1. Buying the cheap version is always smarter

The generic brand wasn’t just acceptable—it was the logical choice. Why pay more for a name? This made sense when every dollar mattered. But this thinking doesn’t always scale with income.

I still gravitate toward the bottom shelf. My nephew once pointed out I’d spent more replacing cheap tools than if I’d bought decent ones to start. The working-class part of me still sees spending more as wasteful, even when it’s wasteful not to.

2. Talking about money is crass

In working-class households, you didn’t discuss what things cost or what people earned. It felt like bragging if you had it, embarrassing if you didn’t. This created a silence around money that followed us into adulthood.

Many of us reached middle age without frank conversations about salaries, investments, or retirement planning. We left money on the table in negotiations because asking felt uncomfortable. Meanwhile, people from middle-class backgrounds were having these conversations at dinner tables their whole lives.

3. Staying at the same company shows character

My father worked at the same plant for thirty-seven years. That was normal—loyalty meant something. You didn’t jump ship for a few more dollars. The company took care of you if you took care of them.

That world doesn’t exist anymore. Companies don’t reward loyalty the way they used to. Yet many of us feel vaguely guilty about changing jobs, even for better pay or opportunities. We were taught that staying put was virtuous, and switching was disloyal.

4. Higher education is for other people’s kids

Nobody said “don’t go to college.” But there was an underlying message that universities were for families who had that kind of money, that kind of life. Trade schools made sense. Four-year degrees felt like someone else’s world.

Even those of us who went often felt like imposters. We second-guessed ourselves in ways our classmates never did, because deep down, part of us still believed this world wasn’t meant for people like us.

5. Asking for help means you’ve failed

Working-class culture prizes self-reliance above almost everything. You handle your own problems. You don’t burden others. Asking for help—whether it’s borrowing money, seeing a therapist, or hiring someone—feels like admitting defeat.

This creates an exhausting way to live. I know guys my age who won’t hire a financial advisor because they think they should figure it out themselves. The idea that some problems require expert help doesn’t register—it feels like weakness.

6. Banks are not your friend

My mother kept cash in a coffee can. She didn’t trust banks, and honestly, banks hadn’t given her much reason to. They charged fees for being poor. They made you feel small when you walked in.

Many of us still approach financial institutions with suspicion. We avoid credit cards even when they make sense. We don’t invest because the stock market feels rigged. This wariness protected our parents from predatory lending, but it also keeps us from building wealth the way the system is designed.

7. Comfort is something you earn, not something you deserve

Here’s the one that really sticks: the idea that you shouldn’t get comfortable until you’ve truly “made it”—and you never quite feel like you’ve made it. Taking a vacation feels indulgent. Buying something nice for yourself requires elaborate justification. Rest feels like laziness.

This creates a life where you’re always preparing for disaster, always deferring comfort for some future moment that never quite arrives. The working-class mindset says you save for emergencies, not experiences. You endure, you don’t enjoy. Even when your circumstances change, that underlying anxiety about comfort persists.

Final thoughts

These beliefs aren’t character flaws. They’re survival strategies that worked in one context but don’t always serve us in another. The tricky part is they’re so deeply embedded, we don’t recognize them as beliefs—they just feel like common sense.

I’m not suggesting we abandon everything we learned. That background gave us resilience, work ethic, and perspective that money can’t buy. But it’s worth examining which beliefs still serve us and which ones are just old scripts playing in the background.

Because continuing to live like you’re one paycheck from disaster—when you’re not anymore—isn’t prudence. It’s just a different kind of poverty.