I had a conversation with my sister a while back about the difference between being broke and being poor. Both of us have been broke at several times in our lives, but we come from a rich enough family that we'll never really be poor. DH and I are currently struggling to make ends meet, but someday I'm going to inherit a summer home in Canada (two separate pieces of land property with a current toal of 4 cabins) and at least one sailboat. My trust fund is mostly empty because we used it to buy a home. Etc etc.
This. When I was trying to get a job last year, my officemate -- who grew up in a blue-collar family and was the first one in his family to go to college, let alone grad school -- thought that I was absolutely insane for turning down a job when I didn't have any other offers. My feeling was that I'd be miserable in that job, and I always knew that I had the safety net of living with my parents for a little while. In his mind, turning down a paying job without knowing that you've got another job to take was financial suicide. In my mind, there was no way that I should take a job that I didn't want.