"Thought We Were Dirt Poor": People Reveal The Moment It Hit Them They Were Actually Rich

I didn't while growing up. Was only once they started buying my brother and I houses that I realized s**t wasn't normal.

I was outside the roller rink talking to a boy I liked and waiting for my dad to pick me up. Boy asked me to call him as soon as I get home. My dad picks me up and I can't get home fast enough so I can call boy.

I call boy. He tells me he "didn't know i was a rich kid" and couldn't talk to me anymore. All because I showed him my watch (to check the time), and my dad's car. :( I had no clue

When I had to get a recommendation for my private high school admissions from my public school teacher and she asked in front of the class: “Do you know how much the tuition is?” I told her (I had no concept of what that figure meant.)

She asked: “Your parents can afford that?”

And my classmate said: “His family is rich. They have fancy cars and a plane!”

My mother and father were divorced, and so I had 2 very different lifestyles at the same time.

During the school year, I lived with my mother. She was self-employed making scrapes compared to others. We lived in a trailer behind my grandmothers house. I often wore the same clothes for several school years.

During the summer, I was with my father. Same city, very different part of town. Basically the Hollywood of our city. He too was self-employed, but making much much more. I pretty much had everything I needed and then some. But after talking about our cabin with a swimming pool to my other friends, I realized no one had any idea what I was talking about...

Most of my friends thought I was basically homeless and couldn't understand why I would suddenly show up well dressed for events.

When I learned how much 4 houses cost. Had to wear trash clothes and steal money for lunch at school. Thought we were dirt poor.

Change a car every 2 years, I'm not talking about the Toyota or Hyundai, I'm talking about Mercedes and BMW. At first my mom told me we do that to "refreshed" the unfortunate of the car when it was serving us, I thought that was some Asian culture and assume everybody else do that and I was flexing around and bragging with that "fact" like a rich a*****e. It turns out that my parents are bussinessman and woman so their appearance must look nice when they go meeting with customer, still, I feel like an a*****e back then.

Dad came home late from work and I had been eagerly wating for him for a reason I don't remember now. I do remember clearly him coming up the stairs and me asking him why did he take so long, didn't his boss allow him to leave on time?

His answer was: What are you talking about? I am the boss.

It suddenly hit me that the hundreds of people he had around him all day weren't exactly his pals.

It was weird for me. We were solidly middle class when I was a toddler. Upper middle class by mid grade school, wealthy when I was in highschool, and near 1%ers when I started college. So I sort of grew into it.

I was always pretty generous with gift giving and whatnot. Wasn't too spoiled relative to the wealth.

Seeing my parents less and less often due to business trips was my first hint. Other kids in my school saw their parents a lot more often.

I don't really know if we were rich in the best ways.

My dad was pretty well off when I was a kid. We moved into a three story kinda house kinda mansion in the suburbs right outside Berlin. It was the perfect childhood. I would say many Germans are relatively sparing in what they spend their money on and being flashy isn’t as popular in certain communities. But my parents indulged in creating a beautiful home and always made sure we had everything we needed (and more). Most of my friends lived in apartments within the city, and looking back, although it wasn’t apparent at the time, it’s a very different experience. There were a handful of other kids that lived in the same suburb. It wasn’t until my preteens when we moved to the US that I realized how much that lifestyle impacted my childhood. I went from having my own bedroom and play areas and an entire garden and forest, to living in a one bedroom with four people.

Before i started my apprenticeship my only worry was if i wanted to go to New York or Dubai lol

When I went to University. I thought state schools were specialty schools because the only ones I knew were the government funded mathematics school and agricultural school. I thought everyone went to boarding school, and a lot of people at my University would get really funny when I talked about school or when I asked where they went. They thought I was mocking them when I’d talk about it, which I really wasn’t. It seems stupid of me now, but everyone I ever knew went to boarding school, or was a day student at one.

Not my parents but my grandad was the director of one of the biggest billion dollar company in my country but he was such an average guy that it took me years to finally ask what he worked as. He's so rich but he uses one of the oldest cars that nobody uses anymore because it was his first car and back in the days that car was something that nobody could afford lol.

When we sold some family land to a big oil company so they could build a factory. Tens on millions of dollars, I was jazzed at the time but with the way things are going with the environment I kinda feel like a sellout now

When I realized just how outrageously lucky I was.

Grew up in a town with people ten times wealthier than we were. Went to a well-known boarding school with sons and daughters of billionaires. It majorly skewed my idea of what “rich” was, despite having multiple houses, boats, cars, and family trips all over the world. One side of the family is very old money, the other self-made hoteliers, and my parents both highly intelligent and hard-working successes, but my younger years were spent in a bubble of people where everything was just orders of magnitude grander.

I never had the proper perspective until I was homeless.

Not my parents cuz they leech off my grandparents, but my grandfather casually mentioned buying a Ferrari like it was nothing. Also my grandma crashing her Mercedes-Benz and getting fixed without fretting, owning multiple houses all over the country, my granduncles being kidnapped and the ransom being undoubtedly big, my grandpa and his other brother's paying said ransom MULTIPLE times, going on business class almost for every trip, both my grandparents wasting millions of dollars on rehab/financial help/psychiatrists for their siblings.

Yea, I thought that was the standard for middle class...

Edit: He didn't buy the Ferrari because it was "to flashy" so he's gonna wait for the old Mercedes to break so he can get a new Mercedes

I won't say my family is rich, but we definitely are on the wealthy side. My dad worked his a*s off to get where he is now, and growing up my mom made sure that we would never have a concrete idea of the family income. My grandparents were utterly horrendous in money management skills and so she is extremely strict when it comes to spending. Nevertheless my parents could afford most of the things my brother and I needed, and things we wanted. Our parents took us on several trips abroad and while we weren't staying in super fancy places, it was a privilege nevertheless. No expense was spared when it came to tutors for our education, extra classes or good teachers and resources. My most recent realisation though was because I am sorting through my uni applications now. I broached the topic of studying abroad several years back, and got into a few good schools recently. But, being an international student is super super expensive and I knew that even the little I had saved up wouldn't even make a dent in the tution and accommodation expenses I would have to pay. I had to sit down with my dad and have a good talk and his words were, "If there is a problem with finances I will let you know." I was just struck dumb, especially since I have a brother who will study abroad as well and unis aren't cheap. I am immensely lucky to have the privilege of not essentially worrying about tution and part of my accommodation, when I know there are so many people, some of my own friends who can't afford the same thing. It put alot of things into perspective.

My dad always told my brothers and me how fortunate we were as we grew up. However, it didn't hit me until I learned that the 2008 recession was a thing until six years after it happened.

My parents like to live more frugally so I always thought we were just regular middle class (I knew we weren’t poor but) but then people would ask my what my parents did for a living and I would say “oh my dad is a rocket scientist!” And they would go “oh so you’re rich” and I would be like “huh?”

That private school cost money. But only after we ran out and couldn’t pay the fees so we had to stop going.

Using a backup account for privacy-ish. Simple answer is I always kind of knew that we were well off but I didn’t really know. I always worked for the family business and got a job somewhere else as soon as legally allowed to as well. I guess I was kept too busy to think much about it. I didn’t fully realize until I got much more involved in the family business, and started seeing the reactions of people when I was going on spontaneous trips abroad for breaks. Sunk in pretty f*****g fast after that. Still am sheepish about it, but very grateful. I feel a tad stupid and called out when reading some other replies cause idk how I missed it sometimes…