I think you are under selling yourself here. I think that because of the year you spent as a case worker and the frugal family we grew up in that you understand what it means to not have money. During your volunteer year you knew what it meant to never be able to afford a coffee or to have to say, sorry I can't,  to everything but the cheapest restaurants. So do you think its the intervening years that have distanced this feeling or the cultural differences? I think in this blog post you have not presented yourself as culturally sensitive as I know you are.