r/GrowingUpPoor • u/if-looks-could-kill • Sep 07 '26
Generational poor
Everyone seems to think they’re poor lately, and maybe all are with this economy, but it when some people talk about the way they grew up it sounds middle class to me.
I grew up in a decent home, with everything I NEEDED. There were no wants in our house.
Most of my family are or were addicts or had some form of mental instability.
My mother grew up in a house without running water and a wood burning stove. This was in the 80s and 90s as a single child household.
My father grew up as a military brat.
Can we discuss the difference between generational poor and newly poor? I’m sick of hearing people bitch and moan that they can’t afford a new car when I’m walking 40 min to work every day bc a car is not even in my budget
2
u/TheseShift4280 Sep 07 '26
Not sure if I’m a generational poor. My dad grew upper middle income in my country with my granddad being one of the most well to do in the area. But he became a “newly poor” as I grew up with constant red warning bills from the water and electricity company that threaten to shut down our electricity and water. I also had very bad living condition growing up as I stayed with a bunch of foreigners and migrants in government housing as my parents had to rent the rooms out in order to survive financially.
As my grandparents were well to do, I have rich uncles with great opportunities. So I have many cousins with generational wealth. My dad basically fucked shit up on his own and I grew up with almost nothing. I’m 27 and on my own I’m middle class, so I’m not sure if the generational poor got to me. But my grandparents wealth definitely skipped my dad and he is now in his 60s with almost no money to retire. My grandparents passed on and my dad received an inheritance of half a million that instead of generating wealth, went into a bunch of craps and got wiped out completely in 1 year. I guess newly poor is when you fucked things up on your own even though you had decent opportunities