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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

#551

Post by gkop »

chrisseaton wrote: post #355
kingnothing wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$100 / month on gas, $200 / month for a car payment, $100 / month for insurance. That's not even accounting for maintenance.

$1200 a year insurance? Seems a huge amount! Is this one of those things where it's for some reason more expensive for poor people?

In my experience in the US, the cost of even essential coverage varies dramatically by zip code. For example, when I moved 1 mile from Cleveland Heights to Piedmont Ave in Oakland, CA, my rates went down by more than 20%.

So yea, significantly more expensive for poor people.

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

#552

Post by Aperocky »

throwaway-0987 wrote: post #414
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…

I can't edit the original post, but I wanted to clarify that the last paragraph was intended to give other poor people hope, not to make them feel inadequate. Sort of a cheer leader type thing. I probably should have left it out. You are all right. I was lucky. We all are to some extent. I consider my aunt my only real family. I still drive to visit her grave each year.

> They think I'm nuts and say I need counseling. I probably do.

Good realization. Too many of us deride counseling as an admittance of weakness, it isn't. Hiding from it while maintaining there's nothing wrong is.

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

#554

Post by dahfizz »

xxpor wrote: post #550
criticaljudge wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people quickly tire of it when they have to take care of those lazy people directly. I'm not saying nothing should be done. Just that it is a fallacy to think the government simply has infinite money to spend.

> Just that it is a fallacy to think the government simply has infinite money to spend. They create the money so they literally do. Doesn't mean it shouldn't be deployed wisely of course.

If you want to be pedantic, they have the ability to create infinite nominal dollars. They cannot create infinite wealth.

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

#555

Post by dvirsky »

Very good post, just one thing caught my eye:

> it’s very small (think >900 sqft)

That is an average middle class apartment for a family where I come from (Israel). Thinking about it as being small is so American :) And BTW you don't get to live in a _house_ in Israel unless you inherited it, are rich, bought it >20 ago before the real estate boom, or willing to drive a couple of hours in each direction to get to work (which is ridiculous in a tiny country with a 100% tax on gas)

If you're poor you'll have to do with ~600 sqft or so for a family. And I know there are countries where even this is rather spacious.

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

#556

Post by 35fbe7d3d5b9 »

lkbm wrote: post #240
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…

I'm curious what about your fears are driving your family crazy. Is it living well below your means, forgoing luxuries they'd like (and you can afford), or agonizing over every spending decision, or what? I've lived on fine ", and allows me to say "fuck it" and spend money more readily. At any rate, if you're driving your family crazy, and you think counseling might help, try it. That's one life-improvement investmen…

As someone who grew up poor, one of the best things I've ever done to get past that real hesitancy around spending money is to use envelope budgeting (I use YNAB but the tool isn't important).

My old habits had me tracking after the fact and I found that I either obsessed over minutiae, failed to plan for the future, or worried too little about bigger purchases.

But now, I put my money in a virtual envelope the moment it comes in, and I have to start thinking about how I'm using it: if I empty out the "restaurant" fund, I have the freedom to reallocate, but I'm forced to decide to reallocate – I don't just swipe a card and figure it out later.

This also shows me without any question what my current baseline is: I can look month over month and know how much of my spending is discretionary, how much is saving, and what the bare minimum is that I need to survive.

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

#557

Post by deeeeplearning »

deeeeplearning wrote: post #314
burlesona wrote: post #167

This is a great write-up, and as someone who spent time being poor-ish, it really resonated. What I realized from my own life experience: the US sawed the bottom rungs off the ladder in the 1950s when it suburbanized. There is no affordable housing or transportation in 95% of the North American land area, and virtually every societal problem we deal with either stems from this or is made worse by it. Then the healthc…

>The US is a great place to live and work with tremendous upward mobility Always confused by this notion. People act as if the US is the only place this is possible but not only is it possible in most of the western world, there is in fact BETTER mobility in the much of the western world relative to the US. The US isn't even in the Top 10! https://www.businessinsider.com/countries-where-intergenerat...

Pretty confused by the downvotes. People don't like data?

I mean in fact it's worse than people think and you are no longer likely to make more than your parents when a few decades ago you had a 90% chance of doing so.

https://www.nber.org/papers/w22910

Never expected such a ra-ra USA #1 vibe on HN. Especially in the face of data that says otherwise.

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

#558

Post by cammikebrown »

andromeduck wrote: post #432
vorpalhex wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't have it as hard as the parent, but I remember choosing between bus fare and meals quite a few times. My first paycheck was spent on white bread and a tube of sausage, and now I live a pretty comfortable life. Most everyone in my orbit has improved their situation too. Sometimes that was with help from a family member, but generally things have gotten better for friends who were in the same circumstances I wa…

This is my experience too - almost everyone who hung out with me in the library, computer lab or metal shop seemed to do fairly well for themselves - not like 200k tech job well but like 80k blue collar or white collar when most of us grew up with less than 40k combined household income. Half of us first or second generation immigrants and refugees, lots of broken families, lots of substance abuse, lots from Romania,…

I’m not sure of your age, but for instance, my dad, the sole breadwinner at the time, made $40k/year in 1989 when I was born, which is equivalent to $84k today. So, making $80k now and being raised on $40k/year then are the same thing if you adjust for inflation. (Furthermore, I’d argue healthcare, college, and housing are much more expensive now than they were then.)

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

#559

Post by sandworm101 »

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…

>> My father left home ... My mom ... left us when she found a new husband.

The horrible thing is that much worse situations are common today. The most common one I've witnessed into is "Dad left, mom is sick". The children become primary care givers to the remaining disabled parent. That basically axes higher education options. Such kids often cannot work outside the home and if they do it will be at most part time and very local. One can choose not to have children. One can decide not to commit crimes. But one cannot choose whether or not to have disabled parents/siblings that need 24/7 care. The really dark aspect is that children grow up. An unplanned child will grow and eventually not need 24/7 care. An aging disabled parent can remain at the same level need for many decades, normally progressing to greater need with time.

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

#560

Post by therealdrag0 »

hinkley wrote: post #352
dalbasal wrote: post #303

His point on housing is so important, and its adjacent to a lot of other poverty-related issues. It's one of the reasons advocates for the poor often seem to speak a different language to their opposition. If you live in median-and-above-land, you think of all costs existing on a spectrum. Fancy dinners for $100 on one end. Rice and beans for pennies at the other. This is true for clothes, smartphones, furniture... l…

I wonder if the availability of stuff has informed the price inflation of housing. What else do people have in their lives that they can bid up with whatever money they have left over from other concerns?

It's not just that it's bid up, it's that the govmnt has paternalized what sort of housing-should be legal. The housing that the poor could get back in the day is now illegal because it's "inhumane". There's regulations around square footage, fixtures, etc. Of course the "unintended consequence" is those people sleep in their cars or outside/tents, which is obviously worse than a shitty apartment that has a roof and walls. Maybe the closest thing to the old way is renting a room on Craig's list.

But limited supply is also a big problem.

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