Living above the poverty line is easy to take for granted.
Having snacks, necessary toiletries, and hot water are everyday things that many people don't have to think twice about. Unfortunately, there are households that can't afford everyday luxuries like regular meals or even heat in the winter.
Redditor u/slightly_above asked people who grew up poor about the things they cherish that normal people wouldn't think twice about, and people gave eye opening answers about the things others are lucky to never have to worry about not being able to afford.
10. Being able to afford to live
"Being comfortably broke. As In, all my bills are paid and my accounts are lower than I'd like but still in the positive. There is such a difference between being broke and content, and being broke and worrying about your next meal or bill being paid."
9. Free reign of the thermostat
Giphy"Being able to set the thermostat however high I want. Stepping out of the shower into warmth instead of a freezing cold bathroom."
8. Having all the necessities
"Having a well stocked home. Never running out to toilet paper/paper towels/ soap / shampoo/ conditioner/ food.
Tps probably top 3. Ladies use a lot of toilet paper and when you're poor sometimes you dont know the next time you can buy some."
7. Being able to give your family a better life
"I grew up without hot water, infestations of rats and roaches, a mother who hoarded animals and no central heating and a/c. Now that I own a home with my husband the thing I'm most grateful for is having a warm home in the winter. Every year when we need to turn in the heat on it just hits me how grateful I am to have my kids grow up in a warm house. It stops me in my tracks and I have to call my husband and tell him how blessed we are and how lucky we are, to not only have each other and our babies, but to have a comfortable home for them to grow up in."
6. Having extra food hanging around
"Candy dishes/fruit bowls/DISPLAY FOOD
I have a stocked pantry and always keep a fruit bowl on the counter. Growing up poor in interior alaska fresh fruit is EXPENSIVE AF. I remember getting a fresh pineapple as a kid and everybody clamoring for peices! I visited an aunt for a few weeks in the lower 48 as a kid when my mom was in rehab, and she always had multiple jars of candy/snacks around. I was FLOORED, I couldn't wrap my head around the concept. To this day whenever I put out candy or nut dishes I get all warm and fuzzy."
5. Fresh produce
"Fresh fruit. The kids don't really get it, but in my house we always have fresh fruit. I have gone out to walk half a mile in -20 to go buy more when we ran out before.
I just remember it not being an option for so long, all we had was beans and rice because they were cheap.
My kids always have access to fruit."
4. No more second hand clothes
"New clothes just for me. I was one of the younger kids in a large relatively poor family. For years every thing I wore was a hand me down. Then it was buying super discounted remnants and seconds."
3. Having big holiday meals
"The concept of actually having food. I had crying for dinner a lot of the time because we just couldnt afford it.
One thanksgiving, someone dropped off a huge box of food on our doorstep in the night so we woke up to a turkey with an ice pack, and every side and dressing imaginable and I remember just sobbing uncontrollably that I finally had something to be thankful for."
1. Multi-floor houses
"My son can go upstairs. Or downstairs. It's a townhouse, sure, but when I was a kid, living in a trailer, I thought that having an upstairs was what rich people had. Now that we have an upstairs and a finished basement, he doesn't know how lucky he is."
"People who were in a real home invasion situation, what was it like and what did you do?"
He Didn't Know Who He Was Dealing With...
Dude came knocking on the front door and my mom and I ignored it."
"I was about 10 and my mom didn’t want to answer the door to a stranger."
"He knocked a while then went around the back and hopped the gate to try the back door."
"My mom got her gun and opened the back door with it visible, right before he tried to smash the glass."
"He took off running and was arrested on B&E charges the next day after he broke into someone else’s apartment and couldn’t run."- SilverSunrises
It's Always Lunch Money That Gets Stolen First...
"Was in 7th grade home alone after a half day when suddenly there was very hard knocking on my back door."
"I knew immediately something was off because we never have visitors and my father did not knock like that, and froze up in my room."
"I peak out of my room (right in front of back door) and suddenly it's quiet so I go back to my room."
"AS SOON as I close my door I hear glass shatter."
"Turned off my computer and TV and dove under my bed."
"For the next 40 minutes I hear him thrashing around my living room and parents room, then hear them leave."
"During this I'm on call with the cops who think I'm PRANK CALLING THEM and take 70 minutes to finally come over."
"The station is 3 streets away from my house."
"They come and investigate only to find out it was our next door neighbor that broke in and was actually looking for drug money, as it turns out the previous person to live here did at-home haircuts and sold weed on the side."
"The neighbor was arrested and his family moved out a week later."
"THE ONLY THING THIS GUY TOOK WAS MY LUNCH MONEY I LEFT ON A COUNTER OUTSIDE FOR THE NEXT DAY."- level 1Ogletreb
whatever you say bully GIFGiphyThey Actually Apoligized...
"Four guys knocked on my buddies door at 11pm."
"He lived with a bunch of other guys so this wasn’t anything new."
"They burst in and held a gun to his neck and demanded the drugs."
"He stammered that there weren’t any drugs but they could take what they wanted."
"One guy held him there with the gun as the others searched the house."
"Since they didn’t find anything they realized they had the wrong house and left."
"As they were leaving the last guy said ‘sorry, this wasn’t my idea'."- discostud1515
A Gun Needs No Explanation
"My in-laws were home when a young guy broke into their house."
"They don’t speak English very well so my FIL, in the clearest English he could muster loudly said, 'Get me my gun!''
"At that point the intruder left in a hurry."- TheManInTheShack
Could Have Used The Teethmarks As Evidence...
"I was at my friend’s place when it happened to him."
"We were both teenagers then."
"The guy thought everyone was sleeping and he got startled when he saw us, he bit my friend (his arm required stitches from the bite) and ran away."
"No idea who the guy was or what he wanted, never happened again and we never saw the guy again."- Melancholic84·
He Should Have Chosen Which House More Carefully...
"Tackled the guy."
"The hardest I’ve ever hit someone, and I’m a pretty big guy with a football background."
"But he didn’t see me coming."
"It felt very much like a do or die moment so I didn’t hold anything back."
"Broke a few of his bones, messed up his face, and got him sentenced to 6 years."- The_SunDancer
Still Had To Replace That TV...
"Not me, but my aunt."
"She was at home alone in her backyard making food, and when she walked into the living room, she saw a couple of men in the middle of carrying out the tv."
"It seems that they didn’t think anyone was at home; they got surprised, dropped the tv, and ran out after she started screaming."- RitaSaluki
Feline Intuition
"I was in bed asleep at 7am when I heard a loud bang."
"I thought nothing of it because of the large cat tree I have downstairs that's always getting knocked over, so I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep."
"Not long after my elderly cat comes running into my bedroom, jumps up on the bed and tries to hide under the blankets."
"This immediately woke me up because that old fat cat hadn't ran nor jumped on our bed for years."
"As I came two I see two men coming up my stairs."
"At that point it felt like time stopped and somehow ran incredibly fast at the same time."
"I jumped out of bed and started screaming 'GET THE F*CK OUT OF MY HOUSE!' and I remembered thinking while chasing these guys through my house and screaming again and again at the top of my lungs that my voice sounds exactly like my brother and I wondered how strange that was.""I tackled one of them on my front lawn, but he struggled free and got away."
"I saw the get away car and tried to keep repeating the license number, but it faded away in my mind as I was repeating it."
'I remember vividly being so mad at myself that I couldn't remember 7 numbers, and how stupid I was for not grabbing my phone! "
"Looking back on the situation there are so many things that happened that I never noticed, like how I fractured my arm slamming into the wall at the bottom of my stairs, and that I cut my feet up on the splintered wood of my front door."
"The adrenaline rush of a true fight or flight situation is something so strange it's almost impossible to accurately describe."
"The sense of time, not being aware of pain and injuries for hours, and the hyper focus on some details but the complete loss of others."
"Luckily I wasn't seriously hurt and nothing was stolen, but I installed cameras all over my house the very next day."- robot_boat_loan
camera surveillance GIF by MOST EXPENSIVESTGiphySometimes Size Does Matter...
"Girlfriend and I were sleeping in bed, some dummy broke into our apartment, ran real quick when he saw how big my naked a** was."- Croceyes2
FIVE DAYS?!?!
"Blocked the doors when it became clear that someone was trying to break in."
"My husband and I were staying with a friend and her husband; her step son and elderly mother in law were also in the house."
"Someone had heard the old lady had jewelry and decided to try their luck."
"We heard this later through the town grapevine."
"Said person then escalated to trying to kick his way in through the windows (they were leaded)."
"My husband called the police while my friend tried to keep the gap and child calm and her husband and I screamed a lot and sort of flailed at the protruding feet with pokers from the old fireplace."
"On realizing there were more of us than there were of him, he ran off."
"Good thing too; the police never showed."
"They called 5 days later to see 'if we still needed their assistance'."
"Bloody useless."
"In comparison 6 months later I arrived at work to discover the door and cash drawer had been jimmied and the £50 float nicked and they were over and taking fingerprints inside the hour."
"I wonder why trust in the police is so low."
"Total mystery."- Haunting-blade
It's a hard call to decide which is worse, being in the house while it's being burgled, and potentially saving your valuables, or being out and losing them.
Either way, it's a terrible situation no one deserves to be in.
Making the notion of buying a security system and bolts for your doors seem better with every passing second.