A person who has experienced what it is like to have not a penny to their name may later in life be careful, almost to the point of meanness when later they do have money, especially if they don't know how long it will last or how they can find a way to make it last.
Despite my occasional frustrations about Thai people, talking into account the fact they have in the past been poor (and I mean proper poverty, not sleeping rough for a few days and avoiding the humiliation of asking for help from family or friends) - I can relate to it, maybe not so much their greed - but their general avoidance of frivolity when it comes to cash, the way they only spend cash if they really need to.
I have been called tight a few times, albeit in a jovial manner, one example was because I didn't wish to partake in betting when out at a horse racing track with a group of friends. I also wanted to take my own beer from a shop as it was allowed, instead of paying three times the price for a lager at the track.
The friends I was with were not especially wealthy and they had modest incomes, and though I too had an income, it wasn't enough to justify the type of fiscal indifference that Neil the landscape gardener or Jenny the shop manager could afford and yet I sure didn't want to be a bar manager all my life and didn't know how long my own income would last.
So what is the value of money to you?
What has been your lowest fiscal point in the past and do you think that has had an effect upon your attitude to money since?