How was being rich?

My parents were quite well off - we were comfortable enough to afford a trip to Florida every few years, and they had a caravan. But they were also very hard working and very frugal (or rather, my mum was). They came from dirt poor backgrounds, both of them, and even once they were well off they werr reluctant to spend money unless they had to. Most of my clothes and toys were hand-me-downs or bought from car boot sales, including Christmas presents. Getting a toy of my choosing from Woolworths was a very rare treat. Takeaways were almost unheard of, and mum shopped at budget supermarkets. She thought ASDA was too expensive compared to Kwiksave and Aldi. My sister and I had everything we needed, but we didn't grow up spoilt. For instance, I can't remember ever pestering our parents for toys when we went out shopping. If we wanted something, it got added to the Christmas list. We bought sandwiches rather than went to a burger van. So although I probably had a rather privileged upbringing, I never felt particularly aware of it - except when I with my best friends. They never went on holiday- or if one of them did, it was because my parents loaned them our caravan for a week and I got to go with them. Although we never talked about money, one of them was so poor that she never got her hair cut in a salon and she couldn't afford a complete school uniform. She didn't give Christmas gifts either, not even cheap things from a pound shop as a token. We thought it was because her parents were really weird and controlling, but in hindsight it was probably also because they didn't have the money. Growing up, I learned not to suggest doing anything that involved spending. My mates had enough to get a bus to town and buy a happy meal on a Saturday, but not to go shopping or the cinema. I would always wait for them to suggest what we did outside of school to fit their budget. I blended in with them superficially as my parents' frugality meant that I didn't have the latest designer brands either, but it was always a kind of unspoken difference between us. Despite being dressed in my cousin's manky old anorak, I lived in another town, in a big detached house and went on holidays and had birthday parties thrown for me. Some of their parents definitely resented my parents. It was the sort of area where anyone doing a 'professional' job stuck out like a sore thumb. You knew who the doctor's and teacher's children were in each class. As I got older (I met my husband when I was only 16) I became aware that I never had to check my bank balance before a night out. I never had to say 'I'll wait until payday', and I didn't have a student load. I was obviously the 'rich' and 'posh' one among his friends and my old school friends - but that may also have been because I followed in my parents' footsteps and have worked multiple PT jobs since I was 13. Then I went to university and met some really proper middle class people, and realised that this idea that I was in any way 'posh' was utter bollocks. Like mum and dad, I'm a grafter who loves getting a bargain.