> It really is a strange, new thing to come from nothing and all of a sudden be able to go out to eat at an Applebee's without worrying about your finances for a month.
This. I come from a background where ordering pizza was a special event. We weren't poor poor, but we had to be careful.
I'm getting more used to eating out and getting takeout, but I still read the menu right-to-left (prices first) even though 99% of the time it really doesn't matter.
Maybe someday I'll stop feeling guilty for not ordering the cheapest thing on the menu. Took me 2 years to get used to appetizers.
It's a weird feeling to walk out of a store with a bag full of stuff and realize you have no idea how much any of it cost. Whenever that happens I think of that minor scandal when the nation found out the Clintons(?) didn't know the price of a gallon of milk.
I see not having to know prices as one of the best perks of being decently well off. I've had to count every penny when I was younger, and look for cheaper alternatives, and defer purchases, and it made money one of the big stressful things in my life.
Eventually arning enough that I could stop thinking about it other than checking my balance now and again was far more liberating than any of the subsequent improvements in my finances.
But I would like to add to it. Not only is it emotionally liberating to be better off, but it actually frees you up practically as well. Like you said: count pennies, look for cheap alternatives, defer purchases. If I wanted to buy something when I was younger, I would save money for a year, then spend hours/days/weeks comparing prices, waiting for deals, etc. This lingered deep in me, and I had a hard time shaking it as an adult. It's only recently that I can decide to buy something, have a quick look at what's good and where it's cheapest, and then buy it.
I never want to go the other direction and purely equate time with money, but to some extent any of the meaningless time I spent worrying about money I now can make money, and when I don't feel like it, I can have time off, without worrying.
Sorry for the rant, but what I really wanted to get to is: Having money means having time and energy to learn more ~= making more money.
I remember a quote about the best part of wealth being that you never feel like you need to cheat another person.
I can't google the source of it (you get some really weird results about rich men cheating, or being cheated on) but it always stuck with me as something to be grateful for every day.
Obviously, some rich people however, never got the memo.
Seriously. Probably the biggest mentality shift I had was when I stopped looking at receipts/prices. At this point, the only prices I ever pay attention to are travel ones (hotels/airfare).
Speaking of ordering a pizza, I remember visiting a very cheap pizza place in my home town. It was during a year I earned around $200k, and the pizza over there was around $4 (whole pizza, not just a piece).
While I was waiting in line, an elderly couple entered. It looked like it was a big event for them - average earnings in Poland are around $10k/yr, for them it was probably a half of that.
They looked at the prices, I think they asked about something cheaper, or sth.. I don't remember the details, but I remember them leaving because it seemed it was too expensive for them.
If I had more wit, I would just buy them dinner, and make up some kind of a story of me celebrating or sth, so it wouldn't look like a charity. I didn't, because I seriously didn't know how to react...
Some other time, I remember getting into an argument with a bum a Warsaw city center. Bums in Warsaw are much cleaner than the ones in SF or in States in general. I don't know why...
Anyway, I had a good day, so I told him I will buy him a warm sandwich. He followed me to the shop, and I told him to pick the biggest and best one he wants (biggest one being $5 vs. $2 smallest, again, pocket change in US).
The guy was literally unable to make any kind of a choice. The lady at the counter asked him for a kind of meat, and he couldn't choose which one he wanted. My bet was that he was unused to a situation of abundance of anything...
Anyway, he finally managed to make the choice, with my help. I remember how grateful he was. He ended by shaking my hand, and saying something about having a dark past, being a part of SB (kind of like polish KGB) and doing a ton of bad things to people before 1989...
That's some of my recent memories. I still remember reading menus from right to left, and I try to buy people food whenever I can, and whenever it won't make things awkward...
This. I come from a background where ordering pizza was a special event. We weren't poor poor, but we had to be careful.
I'm getting more used to eating out and getting takeout, but I still read the menu right-to-left (prices first) even though 99% of the time it really doesn't matter.
Maybe someday I'll stop feeling guilty for not ordering the cheapest thing on the menu. Took me 2 years to get used to appetizers.