Money wasn’t something we discussed in our family when I was a child. Still, I believe that during my first fifteen years, our purchasing decisions were limited not so much by lack of money but by lack of things to buy. Soviet planning, defitsiit, the usual story.

After I moved to Sweden to join my mother, we were poor. One adult and two teenagers living on the income of a single doctoral student, plus whatever welfare benefits we got. We always bought the cheapest variety of everything: those horrible artificial-looking apples, and whatever groceries were on sale. I remember a carton of orange juice that my mother bought because it was the cheapest, that tasted so bad that I refused to drink it. But we didn’t buy a different one until someone had drunk it.

Luckily I got a job within less than a year – illegally, for cash in an envelope at the end of the week. Other teenagers get an allowance; I worked to help pay the rent, and whatever I wanted or needed to buy for myself. The job was at a sporting goods shop and I got an employee discount even though I wasn’t formally employed, so I got good deals on cheap winter jackets and such. I still have one backpack that I bought there.

I could never afford going to the movies. I think I may have gone once during my four years of high school.

Buying books was a luxury. I remember the feeling of saving up for a single paperback, and then the difficulty of choosing just one.

I know my grandmother was poor in her retirement. I saw her always considering the prices of groceries oh so carefully, and wondering whether she could afford to repair her shoes.

I have no rational reason to expect my own retirement to be like that. I have a well-paid job and I live well below my means and I have significant savings. But underneath the surface there is still that small fear that I might end up there, like she was, like I was. Old and poor.