My family’s poor financial situation makes my friends uncomfortable because they come from wealthy families.

My dad is a failed entrepreneur and my mom is a housewife. We pretty much rely on my grandpa for support when my dad’s jobs don’t work out. My mom works at the local library because she doesn’t have much schooling. My parents have been focusing on getting my younger brother through college right now, so I don’t expect to get any financial assistance from them when I graduate hs in two years. <br><br>I’m not ashamed of my money situation, I’m used to it and there’s not much I can do about it. My friends from school are upper middle class and they’re never really been in a tight spot financially. <br><br>They’re really nice people, but they have a tendency to buy really expensive things and talk about how poor they are. I have one friends who says he’s “broke” even though he gets $500 monthly allowance from his dad and has an air-pod in each ear. They also don’t control their spending so they want me to help them budget and save money but I don’t know what to tell them when they are used to buying expensive stuff. My budget is basically saving up my pay checks and trying to spend the minimum amount on essentials like food and school supplies. My friends don’t seem to really get that I can’t spend extra money on stuff because it’s essential I save up so I can go to college. <br><br>They also seem to like the idea of saving money but they won’t make any major changes to their spending habits, so they just spend recklessly and then expect me to tell them how to save money when they already know that saving requires them to spend less. They never seem to save up for more than a week because they are too eager to spend their money on stuff. <br><br>I just wish they could relate to what I’m going through, but they have no idea what it means to have no financial safety net.