<p>I grew up very poor. After getting kicked out of the house where my mother and I were live-in maids (because I was reportedly insolent by failing to stand when the owner walked into our attic room), we were taken in by a YMCA conference center. My mother and I lived there for three years until I graduated from high school, in a single room with no kitchen in exchange for daily work in the dining room. Ironically, my mother has a master’s degree but wasn’t happy with teaching and didn’t consider money important. (She views my childhood much less traumatically than I do and happily lives in a small town in West Virginia now on basically fumes for income.) My H grew up equally poor. He was raised by a single parent who did not graduate from high school, never worked, or even drive. Needless to say, we put ourselves through college and grad school and are much better off than our parents. Our past, however, definitely colors our spending habits, which is to say we spend very little, and we expect our kids to hold down jobs as well as go to school (which both do).</p>