I remember back to school shopping in middle school. Think J C Penney and K-Mart. Mom budgeted and paid cash for everything. I would get a few new things but not much. Most of my clothes were hand me downs from relatives.

My best friend picked out all her own clothes in a nice department store and put them on hold. Her dad went by the store after work and paid for it all and brought it home to her. No dickering, no pleading or figuring out what to buy and what to put back.

Forty five years later I contributed to her go-fund-me so she wouldn't get evicted from her apartment. I hate that for her, the childhood and teenage years were the best years of her life.

Stuff gets fixed when broken .

Food that there isn’t a plan for. Like you can eat it whenever. I remember my rich (read: middle class) friends casually offering me a bowl of cereal or chips after school as a snack. I was floored at the luxury of this. At home everything was rationed, or spread thin enough to get us to next paycheck or at least as close as we could get to it. Every bit of food had a plan. We couldn’t just eat whatever, whenever because we felt like it.

Also, matching furniture sets and getting your hair done *professionally,* in a salon. These were rich people things to me.