because of his initial conviction that he was a loser. He proved to be excellent.

Just on this subject, I once interviewed three people for a job and one chap who had been unemployed for quite a while did really badly at the interview. He looked as if he was going to take an overdose most of the time at the interview. I could not get anything out of him other than he liked collecting and watching DVD's. However, my hunch was that he was perhaps the best for the job as he seemed to have had some good experience before his prolonged period of unemployment. However, I did not go on my hunch and I employed the smooth talking confident chap presently in employment who seemed to tick all the right boxes. I had to sack him 6 months later. You live and learn.

Byatt

sparrer wrote: »

Haven't read through all the posts, but I scrimp so I can enjoy myself. I make a teabag do 2 or more cups of tea (don't like it too dark anyway), dilute whole milk (any idiot can buy ss but what a waste!), I go straight to rtc section when I'm in a supermarket (and eat extremely well!), I wear two pairs of jimmies, bedsox and a fleece cardi in bed rather than have the heating on (and am always so toastie warm I don't want to get up in the morning), etc etc. A normal day in my home and the way I live would make some people's hair curl! However...

I never, ever scrimp when I have visitors, they have the best of everything home made, from table cloth to food, from the beautiful guest bedroom I spent ages doing up on a budget to trips out wherever they want to go. Last year I went to India, and on a cruise, this year I'm taking DGD2 to Italy for Easter and the Edinburgh Tattoo in August, and have friends visiting through the year. And that's only what I have planned so far, which doesn't sound like a poverty mentality to me. Unless I'm missing the point.

Oh dear, I'm one of those idiots. Just recently from reading on here found out about diluting milk, sad to say it never occurred to me before. And I always bought skimmed too...:o

An inspirational post though, and puts a whole new slant on things for me. :T