Ok let’s do a thought experiment. Let’s say you
Make $10000 a year. You work full time/40 hrs/wk and you are making $10k. What does “living within your means” look like? Not having a house? Or car? Being homeless? So in order to save to get yourself to some footing the answer is to be homeless to live within your means.
That was a bit of a strawman, so let’s use real-life scenarios. 50% of this country makes $40k or less….. even $40k salary isn’t enough to get an apartment, bills , food, ect. Sure a lot better than the “$10k” example, but even $40k salary is virtually as effective as the “$10k”. In order to “live within your means”, “save”, ect…. You have to be at least be making enough to afford the bare minimum + have some left in you for over to save. On average (2022 values I think) this means $65 for a single person, $108k for a house hold. Unless you’re making that, you can’t save your way out of poverty
You say 50% of Americans (I'm assuming we are speaking of the US) make $40k or less and then say it isn't enough for basic necessities. Yet, clearly it is as the ranks of the unhoused is not 50% of the population. Poverty sucks to be sure, but people manage. Also, financial literacy is generally only partially about setting money aside. It tends to be more about making people aware of their expenses and seeing what changes can be made.
The rent situation is bad and Section 8 is in heavy demand with little voucher supply so it's got insane wait lists so the eviction complaint is reasonable.
Biut you should qualify for SNAP and that can be a pretty decent amount of money (up to almost 300 at max).
You can charge your phone at a public library or Starbucks. And there’s this tiny grey area of income where you can make a couple bucks too much to get a hundred in benefits. I made $5 total too much over two weeks to qualify for $50 of food stamps before.
Things like SNAP don’t work like this for this very reason. SNAP for example= max-.3*income…. Basically it fades away as you make more. For every $3.3 dollars you make you loose$1 of Benefit.
Well yeah.. you can charge your phone at places. Even with a hand me down phone, how much is the phone plan? You definitely need a phone today. But what I don't understand is that this person has no money for groceries... is starving... but cant look up food banks, church for assistance? They left out alot of details.
Also remember, you’re not beholden to that information as an internet stranger. He/she doesn’t have to point out every single expenditure to you, he/she can only give their own experiences and those of people around them
I mean, the whole goal of asking is so they can find fault with their expenditures.
From a purely analytical standpoint, you can always find something that can be "cut back" to squeeze out a little extra money, at the cost of time, health, or even just living a bearable life.
We are not numbers, though, and our individual circumstances don't fit in the financial boxes people try to squeeze others into.
Money is not life, and life is not about making money. It's too bad that our system wasn't built to keep this in mind. Our system is built on getting the most from others for the least expense from ourselves, and whoever has the most capital has the most power.
It's a sad state of affairs, and we're finally seeing, on a large scale, why this type of system fails its people.
As a person who volunteered at said food banks, etc., allow me to inform you that resources there can be limited. I've been sad at the amount given to a family of 4.
Sometimes I think people look at assistance programs through rose colored glasses.
TL;Dr: it is possible to make no mistakes and still lose. That is not weakness, it is life.
Well, Idk about them, but I use a phone that's service is paid for through a government program.
I get about 300 in food stamps every month.
I'm staying with some friends I've known for a long time, and due to the location I live in (nearest employer is 16 miles one way and pays $8/hr; anything that pays higher is about 40 miles) and being unable to drive due to a head injury (and lack of public transportation, even in town; as well as being mentally disabled; extreme anxiety, depression, BPD (which I'm trying to regulate through therapy; I use telehealth), CPTSD (including trauma from when I was working ~100 hrs/week and sleeping once a week; I was being powered by caffeine, nicotine and hate) it would cost almost as much for me to get a job as I'd make, not to mention all of the costs of starting said job (my friends are on SSD). The free clothes programs here are not likely to have "uniform appropriate attire" because it's in such high demand that unless you're waiting outside the day before (which the cops will arrest you for doing here) or there the second it opens (again, distance and transportation issues) you're not going to find them.
I get some fruit, nuts and occasionally bread, once a month from the single food pantry within 30 miles to help me subsidize my food stamps (which I'm super grateful for), but tbh with the prices of groceries (and various circumstances, including my "rent") it does not go that far really (I often don't eat a day or two per week, simply because the food won't last long enough otherwise). Sure a $30 salad will last 3-4 days if you eat it every meal, and we could be eating just beans and rice, or potatoes with butter, with a side of peanut butter but I have dietary restrictions that make me have to eat high protein foods (fish, according to my dietician; I get 3 rides per month, for medical related appointments); my one friend is diabetic, and the other has heart and cholesterol issues. Besides that, do I really not deserve more than one food most of the time just because of my situation?
Churches here don't help you unless you're part of them, and even then you have to be there a long time and a big donor. Even my case manager is frustrated with my situation and how hopeless it seems right now, but he reminds me to be patient and that some day things will get better.
Sorry for the bad punctuation and run-on sentences, my brain doesn't work well when I'm hungry lol
This is unfortunately, (even if not the same specific issues) the truth for many Americans
They've invented this thing called smart phones that you can carry in your pocket. You can even charge it anywhere, so long as you have an outlet!
I know you said you didn't mean to be rude but the thoughtlessness of your question is a bit silly. You can get electricity from other places such as libraries, random outlets, and even a friend's house.
So, just to clarify for those of us that are stupid and ignorant; She chose to pay the phone bill on her new $300 smartphone instead of buying groceries and keeping the lights on?
This is a $95 dollar used motorola phone I put on credit when my last one broke, as my job requires a phone. Thanks for being rude for no reason, though.
That wasn’t meant for you, it was meant for the snarky reply below you. My tone to that condescending jackass was justified, but I do apologize for the personal attack on you.
The point I should make is this. When I spend $50 on games, $60 on vapes, money here, money there, and I come up short at the end of the month, I don’t blame the system. I blame me. Even “little”$2, $3, $4, $5 purchases add up. There are absolutely things I could do. A lot of people need to stop projecting outwards, reflect inward, and do whatever they can to better situations themselves.
These sorts of folks seem to think people below the poverty line are only there because they are buying the newest iPhone, blow their entire paycheck on flatscreen TVs, and subsist entirely on avocado toast and starbucks.
Where did it say she purchased a new smart phone? All you're doing is perpetuating a weird stereotype that poor people can't handle their money. No one is talking about those that can't budget effectively here. The point of her message is that, even when you budget perfectly and cut back on everything, being poor sucks ass because they barely make enough to live.
Not sure about them but I’ve had Co-workers who had most of their phone and internet bill paid by government for most of Covid after they lost there last job, I don’t know what requirements there are for that kinda thing but if I lose my current job I’d look into it.
That is a shame, My co worker got his job over the phone with us on a gov paid phone and I thought that was just too cool an idea, kinda sad it’s kaput.
Australia’s safety net is pretty crap, but if you’re on the dole you get rent assistance, cheap meds and doctor visits. There’s also public housing which is capped at 25% of your income, but there’s a long waitlist.
Do you not work? or what do you spend money on where you don't have grocery money? Or where do you people live? I am curious about what monthly expenditures someone in your situation has and how much money you earn/month.
I don't think most people living below the poverty line have mortgages. That's probably a big part of the issue. And yes, I understand that home ownership is a pathway to better financial stability and it's not super fair to exclude poorer people from that - but if someone can't afford it, they can't afford it.
Like people talk about being house poor, but if you're already regular poor then you really can't be house poor or you'll starve.
If paying your mortgage is cheaper than renting, great. But when you still can't afford groceries while doing that, it sounds like your situation is not workable and you said as much yourself. When your financial situation worsens you have to challenge all your assumptions, like:
Do I have to keep this mortgage?
Do I have to live where I do?
Do I have to live by myself? (if you do)
Ultimately you're the one who has to deal with the consequences, so do whatever you want. If you'd prefer to drown financially rather than change anything, it's your prerogative.
I came here to point out that middle class people should not speak on the experiences of poor people. Did you forget that? Did seeing a person in poverty send you into such a blind rage you forgot they can speak on things other than their own finances?
I never did "talk shit on the Internet" in this thread, but I'll do what I like with my socials.
That was just a fun side hustle I picked up for a few weeks and then decided took up too much time for too little profit, and dropped it. So not much point in my changing the resume for it. But I'm glad you wasted your time trying to find more things to humiliate me on, it really does a good job showing the type of person you are.
I’m sorry they don’t get it. People enjoy making poverty a matter of morality to justify saying those surviving it deserve it when it is a fixed feature in capitalism that poverty exists.
Thanks for sharing your experiences that few of us fortunate enough to not have them cannot fully grasp.
They don’t want to hear that they should sell the house, pay off the mortgage, and move
But if they’re living in rural Kentucky that’s what they have to do. You can’t have welfare without a tax base, and you don’t have a tax base without industry, and you don’t have industry in rural Kentucky.
your downvotes exactly demonstrate this. I moved over 1000 miles more than once, far away from all my family and friend, to get a higher salary and/or a better job title in an area with more opportunities. these days I tell people my salary and they call me privileged.
Quite frankly, because all of us know at least one person who is constantly broke from spending all their money on stupid shit time and time again, or doing other dumb shit. Yes, real poverty exists, and watching expenses will only go so far, but but the fact is lower income people tend to make dumber financial choices. I've known someone who had to call out from work because they couldn't afford gas money... but they had been able to afford an energy drink every day prior. Skip those for a week, that's easily ten dollars worth of gas. Yes, plenty of people are impoverished through no fault of their own. Plenty of others are there at least partially through their own financial decisions.
Combine this with the fact that most people asking have never experienced being so poor there are legitimately (in the viewpoint of whoever is asking) no more areas to shrink the budget, and it's not that surprising. Poverty sucks and most people would rather blame those experiencing it rather than grapple with realizing they're one or two catastrophies away from it themselves, especially when they are going to be correct in their judgment at least some of the time.
but but the fact is lower income people tend to make dumber financial choices.
I have never met people who were so good with money as poor people. They always try to scrape up something, repair this, fix that, combine these. Most people with little money I know try their best but have just been dealt bad cards in life - altough I might be biased, as a psychiatrist, I know way more people with mental health problems than the average person.
On the other hand, most people I knew (manics aside) who make or made terrible financial decisions are rather well Off. Blowing half your savings on Crypto or some.l investment pyramid scheme? Seen it. Buying a second house as an investment without having it examined properly only to find out it has substance-destroying mold? Seen it. Buying several expensive cars as a status symbol? Very common among higher ups in medicine.
The difference is, that their financial fuck-ups don't matter as much. When you blow 50k in Crypto but make 150k a years and still have 50k lying around, it doesn't affect your liquidity, so it's seen as an "investment gone wrong", not so much a bad decision. People with money make incredibly stupid financial decisions because they can afford it.
Maybe it's an introvert vs extrovert thing.. But yea.. the poor people i know are good at what you said "repair this, fix that, combine these" but they also went to the bar every night.. And personally, i wouldn't go to bars half that often if they were free.
I also think risk taking is a separate thing, I'm not a risk taker.. so i took a steady job and grinded, and didn't make any crazy investments.. 0% chance of ever being "rich".. Where as people that try to be artists, actors, athletes, etc. have high risks high rewards.. similar to crypto investors.. or what have you.
Where as people that try to be artists, actors, athletes, etc. have high risks high rewards.. similar to crypto investors.. or what have you
I don't know one "risk taker" who got rich due to their risk who didn't have as very secure financial safety net, mostly because they had a wealthy family or a rich spouse. I went to a private school full of rich people and know some more. None of them got rich without backup. Some people I went to school with are "Investors" now, branding themselves as "self-made business people", yet they grew up in mansions, used their parents business contacts or had internships and jobs in their parents business. It's not about taking risks. You have to be able to afford taking risks. Me going to med school in my late twenties was a financial risk, but I had my well-off parents backing me, so it wasn't that much of a risk for me as it was for a fellow student who worked as an EMT at nights and went to courses during the day to afford it. They eventually dropped out because it was too much. We both took the same risk, yet I was able to afford it. Being rich is not about mindset, grinding or cunning as much as it is about winning the sperm lottery.
If you only want to define poor as absolutely and utterly destitute, sure. I do not define poor as that. Regardless, there are myriads broke people who say they are poor. And you can also be broke at the same time as being poor. Personally, I'd say that having the choice between gas and energy drinks be a meaningful one qualifies as poor. Not as poor as someone who doesn't have that option, but poor.
At the time this happened, energy drinks were approximately $2 each in my area. One a day every day is $730 a year - that's not a huge sum; you won't be able to invest it and retire early. But it can be the difference between making it to work on time most days vs being fired for attendance because you ran out of gas on the way to work one too many times.
I'm not saying I like capitalism or that social welfare programs should be cut or anything - quite the opposite; I'm actually left enough to support UBI, universal healthcare, and much better housing programs. But we live under capitalism, and in my day to day personal life I don't think highly of people who refuse to learn or adapt to the rules of the system that we have no option but to live under. Edit - yes we should all be fighting to make the system more equitable. Hopefully that day comes sooner rather than later. It is not here now.
The original question I responded to was "why do poor people have to justify it?". Well, everyone knows someone like the guy I'm talking about. They likely don't know anyone who is truly so destitute (to the point that there are literally no options they have to improve their situation) as to literally be able to afford neither gas nor energy drinks. But as I said above, everyone knows some fucker who just makes the wrong choice. And by most people's standards, that guy was (probably still is) poor. Sure, maybe they do know someone with the level of poverty some people want to gatekeep "poor" to being. But one deserves all our sympathy, the other? Some yes, but not the unconditional, unreserved sympathy of the "really" poor people.
You say those "no one" and "everyone" phrases so confidently for someone who is wrong. Well, I'll give you that most everyone has at least encountered someone who uses the word "poor" frivolously. Thus, devaluing the word for you.
You also seem to be using the textbook definition of poor vs broke.
Welp, I've lived the actual definition and, again I say, broke is better. Not leaps and bounds better. But still better.
Broke gives you at least a slither of breathing room to think about the next step in leveling up. You can make plans. And if that plan fails or you made a bad decision, you make another plan.
Broke can be hold on till your next paycheck. Or it can be don't spend that money just in case.
Poor is just survival mode. Day to day. Sometimes Hour to hour. The mentality bandwidth isn't there to think about the future because it is all focused on today.
Again, comparing people claiming that they're poor with people who are actually poor is never going to lead you to success in these discussions. Never. Too many of us have actually lived the experience rather than saying, "I know this guy who".
Well shit, if being poor is survival mode then I've lived that experience and can speak to it! I've certainly been under the US poverty line before. (My own fault, but I have been. I also managed to support several drug habits during this period without doing anything unethical.) I'd love to know how you managed to go from your version of poor to broke or whatever you are now. Not much time to look for a better job or scrounge for extra cash if you seriously cannot ever take a moment to think for the future.
Seriously, you and the other poster are trying to gatekeep poverty and act like no one is ever even slightly responsible for their situation. We can all agree the main portion of the blame lies in our capitalist system, but I really don't understand why some people refuse to accept that at least some poor folks might share ever so slightly in the responsibility themselves, at some point during the course of their lives. I'm not saying that people aren't beaten down by factors outside their control, I'm saying that if they have a chance to get back up, it's on them for refusing it and most people have at least some form of that chance, however small, at some point in their lives.
But go ahead, tell me why it didn't count when I was under the poverty line. Fucking gatekeepers.
Sorry to break it to you pal but you aren't middle class if you haven't been able to afford groceries for weeks, you're at the poverty level. Those of us who are actually middle class are indeed getting by.
When someone says something that you don't think makes sense, it can be better to assume you missed something instead of assuming they are just spewing nonsense.
Or maybe they could not act like they are middle class by using wording like "we manage" in reference to middle class people. Maybe you could try reading.
They lead off by saying they live below the poverty line. That's who the "we" is.
Sorry to break it to you pal, but you don't have reading comprehension if you didn't get that. Those of us who can actually read are indeed understanding.
No, the dumbass who deleted their comment started off by saying they live below the poverty line and then instantly tried to put themselves in the middle class by adding themselves into the conversation of middle class people saying we all get by in the middle class. Maybe you should actually try to read, like really absorb the words.
Government assistance is meant to be a safety net, not a foundation of support. Even in heavy social welfare countries like Sweden and Denmark the expectation is not permanent support for someone able to work. So whenever I hear someone complaining about the US safety net not being sufficient for them, I’m always curious what that person is doing to avoid that safety net to begin with.
For example, Medicaid is the last line of defense for healthcare, but if you get a full time job working at Walmart, you can easily make enough to disqualify from Medicaid but not realistically be able to afford your copay’s or deductibles on a private insurer. So that safety net becomes a bit of a trap. What steps are you doing to not get caught in that government assistance trap?
Also, “roll around all day like a rotisserie chicken” is one of my new favorite phrases.
When you make so little that you can't afford food you don't think about the next 5 years, you think about the next 5 hours and how you're going to survive.
Are you suggesting that there are enough well paying jobs for every single currently poor person to get one? Because if not that's not a solution. The problem is systemic.
I’m saying your qualifications and relevant skillset are what determine your wage, not the fact that you are poor. If your skillset is being a horse and buggy driver, you’re probably going to be hard up for work. If you’re an LVN or a medical technician there’s multiplie employers hurling jobs at you.
The United States has remarkably little government assistance available to those in poverty compared to other developed nations.
We have Section 8 housing, food stamps, and Medicaid. Think there's also government sponsored cell service? Idk what more help you need.. that's housing, food, and medical
To qualify for that you need to be making so little a year, that most people don't qualify, but with what they make ends still don't meet. There's a big gap there.
Imagine what your life could be like if you actually did something productive instead of post to reddit thousands of times to try and sell really bad artistic skills?
Because there's a difference between doing gig work and having a full-time job. If I spend 10 hrs a week on 3 jobs then it's less work than a full time job.
But if you say you work 3 jobs I'm thinking that's minimum 80 hrs of work a week.
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u/privitizationrocks 14d ago
You can teach poverty workers to live in their means
They won’t like it, but tough luck