Some true stories here...
I sometimes have to check myself because we’re very fortunate to live a good life and finances aren’t an issue at all (within reason).
However I grew up a bit more meagerly than that. And learned great lessons from my parents about how to spend wisely and how to stretch a dollar. And with those limitations they did everything they could for me and my sister. We got to do all the big “trips”. Drove all over the country several summers. But our RV was a 6man tent and a camp stove in a turtle topper on top of a not so new Buick!
And they also, as soon as we left the house, started living even more. Took more trips, went to Europe. Bought a little cabin up north etc.
it was good to see because they sacrificed a lot prior imo.
Ending with getting ready to retire, I built them a log home on the property next to the cabin. It was their dream. Well dad made it until I’d almost finished the house and passed away at 59. Mom made it another 10 mostly enjoyable years living back in the woods on a lake.
Good thing they did what they could when they could. And probably should have done more, because they didn’t get that many years. Hell, dad never even actually retired. Just got too sick to work and couldn’t help me build the house, which was one of his dreams as he always wanted to be a carpenter. (He was a pretty good carpenter, but a meat cutter by trade and was proud of the fact I learned how to do that at an early age. I Paid my way through college pounding nails)
Mom Still had plenty of money before she passed. And for what? My sister stole most of it when mom was sick right before she died. And then pissed away her part of the house that I set up for her. And most of what I kept was spent on my sisters problems too, which in the end have proven to be a waste. They may as well had spent it all because most of it got squandered.
