Nugget, I don't think you are being mean. I think there needs to be some sort of savings in place. Even if it's a pound a week or whatever.
In my culture and home country, it's very common for people to be given money for birthdays, Christmas, new year etc and because you basically get money from all the aunties, uncles, and older family members, you usually end up with a few hundred in your pocket! My mother used to take it off us and put it in a savings account. I used to also save up in a Mickey Mouse thing and when it was full of coins, we'd bring it to the bank, and the till operator will empty it into the machine and it was great! The bank book was credited!
Anything else we needed, clothes,shoes, books, music lessons etc was paid for by mum anyway. So by the time I was 18, I had quite a substantial amount in my bank account.
I've had credit cards, but I've never really had debt beyond the mortgage and the time we spent £20K on the wedding. But even then, where possible we stuck things on the interest free accounts.
Dh on the other hand, although is very frugal, for various reasons (family mostly), did not have any sense of money. So when we met, I had to start educating him.