You can be poor while still having everything you need (even if others were more poor than you). I grew up poor, but didn’t realize it until adulthood, because

You can be poor while still having everything you need (even if others were more poor than you). I grew up poor, but didn’t realize it until adulthood, because we had everything we needed. I rarely got new clothes, mostly wearing hand me downs or thrift shop purchases. We had food 7 days a week, but in the winter when dad was laid off from his construction job and worked part time where he could, someone from the church would drop off a big food box every week (as a child, I thought everyone got that box). The same church sponsored a Santa Clause that delivered gifts to us at Christmas time (mostly practical things like clothing, shoes, etc). At school I got a packet of free lunch tickets every week from the teacher, while almost all of the rest of the class had to bring in a check or cash from home. We did have family vacations in the summer which were almost always a tent camping trip to a state park within driving distance, dad still went to work from that vacation spot. Eventually he worked his way up the ranks at work to a better paying year round job and we move firmly into the middle class, but until grade 6 or so, we were definitely what I’d call poor.