Does your frugalness cause you to be in contact with people from different income levels? - Page 2

[ChristyMarie]

Originally Posted by HipGal

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On a practical side, it does bring up some issues. Apparently the tooth fairy gave one of the kindergarten girls $20 for her tooth. So how does my son feel about the $2 he got? In his mind, it is the same tooth fairy, kwim?

What?!??!?!? Ok, $20 from the tooth fairy is a whole different planet of parenting, we're not talking just income differences.

I think that a few other posters have touched on this...when you click with people, it happens regardless of income. But when people are so different in priorities and habits then, it just isn't going to work.

We're pretty comfy financially and our son will get $1 a tooth. I cannot imagine giving him $20 for a tooth. Just can't. Isn't gonna happen.

When my son has pointed out differences (our house is bigger than their house or they have X, why don't we) I talk about how everyone is different and it would be really boring if everyone was the same. What if everyone had to wear the same color everyday? What if Grandma's house was just like ours, wouldn't that be boooooring? Etc. until he giggles. Different IS ok and trying to be the same is just silly. We just have to get the kids to realize that.

For the tooth fairy...eh, we'd probably start a silly game of figuring out how in the world that silly fairy made a mistake like that. Did she think he lost 20 teeth? Maybe she was paying him for losing 20 hairs! Maybe her money bag ripped....

[Fuamami]

We have some very wealthy friends, but we are currently probably about the poorest in our peer group. I sometimes feel a little awkward while socializing with the wealthier friends, but rarely.

Recently, we were at a birthday party with one of my wealthiest friends, and most of the other parents there were also very wealthy. It was, honestly, a little bit hard to find conversation, since most of it was about shopping and cars.

However, we had a similar experience of difficulty relating last year when we went to the AYSO picnic. Most of the parents on my kids' teams were working-class, though maybe better off than us. I think the difference there might have been education.

Anyway, I hope my kids notice all these things. I am a sociologist, and I can't help pointing out class differences. And they are very clear, even without seeing people's cars. Here, Whole Foods is the fancy store, and the difference between the clientele there and at the bag-your-own groceries store where we usually shop is shocking.

[blizzard_babe]

Originally Posted by ChristyMarie

We're pretty comfy financially and our son will get $1 a tooth. I cannot imagine giving him $20 for a tooth. Just can't. Isn't gonna happen.

TOTALLY . Losing a tooth is not work. $20 is a phenomenal hourly wage for something that (a) doesn't take nearly an hour, and (b) requires no effort. $1 is the limit here, too.

On-topic... I feel like I live on several different planets. On paper, when both DH and I are working (he has gone back and forth between SAH and both p/t and f/t WOH, will soon be going back to SAH), we are doing very well, financially. For a public school teacher, I earn what is probably a high-end salary. But then there's our exorbitant rent and expenses in Alaska (I scoff at any gasoline price under $5/gallon ), and the sketchy housing our hard-earned money pays for. I mean, we do all right, but we don't eat out often, rarely shop for anything other than essentials, drive crappy-but-reliable vehicles, etc.

AND THEN, we're thinking of buying a house in Wisconsin. Yes, buying a house in a place we only will see three months out of the year, while renting in our town/state of primary residence. We have two friends who we've lived with before who want to rent from us, and are happy to share the house with us over the winter and summer holidays. So we'll be 30-something college-educated (me with a postgraduate degree) professionals earning a decent salary, living in crappy rental housing 3/4 of the year, owning an older-but-decent house in a town we're TRYING to move back to SOMEDAY (like, whenever DH finds a job down here so I can SAH for a while), living pretty frugally 95% of the time and then paying out the you-know-what for plane tickets back and forth.

I guess all this makes us middle-class, but we hob-knob in both directions???

Reading all this makes me realize: my life is weird.