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@jedeve: I think it's hard to compare. My nana will sometimes say how she raised 5 kids in a 3 bedroom house, whe she SAH & my nono worked a city fireman making $74/week. Soup was something like 5c them, so.. How do you even compare that to 2014?

My parents? No. They think we should pay for everything when we're with them and that my DH should buy me anything I want whenever I want because they see us as having some kind of excess of money. They think we're stingy.

My mom definitely doesn't understand our financial situation. She insists that there's no way I have to work for us to survive. That I should be able to stay home and "make it work" b/c she did that. Times are different...living expenses are very different, and I enjoy our lifestyle.

I also remember silly things that got to me when I was younger. I played softball and everyone had Adidas cleats while I had to settle for a generic no name cleat. My mom would never invest in the things that I was passionate about, and it made me feel like my interests didn't matter and weren't worth spending a little money on. I don't ever want DS to feel that way.

My mom is still worried about money and it seems as if everything revolves around money with her. Again...I don't ever want DS feeling like he can't take an extra long shower b/c I'm worried about the water bill. Silly things like that definitely irked me growing up.

I don't have this issue with my mom, but I often run into it with my sister.

She got married at 19 and started a family right away and never worked. Her husband went through post-grad school while they had two kids, so they lived on very little.

I worked full time from the time I graduated and didn't get married until I was 32...so my sister figures we must be SWIMMING in money!

Um...not always the case honey! DH and I have had a lot less provided for us (BIL got a tax free loan for school and because they were "so poor"...a lot of family gifted them things they needed...which is fine! But I've worked hard for everything I have).

I think it's in poor taste whenever anyone compares money situations. You never know what burdens people have.

@rachiecakes: "My mother thinks we're rich because we live in the city but we're not."

I think my sister thinks this too...and because we live in a MUCH smaller house.

She doesn't realize my house cost just as much as hers BECAUSE we live closer to the city!

@2PeasinaPod: This is so on point!

My mom still worked when I was born because they couldn't afford for her not to, but they definitely weren't in a great financial place. They had to budget for everything and although I never knew our situation or that we were not well off, my parents definitely didn't encourage any sort of extra curricular for me, which I remember and am sad about. Things I was interested in, I never got the best of. I don't think you need the best for everything, but if it IS a passion of yours, sometimes the best is nice for those important things.

I also know that while we didn't suffer financially, my mom gave up a LOT to raise us. While, my husband and I could probably survive on just his income, we don't want to. I guess you could say it's selfish, but I love being able to afford nice things, and I love being able to go out and get a pedi if I want one.

We are definitely better off than our parents were at the same time in their lives. Although, I, very fortunately, learned how to budget very well at a young age and have followed my budget for most of my life. I've gotten off track a few times, but always come back around and back to a good place.

Luckily, neither of our sets of parents make any comments about our financial situation and they both see how hard we work to be where we are, which is super awesome.

Yes, my parents have a pretty good grasp of our financial situation. Mostly because when DH and my Dad have a little too much wine they like to talk business, sales and money. It took them a while to adjust to us being comfortable and not feeling like they always need to pay for things for us. We've finally started picking up the dinner cheque without too much fuss from them anymore.

My parents, yes. They are very generous and really understand our monetary situation. That may be because I pretty much tell my mother everything, all the time. Haha!

My ILs, not so much. They remember when things were tough for them, but also expect us to be able to do things they can do now (like pay for plane tickets to expensive group vacations places, etc). It's really hard.

My parents are. I think they can probably make comments to us about saving more money and not spending so much. I know that when they got married, they both worked really hard and saved a lot, and were able to afford the lifestyle my sister & I had. But they've been very supportive and haven't made us feel bad, yet! lol

My parents understand because they offered to co-invest in a house with us. DH & I wanted them to understand exactly where we were financially so they could never say anything in the future about our financial habits. We took them through our budget dollar for dollar and showed them where we were and what impact their investment would have on our budget. It would be nice to have but we were doing just fine on our own. They didn't ask for our details but I wanted to be as transparent as possible so they could never make any remarks about our future financial decisions. Well, they can make remarks but I'm not going to listen to them.