[Aliantha]

We weren't wealthy, but we weren't poor either. Mum and Dad always had enough to pay the bills and they paid off the family home by the time I was a teenager. Dad worked hard and did plenty of overtime as an electrician. Mum stayed home and took care of us kids and the house etc. We used to go on camping holidays and saw most of Australia that way as kids but everything was done on a tight budget.

Now my dad would be classed as wealthy by most people's standards although you wouldn't know it to look at his lifestyle. He grows his own veges etc and is pretty self sufficient on his farm and he has a reasonable number of investments which guarantee him a pretty secure retirement.

I'm glad my folks didn't splurge on stuff we didn't really need, even though as a kid I always felt like we (me and my brother) were hard done by. It's good to see your parents living with enough to keep themselves happy and to not have to worry about them, and it also taught me some pretty valuable lessons although I know my lifestyle is far less frugal than my parents would like.