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Most Money Advice Is Worthless When You’re Poor
11–20 of 83 posts
Re: Most Money Advice Is Worthless When You’re Poor
#12Of course "don't by the avacado toast or lattes" doesn't help save you money when you aren't buying that stuff in the first place. Complaining that advice on Google that applies to the 15%-85% bracket doesn't apply to you is similar in saying that "Most health advice is worthless when you have cancer". You have a situation that is outside the norm, and you're trying to apply general information against that, of cours…
Yet in this very thread is someone who read the article, read that these people do not have the kind of money that enables the creation of savings, and glibly gave the advice to save up.
The problem isn't just that common advice isn't helpful; it's well-meaning outsiders just missing this over and over and endlessly giving the same unhelpful, irrelevant advice.
Re: Most Money Advice Is Worthless When You’re Poor
#13https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Vimes#Boots_theory_of_soci... > 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 card…
You think that always holds up or is that an unreasonable extrapolation? There are plenty of high dollar products that don't last. And spending $100K on a car isn't going to give you a more affordable or longer lasting vehicle than a $20K Honda Civic. It's far more likely that you can buy a $20K Civic and it will last longer than the luxury vehicle with lower maintenance costs.
Re: Most Money Advice Is Worthless When You’re Poor
#14> The way I see it, being poor is like having cancer What a terrible way to look at it, making it seem like it’s entirely out of your control and you need outside help just to survive. There’s many examples of people who have climbed out of poverty to middle class, even upper class. I highly doubt they’d spread the advice that being poor is a hopeless disease.
> ...making it seem like it’s entirely out of your control and you need outside help just to survive.
Is this not the case? It seems rather apparent that we all depend on our environment (including one another) for survival.
There are also many examples of people who have survived cancer.
Re: Most Money Advice Is Worthless When You’re Poor
#15The one universal piece of money advice is "Spend less than you earn, and put the difference somewhere that earns interest." Most articles, recognizing this universal truth, go on to propose ways of spending less and saving more efficiently. The author of this piece, having reduced his spending as low as reasonably possible, actually just needs advice on how to earn more.
Re: Most Money Advice Is Worthless When You’re Poor
#16https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Vimes#Boots_theory_of_soci... > 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 card…
I don't think this applies anymore.
Cheap is getting better and better. And the rich just buy new because they like to go with the trend spending hundreds of dollars on boots.
Most people I know (Netherlands) who are not wealthy have mental issues or don't know how to manage money.
Edit: I don't want to sound like I think the author belongs to those 2 groups. There are many more reasons why someone is poor.
Re: Most Money Advice Is Worthless When You’re Poor
#17What a terrible article. Sure, yeah, you're poor, own it, give up. Go buy that fast food shit, get fat and damage your health. Buy all that alcohol that helps you get through life, that will definitely help . FFS. No, you try, fail, try again, fail, try some more - to save up, and start making more. All that advice glosses over just how hard it actually is (not that it can even convey it properly), and it takes time,…
This advice seems pretty irrelevant. She just said that these people do not have any spare money to save up, but this advice is "save up".
Re-read the last section entitled "Go ahead, buy that bag of fries". The lady chooses to buy small luxuries to help her cope with her life.
Whether that's a valid approach is up for debate but that money is there.
Re: Most Money Advice Is Worthless When You’re Poor
#18https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Vimes#Boots_theory_of_soci... > 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 card…
You think that always holds up or is that an unreasonable extrapolation? There are plenty of high dollar products that don't last. And spending $100K on a car isn't going to give you a more affordable or longer lasting vehicle than a $20K Honda Civic. It's far more likely that you can buy a $20K Civic and it will last longer than the luxury vehicle with lower maintenance costs.
The poor people do not buy $20k Civics. For about half the nations labor force, that purchase could be half a year worth of income. Given housing and other costs, financing that purchase is difficult.
What they do is get $500 to $2000 cars. And those do break down frequently. They may or may not have resources, skill and or time to repair them.
Re: Most Money Advice Is Worthless When You’re Poor
#19> The way I see it, being poor is like having cancer What a terrible way to look at it, making it seem like it’s entirely out of your control and you need outside help just to survive. There’s many examples of people who have climbed out of poverty to middle class, even upper class. I highly doubt they’d spread the advice that being poor is a hopeless disease.
While there are many examples, their number is small. One could say there are orders more examples of people not escaping poverty.
Re: Most Money Advice Is Worthless When You’re Poor
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
This advice seems pretty irrelevant. She just said that these people do not have any spare money to save up, but this advice is "save up".
Re-read the last section entitled " Go ahead, buy that bag of fries ". The lady chooses to buy small luxuries to help her cope with her life. Whether that's a valid approach is up for debate but that money is there.
Or not.
The reality is people in that scenario have a backlog of unmet needs as well as unsatisfied obligations, and the occasional, but consistent enough set of unexpected costs to render saving almost moot.
Skip the fries Skip the debt collector Skip that new light bulb Skip proper heating
Etc...
Manage to save a couple hundred, car breaks down, kid gets sick.
That's how it goes.
At some point, risk reward will make crime / going on the hustle very attractive. Then that happens.