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Why the poor pay more for toilet paper and just about everything else

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Why the poor pay more for toilet paper and just about everything else

#21

Post by tostitos1979 »

Naritai wrote: post #5
jimktrains2 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just about to post this because it said there was no comments and when I opened it you had just beaten me to it! I would like to note that it was from the book "Men at Arms". The older I get the more I see this. Paying upfront to get a lower rate on your mortgage. Having money to begin with to manage well to get a good rate on a mortgage to start with. Having the flexibility in general to try something that may…

To continue your point: Having the credit score to get a good mortgage. Living in a good zip code, and so your car/home insurance is cheaper. Living in a good zip code, so you can send your kids to public school. Living in a good zip code, so you don't need an expensive security system. Working for a company that provides high-quality health care plans with low deductibles. Owning a newish car, that is much less like…

I generally agree with what has been said. Except for the car part. I thought it was best to drive a car to the ground. I buy reasonably priced sedans for around 20K (but brand new). Full coverage car warranties seem to end after 3 years. I sold my last car at that point (it had started to give me headaches). I got about half the money back .. so 10K loss or 3333 per year. Our current car is also at 3 years and starting to act up. I'm deciding whether to buy a new one (and take a 10K loss) or keep going for 2 years.

Or is my mistake not buying the 50K BMW or 100K Tesla? :-p

Re: Why the poor pay more for toilet paper and just about everything else

#22

Post by harryh »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #7

Some destitute-college-student friends were telling me that they lived on a $20/week of rice + beans + canned tomatoes; I suggested that I take them out to Costco and for $100 stuff their pantries with ~3 months of supplies. They patiently explained to idiot me that the reason they ate so poorly was because finding $100 was effectively impossible.

None of these college friends have any access to credit at all? I find that very hard to believe. How are they paying for college?

Re: Why the poor pay more for toilet paper and just about everything else

#23

Post by pnathan »

jimktrains2 wrote: post #3
dangerlibrary wrote: post #2

Terry Pratchett said it very well: “The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten d…

I was just about to post this because it said there was no comments and when I opened it you had just beaten me to it! I would like to note that it was from the book "Men at Arms". The older I get the more I see this. Paying upfront to get a lower rate on your mortgage. Having money to begin with to manage well to get a good rate on a mortgage to start with. Having the flexibility in general to try something that may…

This also plays out with many mutual funds: below a certain volume of money, fees are everywhere, the more you have, the fewer the fees are.

Re: Why the poor pay more for toilet paper and just about everything else

#24

Post by withdavidli »

This exact example was given in a Reddit post. It was sad thread since the question was to the poor of Reddit and what do they buy/how/why. One person was buying tampons for his wife out of a quarter machine. It's easy to not empathize with the poor when you can just ignore it, close yourself off in gated communities.

Re: Why the poor pay more for toilet paper and just about everything else

#25

Post by lotharbot »

What the quoted study showed was a lot of "did" and "didn't" behavior, but the article phrased it as "can't".

There are some poor of whom it is literally true that they can't spend $24 on toilet paper. My local food bank gives out rolls of TP, and keeps nearly-empty rolls in the public bathrooms because rolls that are above half get stolen. Some of the clientele literally have every dollar for the month already spoken for, and $24 of TP is not in the budget.

But for a lot of the poor, it's more accurate to say that spending $24 on toilet paper would interfere with other things they've chosen to spend on instead. It's not impossible to come up with $24, but they'd rather spend it in other ways when they do. Now, it's not my place to say that a poor family should or shouldn't use a small surplus to become more efficient and generate bigger surplus later, when they could spend it on something with a more immediate psychological benefit (like a nicer-than-their-average meal). This isn't a judgment, it's just an observation. But I think it's an important observation to make, because the hidden implication is that an extra $20 a month would allow for a new efficiency (like buying TP in bulk/on sale) which would then snowball. But the reality is that an extra $20 a month rarely has anything close to its full potential effect on efficiency, for psychological reasons. Attempts to ease the inefficiencies of poverty need to account for this.

Re: Why the poor pay more for toilet paper and just about everything else

#26

Post by parenthephobia »

ars wrote: post #4

This reminds me of getting ahead of a leveling curve in a game. If you can do that, you can level in better areas (relative to your present level), giving you better rewards (relative to your present level) which then helps you get to even better areas. The only way to get ahead of the leveling curve is to work really hard at first, and it's painful (or boring), and then reap the rewards after. Or in the context of t…

It's easy to imagine that being poor just means you have to forgo luxury. If you have $100/month after rent, saving up doesn't mean forgoing luxury, it means forgoing food. If you provide for a family, it means forgoing food for your children.

And then what are you saving for? Not to rent a car or buy one with a loan, because you can't afford the payments. So you save up until you have enough to buy a car outright. Maybe the cost of fuel won't outweigh the savings you can now make in getting to cheaper out-of-town stores[1]. And how long does that take? A $1k second-hand car will require 10 months without food, and something that cheap is probably expensive to run.

Maybe you're saving to move house. Of course you could move somewhere out-of-town. Now you have cheap shopping. But can you find work there? Or, if you keep your old job, how are you getting there? And, again, how long do you survive on air before you've saved enough to move house?

[1] Cheaper because out-of-town stores have to compete for middle-class shoppers who can afford to travel further to shop.

Re: Why the poor pay more for toilet paper and just about everything else

#27

Post by tomlock »

ars wrote: post #16
saalweachter wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My god, you've solved poverty!

Much (most? all?) poverty is caused by human behavior, not adverse circumstance. Just because we know it's caused by human behavior doesn't mean we can fix it.

Citation please.

Re: Why the poor pay more for toilet paper and just about everything else

#28

Post by strathmeyer »

"You've read your limit of free articles for this month." So.... how to the poor read the Washington Post?

I was talking to a recruiter today. He asked me if I could start a job immediately instead of the usual two week notice. I wondered how I was going to buy gasoline to get to work. Guess I better start saving up.

Re: Why the poor pay more for toilet paper and just about everything else

#29

Post by NaOH »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #9
dangerlibrary wrote: post #2

Terry Pratchett said it very well: “The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten d…

I heard a quote somewhere regarding buying quality items: “I’m so poor I can only afford to buy the very best.” It’s life-changing when you can get to that minimum income threshold.

I learned a similar line: "I'm too poor to be cheap."
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