If you’re like many of us who are far from living large, take peace from the knowledge that even Anthony Bourdain has been there, done that.

In a new article on WealthSimple.com, Anthony opened up about this more than modest upbringing. He shared that even as child he was well aware of his financial status, just by looking at the bashed in door of his parents’ station wagon.

As he got a bit older, a different factor reminded him of his poverty. He wrote:

 “My friends could afford weed and cocaine. That was certainly a motivator, maybe a bad one, but a not unimportant one: my friends could afford drugs, I could not. They would share but, of course, the thing about cocaine is that you can never have enough.”

Though Anthony worked 12 hour shifts 5 to 6 times a week after graduation, he still wasn’t making ends meet. He shared:

“He started working immediately after graduating, 12 hour shifts, five or six days a week but was hardly raking it in, saying, “I didn’t put anything aside, ever. Money came in, money went out. I was always a paycheck behind, at least.”

The 60-year-old said that this was his life for quite some time, revealing that he didn’t even have a savings account until he was 44 years old. He wrote:

“When Kitchen Confidential was published, I hadn’t filed taxes in about 10 years. I was seriously behind on rent. It had been about a decade since I’d communicated with American Express in a timely manner. In my daily life, the goal was to muffle the anxiety that I’d feel as I tried to drift off to sleep knowing that, at any point, what little money I had in my bank account could be garnished by the IRS or the credit card company. The landlord could kick me to the curb. That was my reality for many years.”

 

Obviously, things shifted for the chef, but he has learned a lot from his past. He says these days his focus is on making an honest living and making sure his daughter and her mother are always well taken care of.

To read the whole article, head to WeathSimple.com.