161–170 of 227 posts
One of the things that suck most about being poor is that you need to have money in order to save money. You need to have enough money to buy a certain level of quality, and if you don't have it, you're forced to buy cheap stuff that breaks more easily (thus spending more money in total). I found this aspect hard to understand for others, the attitude often seems to be: "you don't have to be poor, you simply need to…
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> The main barrier seems to be a culture or mindset that prioritizes short term benefit/feelings over long term benefits even when there are other options. Interesting because the main barriers I see are how the system creates perverse incentives for poor people re: getting to be not poor. For example, people on SSI aren't allowed to save. If my sister makes more than ~1k/mo or I save too much (as she's my dependent)…
Would buying gold or silver coins or collectibles count as savings? If not there are other items that can be purchased new or used that have a high resale value and thus could be used as a store of savings without actually being cash, though the only affordable one on this list, for a poor person, would be the Ann Taylor clothes: https://blog.cheapism.com/best-resale-value-products-14004/#... Obviously not a solution…
Jewelry is the classic go to for women.
One of the things that suck most about being poor is that you need to have money in order to save money. You need to have enough money to buy a certain level of quality, and if you don't have it, you're forced to buy cheap stuff that breaks more easily (thus spending more money in total). I found this aspect hard to understand for others, the attitude often seems to be: "you don't have to be poor, you simply need to…
Closely related: people who say money can't buy happiness. Yeah fuck you. No one who was ever poor says that.
Without those three ingredients, you have a serious handicap to a stable life.
I make more money now than I ever did, and expected to be much happier. My pandemic "depression" has killed my hope and that money is not making me happy.
Anecdote is not data: understood.
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Yes. Also the advice to scrimp assumes there is a way that the person will ever NOT be poor/in poverty, and that isn't true for some/most poor people. I'm a disabled American who is the breadwinner for myself and another disabled person. Saving would punish us: My sister would lose her health care and I would lose the financial assistance I get for my MS meds. Even if I make more money, it's all going to medical cost…
There are systems that we could implement that don't have this problem. They could still be generous. In fact they could be more generous. This is classic problem of perverse incentives created by inefficient, though well meaning system.
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Ah yes. "If only these people would abstain from the joys of eating fucking McDonald's , they'd no longer be poor."
The point is that even the cheapest restaurants are more expensive than preparing food yourself.
[1] I wouldn't say it was 100% true - McDonalds is a pretty cheap way of getting calories.
One of the things that suck most about being poor is that you need to have money in order to save money. You need to have enough money to buy a certain level of quality, and if you don't have it, you're forced to buy cheap stuff that breaks more easily (thus spending more money in total). I found this aspect hard to understand for others, the attitude often seems to be: "you don't have to be poor, you simply need to…
See “The Sam Vimes “Boots” Theory of Socioeconomic Unfairness”: 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 cardboar…
The problems for the poor in modern America are health care, education, and rent.
The architects of the economic system in the United States don't want to eliminate poverty - it's kept around as a threat, something to point to - see, grunts, that's where you'll end up if you're not an obedient drone. This is also a main reason why there's no reliable public health care system, instead it's tied to employment. The general concept is "discipline of the labor force."
I’m not convinced that healthcare is a Machiavellian planned top-down threat. The origin was in employers competing for labor during a time of wage controls. The continuation is driven more by people who have good health coverage not wanting to lose that and the fear that their doctors visits will feel like DMV visits. That’s a powerful force.
The origin of the current system was in the AMA and insurance companies lobbying to make everything except health insurance illegal, trampling all over the system put in place by employers, unions, and mutual aid societies.
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The lack of reward for planning (by virtue of not having the resources since they're always insufficient and tied up in more immediate concerns) similarly promotes a very detached and immediate lifestyle. I have $50. $50 can mean I have fun tonight. $50 does nothing for me next week except maybe let me buy some food, which I can probably scrape together another way. So I'm going to have some fun tonight. The notion t…
I can see the reasoning but I still don’t see it as sensible per se. Having a buffer of just $1-3k at the end of the year instead of blowing $50 here and there could make a huge difference as far as anxiety and ability to weather unforeseen issues. Yes, unforeseen things will still arise but you’d rather have the $1k you need to deal with it than not. I’m more partial to the argument that splurges allow people to tem…
And a splurge for the impoverished isn't '$50 here and there'. My last 'splurge' was 12 dollars for a pair of fleece lined tights so I don't freeze on my way in to work (I walk to work). Or 3-4 bucks at McD's once every two weeks or so.
That was a long read, but very much worth reading. This part really stuck out to me: > A few years ago, a friend of mine, in a well-meaning attempt to understand the impoverished diets of poor people, ate a Food Stamp diet for a week. On the last day of the diet, he talked about what he had learned and spoke philosophically about his renewed appreciation of healthy food as he prepared to end his restricted diet with…
Makes me think of the “delayed gratification” experiments. Someone who is of means probably has an easier time delaying gratification because they have the means to figuratively “break the fast”. They also know that they have the resources to get somewhere in life. But what if you don’t? What if that “instant gratification” is all that you can expect to get for a good while?
Since debunked[1], mind you - "Celeste Kidd published The Marshmallow Study Revisited in which she disproved the conclusions made in the original Marshmallow experiment"
[1] https://medium.com/21st-century-tidbits/delayed-gratificatio...
As someone who grew up solidly middle class and went to a near Ivy private university and dropped out, I thought I was under educated about "life" and felt the need to enlist in the military. There, I found out that people who grow up poor looked at me like I was a total idiot. There were daily reminders that I grew up privileged. That my brief stint as an enlisted scrub were not enough to understand what it meant wh…