John Hughes movies typically revolve around affluent mid-Westerners, and their awkward teenagers. As such, "poor" is relative in his world. But, image consciousness, peer pressure, trying to fit in, has always been a big deal for teenagers, so, sure, to her, she felt poor, and the family apparently had its struggles relative to others at her school.

I went to a high school that ran the gamut from rich kids who drove to school in Audis and BMWs to the kids who ingeniously split bus tickets in half so they could ride to and from school on one ticket (which isn't to say only poor kids split bus tickets - just to juxtapose the range of economic class in my high school - the rich kids, as soon as they could drive, didn't need bus tickets). So, I kinda get it. And, hey, a lot of teenagers in the 1980s "got it", which is what made Hughes movies so popular.