Yes, we were pretty poor. I grew up in a small rural town of mostly manual laborers. My dad was an auto mechanic, my mom mostly a SAHM (she had worked at a bank before she got married, and went back to working at the bank part time when I was 12, because my dad got laid off and his new job paid 1/3 of the old one).
We had a big family - 7 kids over a 21 year span (2 different moms there). So we had a garden, canned, only wore hand-me-downs, didn't vacation or get a lot of things, and money was tight. Money was tight for most people though, but I'd say we were on the bottom half of the spectrum. But not the very bottom. We had heat. When I was in HS, I moved to a "richer" town 20 miles away, and some of those kids had parents who had degrees and worked at the university and they went on vacations to Florida. (We lived in PA.)
I learned my frugality from my parents. My dad was born in the 20's and was in WWII. My mom was a lot younger. My dad was frugal and not wasteful. My mom was frugal too but I think she resented having to handle the money and things being so tight. Mostly because my dad wanted to spend money on himself for going out to drinks and she had to say "no". I'm not sure if other families had that relationship, but my mom's 2nd marriage had the same one...man earned the money, woman handled the bills, man gets mad when the money isn't enough for him to have his toys.
Most of my siblings are pretty frugal too. Early paying off the houses, helping their kids get through college on less, not paying for weddings for their kids. I was the first kid in the family (I'm almost the youngest) to go to college right after HS, but one went nights for almost a decade to get her degree and one went when she was in her 30's (she's a VP of a company now). But my younger brother, who lived with my dad after the divorce, always liked to spend money. I think my dad's attitude of how mom "put him on an allowance" might have been a factor. I lived with my mom, and remember having 16 cents to last us a week until the next paycheck.
Compared to other countries, I was not poor. For the US, we were. It's kind of weird being in the high income brackets right now, because the things I don't spend money on seems weird to others. They don't understand my upbringing. I'd just rather have money in the bank.