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Originally Posted by AGDee

Two kids raised by the same two parents under the same lifelong financial conditions and they have such different attitudes..

Sounds like my sister & me. I'm a lot more like your son, while my sister is like your daughter. My mom is a single mom and gets no help at all from my biological father, never did. We grew up without name brand clothes, video games, etc. Thankfully my grandparents (Mom's side of course) are amazing and helped out a lot and we never went without basic things like clothes and food. My sister never understood why she couldn't have the $100 Nike sneakers, etc. Till this day you can see the difference in us when it comes to stuff like that...and it bothers me. At this point she is spending her husband's money at least and not making my Mom feel guilty, but it used to sicken me how she made my Mom feel for not being able to afford stuff.

Mom used to get up to do the Black Friday sales when we were kids so we would have a good toy or two for Chanukkah. As we got older she stopped doing it. We did it once a few years ago when we all needed clothes, we went to the local mall. The mall is crazy during a normal day, but overall it was pretty good. People were friendly, there was no pushing and shoving, and we got some amazing deals.

This year, I decided to do the bit of shopping I had left to do on-line. Well...the only thing that I needed was a birthday present for my sister, I wound up getting her a DVD from Borders, the rest was for myself. But I needed some new clothes so I took advantage of Lane Bryant's buy 1 get 1 free. That was way to good of a deal to pass up. There was no way I was going out and braving the crazy crowds though! And I shopped with ebates which was offering double cash back!