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Independently Poor: A Twist on FU Money – a.k.a. “FU, Money”

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11–20 of 160 posts

Re: Independently Poor: A Twist on FU Money – a.k.a. “FU, Money”

#11

>> At one time while I was homeless, relatives helped me deal with some of my financial drama >> I was able to resist such pressures and make decisions for myself, including moving my bank account at a later date on terms that made more sense for me, because I had some maneuvering room in the form of food stamps and knowing where I could get a free meal or free clothes. Food stamps didn't cover some essential nonfood…

I'm the author.

I'm disabled and the primary provider for my family of three, which includes two disabled sons. I absolutely didn't want to be poor. I'm still poor and I hate every minute of it. I wish desperately that I had more money and I am doing all in my power to resolve my problems and this has been true for years.

"First world problem" or not, being homeless in a first world country is still a very real problem. Among other things, people who are homeless die at much younger ages on average than people who are housed.

People who experience homelessness have an average life expectancy of around 50 years of age, almost 20 years lower than housed populations.

https://nationalhomeless.org/category/mortality/

So homelessness is literally killing people. I do what I can to provide useful information, both for those on the street/at risk of homelessness and for those interested in finding effective solutions. My knowledge comes from first-hand experience -- having spent nearly six years homeless -- as well as formal education on the topic of homelessness.

For the record, I'm a woman. So I'm a "ma'am," not a "sir," if you want to know the correct term with which to express your contempt while pretending to be respectful.

Re: Independently Poor: A Twist on FU Money – a.k.a. “FU, Money”

#12
post #4

Poverty is shit. I recommend avoiding it if you can.

The article though is not advocating to live in poverty, but rather to live with just the right amount of FU Money to be able to make free choices. After this threshold the perspective if one is rich of poor becomes one of mindset and not so much based on the superficial metric of one's net worth.

Re: Independently Poor: A Twist on FU Money – a.k.a. “FU, Money”

#13
post #12
post #4

Poverty is shit. I recommend avoiding it if you can.

The article though is not advocating to live in poverty, but rather to live with just the right amount of FU Money to be able to make free choices. After this threshold the perspective if one is rich of poor becomes one of mindset and not so much based on the superficial metric of one's net worth.

Thank you. Yes, that's the point.

Re: Independently Poor: A Twist on FU Money – a.k.a. “FU, Money”

#14

>> At one time while I was homeless, relatives helped me deal with some of my financial drama >> I was able to resist such pressures and make decisions for myself, including moving my bank account at a later date on terms that made more sense for me, because I had some maneuvering room in the form of food stamps and knowing where I could get a free meal or free clothes. Food stamps didn't cover some essential nonfood…

[deleted]

Re: Independently Poor: A Twist on FU Money – a.k.a. “FU, Money”

#16

>> At one time while I was homeless, relatives helped me deal with some of my financial drama >> I was able to resist such pressures and make decisions for myself, including moving my bank account at a later date on terms that made more sense for me, because I had some maneuvering room in the form of food stamps and knowing where I could get a free meal or free clothes. Food stamps didn't cover some essential nonfood…

I'm the author. I'm disabled and the primary provider for my family of three, which includes two disabled sons. I absolutely didn't want to be poor. I'm still poor and I hate every minute of it. I wish desperately that I had more money and I am doing all in my power to resolve my problems and this has been true for years. "First world problem" or not, being homeless in a first world country is still a very real probl…

> So homelessness is literally killing people.

Correlation does not imply causality. I'm pretty sure that an individual's real estate portfolio doesn't play any role in the equation if they experience a health problem that they are unable to treat.

Lack of access to healthcare, that's available in pretty much all civilized nations, would do a whole lot of good to bump up life expectancy among the US's homeless population.

Re: Independently Poor: A Twist on FU Money – a.k.a. “FU, Money”

#17

>> At one time while I was homeless, relatives helped me deal with some of my financial drama >> I was able to resist such pressures and make decisions for myself, including moving my bank account at a later date on terms that made more sense for me, because I had some maneuvering room in the form of food stamps and knowing where I could get a free meal or free clothes. Food stamps didn't cover some essential nonfood…

I figure there's probably a name for this sort of comment (which appears a lot on Hacker News). Would it be "relative privation"?

Re: Independently Poor: A Twist on FU Money – a.k.a. “FU, Money”

#18
post #10

>> At one time while I was homeless, relatives helped me deal with some of my financial drama >> I was able to resist such pressures and make decisions for myself, including moving my bank account at a later date on terms that made more sense for me, because I had some maneuvering room in the form of food stamps and knowing where I could get a free meal or free clothes. Food stamps didn't cover some essential nonfood…

This so much. It felt so weird that this person was talking about poverty and blogging/reading on the internet at the same time . Few poor people in the third world would know what blogging even is, forget about even wasting precious resources like time, money for a smartphone and an internet connection just to read/write some ideas which few are ever going to read and you won’t be making anything out of. This feels…

While I don't disagree the 'real' poor can choose the alternative and agree with GP, I think you also have a very fatalistic view of 3rd world poor. I have family living in the '3rd world' and even there the poor have phones. Sure they are 20 dollars, 10 year old models running android 5.0 or something, but they still check facebook and whatever. They aren't probably blogging but they also read websites/blogs

Re: Independently Poor: A Twist on FU Money – a.k.a. “FU, Money”

#19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the author. I'm disabled and the primary provider for my family of three, which includes two disabled sons. I absolutely didn't want to be poor. I'm still poor and I hate every minute of it. I wish desperately that I had more money and I am doing all in my power to resolve my problems and this has been true for years. "First world problem" or not, being homeless in a first world country is still a very real probl…

> So homelessness is literally killing people. Correlation does not imply causality. I'm pretty sure that an individual's real estate portfolio doesn't play any role in the equation if they experience a health problem that they are unable to treat. Lack of access to healthcare, that's available in pretty much all civilized nations, would do a whole lot of good to bump up life expectancy among the US's homeless popula…

People get literally murdered simply because they are homeless and for no other reason. Health problems that would be readily and easily treated if you were in housing turn into medical emergencies on the street.

I'm well aware that correlation does not imply causality. But I also know for a fact that homelessness helps shorten lifespans.

And in the US, even if it were the case that we simply dump our dying on the streets instead of providing hospice, that would be plenty atrocious right there. And we do, in fact, do a certain amount of that. But that's not the entire explanation for the statistic.

Re: Independently Poor: A Twist on FU Money – a.k.a. “FU, Money”

#20

FU Money, and FU Paperwork, is basically what I gradually came to live, after gradually unsubscribing from all of it. It's been an amazing experience, and yes, very freeing.

The main problem with this blend of "liberating experiences" is that they are all fine and dandy when you're in your 20s and 30s.

When health concerns start to kick in and your ability to generate income is hampered by the fact that you've decided to pay no attention to your career then that's where the consequences of your decisions start to catch up with you.

It's like those hedonists who choose to spend their life up to their late 20s/early 30s chasing parties while either living off someone else or barely generating any income suddenly need to realize they are powerless to address their basic needs.

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