Hey guys as the tittle suggests I am trying to figure out the value of money, mostly my own.

I am 20 yrs old working full time which pays well for construction workers, I enjoy saving money which baffles my friends/family but i do.

When mostly around family my parents will make some comments when money comes up as a subject (quite often for some reason) implying I have a boatload of money or I am rolling in cash. Now some of these are jokes and I understand that, but to me I don't think I do have that much money. I often lend my parents around $2000.00 if they are short on something and I feel perfectly fine doing so and don't think twice about it and doesn't bother me.

As I mentioned I work construction which pays me about $680~ a week, I've managed to save up around $12,000~, i pay not much for phone bills and insurance on my parents vehicles and am not really one for material things which I guess has helped manage to save up this much.

So what really is the value of money, do I have a lot? If so how does one know weather or not they have a lot of money. why is saving up so frowned upon by my friends/family everyone expects me to spend my cash like its nothing? So i guess what i'm asking is has anyone else ever been in a similar situation where they have accumulated a somewhat high amount of money without even knowing about it, if so what have you done about it.