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Originally Posted by afc wimbledon
Is it just me or does being poor now look immeasurably better than being poor 30 or 40 years ago?
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People are definitely better off today.
My first memories are of a one room house - which later became our cramped, one car garage - in a small, dusty prairie town. A blanket served to carve off part of it for a bedroom. These days, a first home is likely to be a palatial palace in comparison.
We were lower middle class. Not quite poverty stricken but not much for extras. My father built a duplex for $13,000 in 1962. It was a 15 year mortgage and he used all of those years.
My "allowance" used to be 25 cents a week. That was good for a walk to the corner store for a 15 cent comic book and a 10 cent Jersey Milk chocolate bar. Then you'd wait for another week.
The difference today is that what might be considered a "minimal" standard of living seems to have no comparison to what "minimal" used to be.
Coming from that background, I'm just not seeing what all the whining is about these days. I've worked occasionally at the Calgary Drop-in Centre so I'm not as completely out of touch as you might think but still . . . . yeah, things are different these days.
And yes, I did use to walk to school barefoot in the snow, uphill, both ways.
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Thanks for the responses, and I did expect someone to go woob on it so to speak, I asked the question because I am terrified of being poor, it is something that has hung over me all my life (not that it is a bad thing, I have always worked my arse off as a result) as I equate poor with an almost Dickensian life of cold and hunger, but it occured to me as the occupy mob were going on about how the rich were so much better off these days that I don't think they are really.
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That's good.
I've told the story on this board before of searching for a place to live once in Grande Prairie as a young lad. I came across this old, retired army guy renting a smelly, greasy, basement apartment, trying to sub-let a postage-stamp sized bedroom in his place for some extra cash. Nice guy but I took one look at his circumstances - the sheer hopelessness of it all late in his life - and vowed right then and there that I would never, ever, never in a million years be in his position, even though I was poorer than him at the time. I've never forgotten him. He scared the crap out of me.
Being scared is a motivator. Don't accept your circumstances and assume the present is what the future will be as well. That's stagnation. Do something about it. Grind it out. And sometimes the grind isn't a lot of fun and can get you down. Nevertheless, you can carve your own destiny.
Cowperson