6 ms·

> Diapering a child now takes about $1,000 a year for an average product. That doesn't seem right. Are these people buying the smallest quantities possible? Yo

by ythn 9y ago

> Diapering a child now takes about $1,000 a year for an average product. That doesn't seem right. Are these people buying the smallest quantities possible? You can buy ~300 diapers for $30 on amazon. That's only $360 /year.

atwebb 9y ago
No source but I believe that's a big issue. If you don't have money, you can't buy at scale (or store/transport it). Though here it isn't that much (relatively) like say buying bulk beef vs store bought.
craftyguy 9y ago
folks living paycheck to paycheck cannot afford big upfront costs like this. even if it saves them money in the long term. too bad personal finance isn't a thing taught in public schools.
- Swizec 9y ago
  Even if you know you’re losing money, if you can’t afford to invest you can’t invest.
- mantas 9y ago
  $30 is big upfront costs? Seriously? Of course, that may be a bigger sum in 3rd world countries. But they don't have Amazon there at all and probably don't use diapers either.
  - j4kp07 9y ago
    Don't you get it? Anecdotes and hypotheticals trump logic and common sense.
    - zbentley 9y ago
      How about statistics instead of anecdotes? This article is pretty well sourced, and, while not all of the math checks out, the preponderance of evidence seems to point towards "yes, that is a regular choice that poor people in the US make": http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/17/AR2009051702053.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05...
  - war1025 9y ago
    When you are making minimum wage, which I believe is ~$7.50/hr, and are most likely not working full time, that is a good chunk of a day's pay. Granted, if you are in that situation, you are probably getting some government assistance. Also, some people are just terrible at managing money.
    - mantas 9y ago
      Let's say small packs cost $85/mo (as per $1k/year). Big monthly pack is $30. So weekly supplies in small packs are barely cheaper than buying in bulk for a month. Unless you pay day's diapers every day.. Do you think poor people are stupid and can't plan even a week ahead? They're getting paid weekly or monthly in most cases after all. In my experience, poor people are much better at managing money than better off folks. I could see plenty of people who couldn't bother to order bulk of diapers and then store them somewhere. But poor people usually go the extra mile even for couple bucks.
      - war1025 9y ago
        My comment wasn't about poor people being dumb. My comment was attempting to point out that, when you are poor, small amounts of money matter a lot more. I may have worded it poorly or misread the context of the comment I was replying to, but the point I was trying to get across is that when you don't have much money, you have to be much more conscious about how you spend it. And if you aren't, then you go broke and don't eat for a while. It's an easy thing for well-off people to lose sight of.
        mantas 9y ago
        Exactly, they're much m ore conscious about how they spend it. Thus putting aside $30 is no brainer vs buying in small packs. Most people, poor or not, get paid weekly or monthly. It's not that hard to buy $30 worth of goods after getting paid vs spending $10 every few days...
      - TheCoelacanth 9y ago
        It's usually not that they are stupid, it's often that they literally don't have the money to pay the upfront cost of the bigger pack because they are living paycheck to paycheck.
  - m_eiman 9y ago
    Try one of the poverty simulators, here's one: http://playspent.org/html/ http://playspent.org/html/
    - mantas 9y ago
      I'm more than enough familiar with poverty. In my country, $30 is a day's wage. Let's say small packs cost $85/mo (as per $1k/year). Big monthly pack is $30. So weekly supplies in small packs are barely cheaper than buying in bulk for a month. Do you really think poor people are that stupid? That's flat out insulting. In my experience, poor people are fuckin great at managing money they got. Of course, some of them are barely functioning in a society due to illnesses or addictions. But there're plenty of well-off people who don't know jack shit about budgeting and live paycheck-to-paycheck.
    - adrianN 9y ago
      Are there realistic poverty simulators? This one has a catastrophe happen every day, cars breaking down, teeth needing treatment, plumbing problems, traffic fines, credit card bills for expenses that happen before the game starts... You're set up to fail.
      - mantas 9y ago
        It's a stupid asshole, not a poor simulator. Maybe US is different, but in Europe most poors wouldn't get credit card to begin with. Even payday loans are strictly regulated. Many of them will know how to fix common plumbing problems too..
      - jaclaz 9y ago
        >This one has a catastrophe happen every day, cars breaking down, teeth needing treatment, plumbing problems, traffic fines, credit card bills for expenses that happen before the game starts... I see the issue more about it being a moralistic simulator. (or if you prefer a simulator with a political agenda behind) The kid needs $15 to go with a school excursion, I don't have them, the kid remains in school and the stupid simulator doesn't miss the occasion to remark this. And surely my kid won't get them $100 sneakers! And my family pet is not going to suffer, because I have NO family pets, I can't afford them. By behaving as a total bastard, including having my pet suffering, having the kid become hungry because he is too proud to get the free lunch and deciding to ignore everything else including the medical check for chest pain, I can get to the end of the month. But a number of questions and answers are clearly targeted to inducing the player into anti-consummerism (which maybe is a good thing) while on the other hand hard pressing on completely senseless society stigmas. This: "You chose to live farther away from your job, so your rent is lower. But your gas costs are higher. In fact, for every dollar a working family saves on housing, they spend an additional 77 cents on transportation." could have been written as: "Congratulations, you know how to move a slider left and right, and choose the combination that costs less, between $855 living nearer and $760 living further you chose to save $95 per month or around 8% of your net income"
- dpeck 9y ago
  Perfect example of the Sam Vimes Boot Theory (https://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Sam_Vimes_Theory_of_Economic_Injustice https://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Sam_Vimes_Theory_of_Econom...) at work. Nothing is more expensive than being poor.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
taneq 9y ago
Not all disposable nappies are the same. The ones for $0.10 each are pretty horrible.

by ythn 9y ago

atwebb 9y ago

No source but I believe that's a big issue. If you don't have money, you can't buy at scale (or store/transport it). Though here it isn't that much (relatively) like say buying bulk beef vs store bought.

craftyguy 9y ago

folks living paycheck to paycheck cannot afford big upfront costs like this. even if it saves them money in the long term. too bad personal finance isn't a thing taught in public schools.

Swizec 9y ago
Even if you know you’re losing money, if you can’t afford to invest you can’t invest.
mantas 9y ago
$30 is big upfront costs? Seriously? Of course, that may be a bigger sum in 3rd world countries. But they don't have Amazon there at all and probably don't use diapers either.
- j4kp07 9y ago
  Don't you get it? Anecdotes and hypotheticals trump logic and common sense.
  - zbentley 9y ago
    How about statistics instead of anecdotes? This article is pretty well sourced, and, while not all of the math checks out, the preponderance of evidence seems to point towards "yes, that is a regular choice that poor people in the US make": http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/17/AR2009051702053.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05...
- war1025 9y ago
  When you are making minimum wage, which I believe is ~$7.50/hr, and are most likely not working full time, that is a good chunk of a day's pay. Granted, if you are in that situation, you are probably getting some government assistance. Also, some people are just terrible at managing money.
  - mantas 9y ago
    Let's say small packs cost $85/mo (as per $1k/year). Big monthly pack is $30. So weekly supplies in small packs are barely cheaper than buying in bulk for a month. Unless you pay day's diapers every day.. Do you think poor people are stupid and can't plan even a week ahead? They're getting paid weekly or monthly in most cases after all. In my experience, poor people are much better at managing money than better off folks. I could see plenty of people who couldn't bother to order bulk of diapers and then store them somewhere. But poor people usually go the extra mile even for couple bucks.
    - war1025 9y ago
      My comment wasn't about poor people being dumb. My comment was attempting to point out that, when you are poor, small amounts of money matter a lot more. I may have worded it poorly or misread the context of the comment I was replying to, but the point I was trying to get across is that when you don't have much money, you have to be much more conscious about how you spend it. And if you aren't, then you go broke and don't eat for a while. It's an easy thing for well-off people to lose sight of.
      - mantas 9y ago
        Exactly, they're much m ore conscious about how they spend it. Thus putting aside $30 is no brainer vs buying in small packs. Most people, poor or not, get paid weekly or monthly. It's not that hard to buy $30 worth of goods after getting paid vs spending $10 every few days...
    - TheCoelacanth 9y ago
      It's usually not that they are stupid, it's often that they literally don't have the money to pay the upfront cost of the bigger pack because they are living paycheck to paycheck.
- m_eiman 9y ago
  Try one of the poverty simulators, here's one: http://playspent.org/html/ http://playspent.org/html/
  - mantas 9y ago
    I'm more than enough familiar with poverty. In my country, $30 is a day's wage. Let's say small packs cost $85/mo (as per $1k/year). Big monthly pack is $30. So weekly supplies in small packs are barely cheaper than buying in bulk for a month. Do you really think poor people are that stupid? That's flat out insulting. In my experience, poor people are fuckin great at managing money they got. Of course, some of them are barely functioning in a society due to illnesses or addictions. But there're plenty of well-off people who don't know jack shit about budgeting and live paycheck-to-paycheck.
  - adrianN 9y ago
    Are there realistic poverty simulators? This one has a catastrophe happen every day, cars breaking down, teeth needing treatment, plumbing problems, traffic fines, credit card bills for expenses that happen before the game starts... You're set up to fail.
    - mantas 9y ago
      It's a stupid asshole, not a poor simulator. Maybe US is different, but in Europe most poors wouldn't get credit card to begin with. Even payday loans are strictly regulated. Many of them will know how to fix common plumbing problems too..
    - jaclaz 9y ago
      >This one has a catastrophe happen every day, cars breaking down, teeth needing treatment, plumbing problems, traffic fines, credit card bills for expenses that happen before the game starts... I see the issue more about it being a moralistic simulator. (or if you prefer a simulator with a political agenda behind) The kid needs $15 to go with a school excursion, I don't have them, the kid remains in school and the stupid simulator doesn't miss the occasion to remark this. And surely my kid won't get them $100 sneakers! And my family pet is not going to suffer, because I have NO family pets, I can't afford them. By behaving as a total bastard, including having my pet suffering, having the kid become hungry because he is too proud to get the free lunch and deciding to ignore everything else including the medical check for chest pain, I can get to the end of the month. But a number of questions and answers are clearly targeted to inducing the player into anti-consummerism (which maybe is a good thing) while on the other hand hard pressing on completely senseless society stigmas. This: "You chose to live farther away from your job, so your rent is lower. But your gas costs are higher. In fact, for every dollar a working family saves on housing, they spend an additional 77 cents on transportation." could have been written as: "Congratulations, you know how to move a slider left and right, and choose the combination that costs less, between $855 living nearer and $760 living further you chose to save $95 per month or around 8% of your net income"
dpeck 9y ago
Perfect example of the Sam Vimes Boot Theory (https://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Sam_Vimes_Theory_of_Economic_Injustice https://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Sam_Vimes_Theory_of_Econom...) at work. Nothing is more expensive than being poor.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

taneq 9y ago

Not all disposable nappies are the same. The ones for $0.10 each are pretty horrible.