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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

#571

Post by vmception »

throwaway284239 wrote: post #564

Boy, does the stuff about cars hit home. When I was poor I had to drive on tires so old that the steel was exposed. The worst was when my insurance got canceled because I couldn't afford it. This led to a chain reaction of absolute dumpster-fire awfulness: - Can't afford insurance - Insurance gets canceled - This automatically triggers registration getting canceled - I can't stop going to work, and there's no public…

> because (as I learned that day) not having insurance is a criminal offense

> Can't afford the ticket I got for not being registered

so here is where you got lucky, not having prior outstanding non-payment or not having prior potentially or actual criminal offenses on your record.

non-payment of the ticket would have led to harsher punishment upon your next infraction, which is much more likely to happen when your neighbors and the police are looking specifically at you all the time, which may have been your experience but just food for thought for anyone browsing this thread.

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

#572

Post by yibg »

notsureaboutpg wrote: post #115
yibg wrote: post #24

I grew up poor (first gen immigrant family, the poor kind), so I empathize with the points raised. At the same time I don't really understand how some / a family can be (outside of some circumstances like health issues, disabilities etc) repeatedly behind on water bills or other necessities. For the first few years my family had an income of ~$1000 / month (back in the 90s). My mother wasn't legally allowed to work a…

I grew up like you but you and I weren't poor. If your parents immigrated like mine (wife legally not allowed to work, dad on stipend) then your father (and possibly mother) was very well educated in your home country, then immigrated to the US, finished his studies or did a temporary training and then took a well paying job. When having a $1000 a month income is known to everyone to be temporary and you know a well…

We definitely weren't at the very bottom of the ladder. We had some stable income, a roof over our heads and food on the table.

Looking back the financial position we were in was clearly temporary. But at the time it wasn't so clear. It wasn't obvious that once graduated, my father would be able to find a well paying job (they were also pretty ignorant on the job market at the time). We definitely had financial stress in the family, which bled out to me all through childhood.

I consider myself fortunate and I had a legs up in multiple dimensions. Educated parents, stable home life etc. But like I said, very grateful that type of stress is not a part of my life now.

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

#573

Post by yibg »

tstrimple wrote: post #157
yibg wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's also about trade offs that are made. For example, TV dinners (from an article in another thread here) for us was not a staple, it was a luxury. They kept for a long time, but they were also high cost to calorie ratio. We got the cheapest cut of meat we can in bulk and frozen it.

While I'm not suggesting your method isn't more economically efficient, it also requires time and money investment. When I was "poor", my parents would often both work late and it wasn't uncommon to not see them until later in the night if at all before bed. Many nights my brother and I would make our own dinners. Dealing with large cuts of frozen meat takes planning and skill that microwaveable dinners do not.

Yes absolutely. Definitely different trade offs to be made depending on circumstance.

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

#574

Post by selimthegrim »

dnautics wrote: post #399

I've had the experiences of: 1. being on the high end of poor while being oblivious and in a socially highbrow environment (STEM grad school, $26k/yr salary, high cost-of-living city). I also felt privileged because i lived in a "foreign postdoc ghetto" where my neighbors were a single family on a postdoc salary (probably somewhere between 27-30k) living in a one-bedroom with two kids. 2. the experience of being "ser…

Believe me some places like New Orleans would love to have a foreign postdoc ghetto if it meant educated people would stick around.

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

#575

Post by throwaway0a5e »

sandworm101 wrote: post #310
gibspaulding wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really curious to see what the longevity of future electric cars ends up looking like. In theory electric motors should be able to last way longer than an ICE, and most other wear parts (suspension, breaks, etc) should be straight forward to replace. The big question would be batteries, and in the case of Tesla at least right to repair issues.

>> In theory electric motors should be able to last way longer than an ICE Except that it is very rare for a car to be scrapped because of its engine. IC engines are mature tech. They last forever, longer than the body of the car. Extending the life of the engine further won't extend the life of the vehicle. And for such calculations one must include the battery packs. I think it safe to say that while electric motor…

Exactly. Cars get scrapped because the part costs $W, you can't run a compliant business for less than $X, the tech needs to be paid $Y, the service manual subscriptions cost $Z and they all add up to a number greater than what a 2002 Cavalier is worth.

An under the table side gig mechanic can perform many more jobs in an economically viable manner because the fixed costs are so much less.

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

#576

Post by yibg »

pessimizer wrote: post #89
yibg wrote: post #24

I grew up poor (first gen immigrant family, the poor kind), so I empathize with the points raised. At the same time I don't really understand how some / a family can be (outside of some circumstances like health issues, disabilities etc) repeatedly behind on water bills or other necessities. For the first few years my family had an income of ~$1000 / month (back in the 90s). My mother wasn't legally allowed to work a…

> the kids are wearing Nikes and playing on iphones. This is investment. If your kids are socially rejected at school and can't get on the internet, are they going to be better off in the long term or worse off? If you are poor, looking poor is not going to help you up, it's going to drive you farther into poverty. It's the same impulse that makes lower-middle class parents go into debt to put braces on their kids' p…

I understand there is social pressure, but then pretty much anything can be bucketed under investment by this standard. Is a nice car and nice house also investment so the kids don't get rejected at school? At certain level of income, sacrifices need to be made, and I would argue Nikes and iPhones are luxuries, not necessities. e.g. you can get a pair of good quality shoes that costs less than Nikes, and a functional smart phone for less than an iphone.

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

#577

Post by thebradbain »

dahfizz wrote: post #563
lc9er wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The government can not and should not lift people out of poverty if those people refuse to work to better themselves Who do you think wakes up and thinks, "I love poverty. This life is so easy"?

Lots of people wake up and never evaluate their life at all. People win the lottery and end up homeless with a drug addiction. If millions of dollars can't help them, do you think the government should keep writing those people checks?

This is a strawman argument, because this is in no way representative of the many people who live in poverty, but I’ll address it because it doesn’t change my final opinion:

Yes, because obviously what someone who won (and lost) millions of dollars needs is not money, but help and support.

Not to mention, by the construction of your own strawman, if they’ve won such a jackpot they’ve probably also then paid millions in taxes.

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

#578

Post by leetcrew »

doliveira wrote: post #427
leetcrew wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the 80/20 rule still applies. $50 is probably too low of a price point, but the example works if you compare a $250-400 android phone to a $1000 apple/samsung flagship. I could buy those phones if I wanted to, but I'm getting by just fine with my pixel 4a. hell, my pixel 2 was still perfectly serviceable but for the lack of security updates.

$50 to $400 is basically one order of magnitude, though. So the argument changes a lot.

kinda, but kinda not. $1000 is still a lot more than $400. I consider $600 to be a meaningful amount of money. it's definitely not a good move to spend that much on a phone if $600 matters to you. in any case, this conversation is drifting off the rails (or was derailed from the start). the iphone SE exists and sells for $400. with apple's track record for updates, that might be the best value on the entire market right now. I wouldn't consider it irresponsible for anyone to purchase that phone. I'm also not sure I believe that large amounts of poor people are buying brand new $1000 iphones anyway. most poor people I know are using whatever cheap phone happens to be supported by a local MVNO.

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

#579

Post by whimsicalism »

swiley wrote: post #342
cwp wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I noticed this after spending time in developing countries. They are set up much better for being poor. Trivial example: you can go into a pharmacy and buy two aspirin. Some people can't afford 100 at a time, and don't need that many anyway. Or rent: you can get a place to live for only $60/month. There's no running water, but it's clean and dry and it has a lock on the door. The cheapest place you can find in the US…

This is what's ridiculous about much of the zoning and building codes here. People don't want poor people living in sub-optimal housing, so instead they force them to sleep outside or live with abusive people.

> People don't want poor people living in sub-optimal housing, so instead they force them to sleep outside or live with abusive people.

People don't want poor people to live near them. That is the root of most of the zoning issues, it's not because they are actually worried about the quality of the housing stock that the people would live in.

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

#580

Post by criticaljudge »

pmiller2 wrote: post #522
TrackerFF wrote: post #374

I think the biggest threat to poor people, would be the ridiculous housing market. It's not just in big expensive cities, it's pretty much everywhere. Only places that are being spared, are those in destitute areas with some serious emigration problems - but those things happen for a reason (no work). In my country (Norway), the housing market has appreciated around 5.5% ANNUALLY, compared to annual wage increase of…

You are absolutely right. I live in the Bay Area now, which everyone knows has absurd rental prices. In my home town, I can rent a comparable sized apartment to what I have now for around 1/3 what I currently pay. But, there's no way I could earn 1/3 the income I make as a Bay Area software engineer working at a non-remote job in my home town. Even making 1/4 what I'm making would be highly optimistic. I just did a s…

Isn't that exactly what banks are for - so that you can get a loan? I would expect that you would qualify for a loan if you show evidence of your upcoming employment.

Many companies also pay for moves.

Of course if you do all that, and then your employment is suddenly canceled, you are stuck with some debt. I guess that happens to some people.

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