I want to say that I think you seem wonderful, and I realize that your kid bought this 3D printer with his Christmas money, and that you seem to be doing an amazing job encouraging his hobby.
I also absolutely appreciate you sympathizing and do not want to minimize legitimately difficult times in your life - but, if you are even as young as 40+ years of age, chances are your experiences with money have been vastly different than someone in their mid 20's - 30's.
I turned 18 and walked into the recession, there were some other contributing factors that also lead towards me having a turbulent time with money (no help from family, who were financially illiterate to begin with), but it was mostly the same story that a number of other people my age share, it's very hard to work full time (or work two jobs) and go to school full time, time and cost wise.
It's not about "keeping a positive spirit." Things aren't okay the way they are, people are not being paid a living wage. The state that I live has not raised the minimum wage from $7.25 since 1996.
I want to really break it down here so you can see what that would look like. I am in one of the most inexpensive places to live in the country.
My rent is $450. I pay about $45 a month for my electric, and around the same amount for my water (it's co-op.) Gas varies but again, it stays around $50 during the winter. My car payment is $230, my insurance (and this is totally my fault, I'm a shit driver) is $137. I live pretty close to work and my car gets good gas mileage, so I spend about $40 a month on gas for my car.
My monthly income before taxes would be $1160, if I made minimum wage. My monthly expenses would come out to $997. Please note that I did not include buying groceries, a phone bill, or god forbid, money for emergencies.
There is something wrong here and it isn't my drive or determination. I've worked two jobs more often than not during my adult life so far. Please, do not patronize us. Help us. Realize that things are not the way they were in the past. Find out what you can do to help things change instead of just patting us on the back and telling us to pull up our bootstraps. Things do not have to be this way.