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On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

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Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#361

Post by Aeolun »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #75
skohan wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it’s because I grew up in a frugal household, but I have basically never felt like I needed more money since properly starting my career. I mean it helps that I have tended to live in lower COL cities, but I have always saved a sufficient portion of my income, and I have never had the feeling that I want to buy something or travel somewhere and I can’t because I can’t afford it. I don’t fly first class, and I r…

Yeah, I pretty much ignore my bank balance and autopay my bills and mortgage and never have to think much about money. By the apparent standards of SV techs I'm well below the poverty line. I find it difficult to empathize with them.

Never having to think about money is an incredibly privileged position though. That’s true regardless of your standard of living.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#362

Post by PragmaticPulp »

technofiend wrote: post #338
throwaway-0987 wrote: post #174

Throwaway because I don't want my co-workers to know. I was poor. My father left home when I was a kid in middle school. My mom worked part time cleaning houses and left us when she found a new husband. I dropped out of high-school in the 9th grade and went to work. Low paying jobs. I lived with my aunt on the bad side of town. Fast-forward 35 years. Today, I make about 200K per year. I got a GED, went to trade schoo…

Go read The Millionaire Next Door. You'll see that there are plenty of people like yourself who remain frugal after managing to pull themselves out of poverty. I'm suggesting the book to both validate your behavior but also give you some examples so you can perhaps moderate it if you still feel that's needed. I can give a single example from my life: my uncle managed to snag a liquor distributorship after WW II. It w…

It’s a good book, but the core point is more about how our perception of rich versus poor is detached from the reality of one’s actual wealth. It’s not uncommon for families with multi-generational wealth to also live frugal lifestyles. It’s also not unheard of for those who grew up poor to overspend their wealth at the first signs of success, because they’ve never known how to manage money at that scale.

It’s important to not turn this into a rich versus poor debate, because it can give people on either side of that divide the false impression that they’re naturally better at managing money due to their background. The truth is that wealth management is a learned skill that often comes separately from one’s career or upbringing. And the point of the book is that looking wealthy and being wealthy aren’t as tightly coupled as we believe.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#363

Post by hinkley »

domano wrote: post #11

Living in a country where there is a better social net in place, but coming from a refugee background, i regularly notice a disconnect with my peers. I do understand their financial worries and sympathize, but only because i am aware of my perspective. Oftentimes i have to remind myself that for others it is actually stressful to think about not being able to comfortably buy a house vs renting it. Meanwhile i worry a…

Repairs are another thing.

I recall feeling it when I was younger and we were in a worse place. Now I feel it every time someone tells me the price for pruning a tree, fixing my house wiring, or making my pet more comfortable. There's a moment after they say the number where they are bracing for an argument. When I just say 'Okay', some of them seem a little startled.

Another aspect may be that I have in fact worked with my hands before. It's possible I might have done it anyway, but needing money is powerful motivation for getting dirt under your nails. So I understand the cost of parts and labor, whereas some of my newer peers may not. Yes, that repair really is $800, and yes I'm fine with paying it.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#364

Post by pnutjam »

gonehome wrote: post #224
pessimizer wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason you spend money as soon as you get it when you're poor is 1) because when you're poor you accumulate debts, both formal and informal, and 2) when you're poor you know other people who are poor and who need things. Thinking poor people like being poor because they value what's really important - friends and family - is like poverty version of the "magical negro" trope. Poor people value friends and family b…

I think you’re arguing a bit of a strawman and you and the person you replied to probably agree with each other. The accumulated debts, and helping out each other makes sense given the needs of the community and dependence on each other for survival. It’s interesting that could translate into a gift culture for social status hierarchy, and it kind of makes sense. Even if in the perverse case it can make it harder for…

Mathew Desmond talks about this some in his book, Evicted. https://www.evictedbook.com/

Basically poor people have to have room mates and they have to interact with the people around them, so they tend to form quicker bonds of friendship. Middle class people can afford to go it alone.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#365

Post by sologoub »

technofiend wrote: post #338
throwaway-0987 wrote: post #174

Throwaway because I don't want my co-workers to know. I was poor. My father left home when I was a kid in middle school. My mom worked part time cleaning houses and left us when she found a new husband. I dropped out of high-school in the 9th grade and went to work. Low paying jobs. I lived with my aunt on the bad side of town. Fast-forward 35 years. Today, I make about 200K per year. I got a GED, went to trade schoo…

Go read The Millionaire Next Door. You'll see that there are plenty of people like yourself who remain frugal after managing to pull themselves out of poverty. I'm suggesting the book to both validate your behavior but also give you some examples so you can perhaps moderate it if you still feel that's needed. I can give a single example from my life: my uncle managed to snag a liquor distributorship after WW II. It w…

> I will say the folks who come from richer backgrounds do have some advantages over us who grew up poor. For instance I had no idea how much scholarships subsidized learning and went to the state school I could afford to fund on my own.

This a million times. I ended up in a small private university (which was awesome and I still love it) that initially gave me a lot of scholarship money, but didn’t even try to get into top tier. While good at educating, the network and the name recognition were not there at all. Can’t remember how this came up, but at one point I compared notes with someone who attended top 10 university and their grades/scores were slightly worse than mine - live and learn :)

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#366

Post by clairity »

jinjin2 wrote: post #326
syops wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I very much enjoyed reading your post. You made a statement that, taken literally, I disagree with and wonder if you care to elaborate more on it. I made it and you can too. It seems to me that luck plays a huge role in each success story like yours. My wife had a similar trajectory and makes quite a bit of money. However, along the way, there were hundreds of decisions made that could have gone the wrong way. She's…

> along the way, there were hundreds of decisions made that could have gone the wrong way. And probably and equal amount of decisions that could have turned out better. So rather than being the result of one or two lucky or unlucky events, the final outcome is more likely to be the average of the quality of all the decisions over time.

no, it depends on the shape of the modeling function, and sociobiological functions are highly complex, possibly unknowable, but certainly not a simple linear function around which decisions revert to the same mean.

for instance, consider success to be a knowable function (like y = ax^2 + bx + c ). luck would be like having high (initial) coefficients and constants through no effort of your own (e.g., being born into a wealthy, connected family). hard work and good decisions might allow you to increase (or decrease through neglect/bad decisions) these coefficients at the margin, but the relative advantage often remains many multiples of the disadvantaged.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#367

Post by Aeolun »

commandlinefan wrote: post #345
tangjurine wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average software engineer makes around 100k. If you have been working for 20+ years, has it been difficult for you to save up enough money for college?

> save up enough money for college Depends on the college. MIT says to expect to spend ~ $70K/year. $100K * 20 years = 2 million. Two kids * 4 years = $560K. That's a little over 1/4 (before taxes). So yes, it would have been difficult to save up that much money. I have enough to send them both to a public in-state school debt-free, but not an elite private school.

What in gods name could they be spending $70k a year on?! They hire a private teacher for every student?

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#368

Post by buescher »

fallingknife wrote: post #6

I'm surprised he doesn't know not to pay rent for the last month and make them use the deposit for it. That's what I always did when I was poor. No way they're gonna evict you in 30 days, especially if they know you're leaving anyway. Also his car cost is way off: https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/cheapest-lease-deals

He chose a car manufacturer that no longer makes compact sedans for his example, which is flat-out deceptive.

Someone who can write that well can probably find ways to make more money if he needs it - what else is he trying to deceive us about?

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#369

Post by throwaway0a5e »

iamatworknow wrote: post #349
aembleton wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the US or California not have some sort of annual check to ensure that cars on the road are roadworthy? Something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOT_test

New York requires annual car inspections that include emissions testing as well as a basic safety check (tires, brakes, head/signal/brake lights, horn, fluids, and a few other things). They "only" cost $20 but they put a color coded sticker on your windshield that is easily seen by passing cops, who will pull you over if you have the wrong color. Getting the inspection done is a bit of a pain in the ass, too, as beca…

>I see many orders of magnitude more cars engulfed in flames on the roads in metro Atlanta than I ever did in New York.

Because cars in New York rust out structurally before much else can go wrong.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#370

Post by phunster »

throwaway-0987 wrote: post #174

Throwaway because I don't want my co-workers to know. I was poor. My father left home when I was a kid in middle school. My mom worked part time cleaning houses and left us when she found a new husband. I dropped out of high-school in the 9th grade and went to work. Low paying jobs. I lived with my aunt on the bad side of town. Fast-forward 35 years. Today, I make about 200K per year. I got a GED, went to trade schoo…

"Throwaway because I don't want my co-workers to know." -Why don't you want your co-workers to find out?

"I made it and you can too" - That's just either ignorance or really wishful thinking.

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