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Having an iPhone isn't inexplicable. You can finance or lease a phone for $30-$40 a month. And given the extraordinary advantages having a smartphone provides,

Having an iPhone isn't inexplicable. You can finance or lease a phone for $30-$40 a month. And given the extraordinary advantages having a smartphone provides, it would be inexplicable if they did not do so. Also, cigarettes are an appetite suppressant and in many places are cheaper than food. Food stamps are hardly comprehensive. Cheaper, that is, until it all catches up to you medically. One thing I've learned in my years is how much cheaper life is when you make good money. I can buy healthy food. I can go to the doctor. I can buy shoes and jeans that last. I can properly fix things right when they break. And so on and so on. I pay more upfront to save a ton down the line.

umvi 8y ago
> Having an iPhone isn't inexplicable. You can finance or lease a phone for $30-$40 a month. And given the extraordinary advantages having a smartphone provides, it would be inexplicable if they did not do so. It's inexplicable when there are alternative phones available for 1/10 the cost. Why would you choose to take on a $40/mo expense when you could buy an entire fully functioning low end Android phone for $40? > And so on and so on. I pay more upfront to save a ton down the line. But my example is that I'm paying less upfront than my neighbors. They are the ones buying iPhones and name brand cereal with SNAP while I'm over here using cheap phones and eating generic brand cereal. It just seems paradoxical is all I'm saying.
- michaelchisari 8y ago
  But my example is that I'm paying less upfront than my neighbors. Not if their phone is their only computing device. name brand cereal Sometimes when you're struggling, affording yourself some basic pleasures keeps you from giving up entirely.
- 2bitencryption 8y ago
  What if the iPhones make them happy, and your Nokia 520 would not? What if they're just pursuing their happiness? What if the value of that happiness is more than the value they could have saved with a budget junker phone? What if their lives are not very happy, but this one thing makes them happy? Is it worth it then? I would argue yes. This reminds me of that infamous Fox News talking point: "Look at these people, living in poverty, and yet they still have microwaves in their kitchen! Maybe if they weren't living beyond their means, they wouldn't be in the slums!"
  - beatgammit 8y ago
    That's a lot of what ifs. I bet that they'd be happier with a crappier phone when they lose their job and have enough savings to ride out looking for a new one. In fact, they'd probably find a better paying job if they didn't have to take the first one they could land. The problem with poverty is that many think "that's how life is" and don't realize that they can get out of the cycle. If people in poverty saved just $20 per week, they'd have $1000 in one year, which is nearly a month's pay at minimum wage. $20 per week is likely the amount they spend on "luxury" items, like fast food and a fancy phone bill. In fact, the average cell phone bill for an individual is ~$70, or around $1k per year, and nearly half spend over $100[1]. Having a month's pay in cash means you have that much longer to find a new job, and can withstand emergencies like a broken car that often result in taking on payday loans or the like. Yes, they probably think that their fancy phone makes them happy, but I think it's quite the opposite because it's increasing the frequency of financial stressors. The happiest people aren't the ones with the most stuff, but the ones with the most financial stability. - [1] http://business.time.com/2012/10/18/47-a-month-why-youre-probably-paying-double-the-average-cell-phone-bill/ http://business.time.com/2012/10/18/47-a-month-why-youre-pro...
    - scarface74 8y ago
      If people in poverty saved just $20 per week, they'd have $1000 in one year, which is nearly a month's pay at minimum wage. $20 per week is likely the amount they spend on "luxury" items, like fast food McDouble is 'cheapest and most nutritious food in human history' https://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/10210327/McDouble-is-cheapest-and-most-nutritious-food-in-human-history.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/10210327/McDouble-i...
      - toasterlovin 8y ago
        It’s not. You can get 2400 calories of milk for $2.29 at the Kroger in my neighborhood.
    - felix_nagaand 8y ago
      That $1000 in a year is literally $1000 or so lost opportunities. That's ~1500 calories/ day for the year buying gas station pizza. It's hard to work when you're hungry. That's electricity or heat and water for most of a year. That's a beater to get through a winter. That's a couple visits to urgent care. That's cell phone and internet payments for a year. That's half a deposit on an average apartment. That's winter tires and months of gas. How can someone who is unable to think rationally (because they're poor and are at the mercy of capitalists) to keep them homelessness? The reality is terrifying and anyone who can muddle through it without resorting to crime, drug addiction, or being institutionalized is a person of immense strength of mind and character. Arguably stronger and more resourceful people than the multi generational families of inheritance. What good could $1000 really do for someone? $1000 to me is insignificant and yet more than half a month's rent. In order to escape this poverty trap I'd need a lot more money, money I'll never have. Even if I saved as aggressively as possible making sacrifices like eating only the cheapest foods available, buying only second hand clothing, cutting my own hair, biking an hour instead of the 10 minute drive to work, I'd only be able to save $400/mo. An extra $5k/yr at a loss of over half my free time and nearly every empty pleasure in life affords me the ability to what? Spend 8 years getting an outdated associates degree at a community college? I have several friends who did that, currently making more than them with only a HS diploma, yet still dead broke, paycheck to paycheck. Oooh. Maybe 16 years for a bachelor's degree. I'm sure I'll be a desirable applicant in my forties or fifties with entry level skills. The point is, poor people can't save their way out of poverty like they can't work their way to ceo unless they're actively groomed for better positions. The vast majority of companies are actively removing progression tracked positions and automating the higher skilled positions to further rely on low wage low skill workers that get stuck there. This is a travesty and left unchecked will further the social collapse of this country. You really should get out of your social bubble and interact with middle aged people working minimum wage jobs. You'll find a lot of unlucky but otherwise hard working, honest, reliable, and compassionate people, as well the occasional jerk. Try to get to know the jerk and find out why they're abrasive. Chances are they've had a hard life and their efforts failed to pay off in meaningful ways. Sure some might be truly awful despite having been given every advantage, but those are few and far between.
- samd 8y ago
  How much do you have to save on your phone bill before you can buy a house? The difference between a cheap Android and an old iPhone isn't going to be enough to buy a home, or provide food for the family every day, or pay for (or off) an education, or pay for medical expenses, or buy a reliable car, or any of the other truly expensive things that those with wealth take for granted. Judging the spending habits of the poor on small luxuries is a common way we shift the blame of poverty onto the poor. It allows the rich to feel better about themselves and about the society they've built.
  - umvi 8y ago
    I understand that poor people aren't to blame for being poor (the vast majority, at least). But this mindset only serves to keep them going in the same rut. "Poor people deserve small luxuries", "Can't you just allow them to have a few rays of sunshine in their bleak lives?", etc. In order to escape poverty, at some point you need to stop thinking and acting like a poor person and start thinking and acting like a middle class person. When and how do you propose that happens? Frugal middle class don't smoke and drink their money away, nor buy top shelf electronics and food products if money is tight. They cut coupons, buy off-brand, save, and invest. At some point, poor people need to be somehow taught these things that we intrinsically know. Poor people need money, but they need (perhaps even more) education and role models to emulate which is something the government can't easily provide. It's probably the oldest and most difficult problem to solve in the history of humanity because it requires a large amount of people to be empathetic and charitable with not just their money, but their time.
    - DoreenMichele 8y ago
      You implicitly seem to assume that poverty is mostly about poor money management. In reality, it's substantially more complicated than that. For some people, whose larger problems are likely unresolvable, small bright spots are the only thing making life somewhat worthwhile.
- ams6110 8y ago
  Same. I make good money, I have cheap Motorola Android phone and a $12/month talk/ text plan. It's fine for email, surfing, YouTube, etc. (on wifi; there's no mobile data, but free WiFi is easy to find)
- darpa_escapee 8y ago
  > Why would you choose to take on a $40/mo expense when you could buy an entire fully functioning low end Android phone for $40? I've used $40 Android phones, and they're barely usable with modern apps. Once the battery starts to degrade, which happens quickly, performance drops from barely usable to intermittently usable, with frequent freezing and reboots. Looking at Sprint.com, iPhones are available for $18 a month. Do you own a laptop or a workstation?
  - scarface74 8y ago
    My son couldn’t even get Uber to work on his cheap Android Phone and the battery life was horrible. On the other hand my “luxurious” iPhone 6s I bought in 2015, is still going strong, getting updates, and speed wise, is still faster than most modern Android phones.
- scarface74 8y ago
  I’m not saying they should buy iPhones. But if a smart phone is thier only computer, it makes perfect sense to buy a higher end phone.
- DarthTetanus 8y ago
  I hope your (probably imaginary) neighbors literally eat you.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Riseed 8y ago
> Having an iPhone isn't inexplicable. You can finance or lease a phone for $30-$40 a month. You can also be given an iPhone as a gift or hand-me-down. Or decide to keep it instead of selling it when you lose your job or get really sick the rest of your life goes off the rails.

umvi 8y ago

> Having an iPhone isn't inexplicable. You can finance or lease a phone for $30-$40 a month. And given the extraordinary advantages having a smartphone provides, it would be inexplicable if they did not do so. It's inexplicable when there are alternative phones available for 1/10 the cost. Why would you choose to take on a $40/mo expense when you could buy an entire fully functioning low end Android phone for $40? > And so on and so on. I pay more upfront to save a ton down the line. But my example is that I'm paying less upfront than my neighbors. They are the ones buying iPhones and name brand cereal with SNAP while I'm over here using cheap phones and eating generic brand cereal. It just seems paradoxical is all I'm saying.

michaelchisari 8y ago
But my example is that I'm paying less upfront than my neighbors. Not if their phone is their only computing device. name brand cereal Sometimes when you're struggling, affording yourself some basic pleasures keeps you from giving up entirely.
2bitencryption 8y ago
What if the iPhones make them happy, and your Nokia 520 would not? What if they're just pursuing their happiness? What if the value of that happiness is more than the value they could have saved with a budget junker phone? What if their lives are not very happy, but this one thing makes them happy? Is it worth it then? I would argue yes. This reminds me of that infamous Fox News talking point: "Look at these people, living in poverty, and yet they still have microwaves in their kitchen! Maybe if they weren't living beyond their means, they wouldn't be in the slums!"
- beatgammit 8y ago
  That's a lot of what ifs. I bet that they'd be happier with a crappier phone when they lose their job and have enough savings to ride out looking for a new one. In fact, they'd probably find a better paying job if they didn't have to take the first one they could land. The problem with poverty is that many think "that's how life is" and don't realize that they can get out of the cycle. If people in poverty saved just $20 per week, they'd have $1000 in one year, which is nearly a month's pay at minimum wage. $20 per week is likely the amount they spend on "luxury" items, like fast food and a fancy phone bill. In fact, the average cell phone bill for an individual is ~$70, or around $1k per year, and nearly half spend over $100[1]. Having a month's pay in cash means you have that much longer to find a new job, and can withstand emergencies like a broken car that often result in taking on payday loans or the like. Yes, they probably think that their fancy phone makes them happy, but I think it's quite the opposite because it's increasing the frequency of financial stressors. The happiest people aren't the ones with the most stuff, but the ones with the most financial stability. - [1] http://business.time.com/2012/10/18/47-a-month-why-youre-probably-paying-double-the-average-cell-phone-bill/ http://business.time.com/2012/10/18/47-a-month-why-youre-pro...
  - scarface74 8y ago
    If people in poverty saved just $20 per week, they'd have $1000 in one year, which is nearly a month's pay at minimum wage. $20 per week is likely the amount they spend on "luxury" items, like fast food McDouble is 'cheapest and most nutritious food in human history' https://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/10210327/McDouble-is-cheapest-and-most-nutritious-food-in-human-history.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/10210327/McDouble-i...
    - toasterlovin 8y ago
      It’s not. You can get 2400 calories of milk for $2.29 at the Kroger in my neighborhood.
  - felix_nagaand 8y ago
    That $1000 in a year is literally $1000 or so lost opportunities. That's ~1500 calories/ day for the year buying gas station pizza. It's hard to work when you're hungry. That's electricity or heat and water for most of a year. That's a beater to get through a winter. That's a couple visits to urgent care. That's cell phone and internet payments for a year. That's half a deposit on an average apartment. That's winter tires and months of gas. How can someone who is unable to think rationally (because they're poor and are at the mercy of capitalists) to keep them homelessness? The reality is terrifying and anyone who can muddle through it without resorting to crime, drug addiction, or being institutionalized is a person of immense strength of mind and character. Arguably stronger and more resourceful people than the multi generational families of inheritance. What good could $1000 really do for someone? $1000 to me is insignificant and yet more than half a month's rent. In order to escape this poverty trap I'd need a lot more money, money I'll never have. Even if I saved as aggressively as possible making sacrifices like eating only the cheapest foods available, buying only second hand clothing, cutting my own hair, biking an hour instead of the 10 minute drive to work, I'd only be able to save $400/mo. An extra $5k/yr at a loss of over half my free time and nearly every empty pleasure in life affords me the ability to what? Spend 8 years getting an outdated associates degree at a community college? I have several friends who did that, currently making more than them with only a HS diploma, yet still dead broke, paycheck to paycheck. Oooh. Maybe 16 years for a bachelor's degree. I'm sure I'll be a desirable applicant in my forties or fifties with entry level skills. The point is, poor people can't save their way out of poverty like they can't work their way to ceo unless they're actively groomed for better positions. The vast majority of companies are actively removing progression tracked positions and automating the higher skilled positions to further rely on low wage low skill workers that get stuck there. This is a travesty and left unchecked will further the social collapse of this country. You really should get out of your social bubble and interact with middle aged people working minimum wage jobs. You'll find a lot of unlucky but otherwise hard working, honest, reliable, and compassionate people, as well the occasional jerk. Try to get to know the jerk and find out why they're abrasive. Chances are they've had a hard life and their efforts failed to pay off in meaningful ways. Sure some might be truly awful despite having been given every advantage, but those are few and far between.
samd 8y ago
How much do you have to save on your phone bill before you can buy a house? The difference between a cheap Android and an old iPhone isn't going to be enough to buy a home, or provide food for the family every day, or pay for (or off) an education, or pay for medical expenses, or buy a reliable car, or any of the other truly expensive things that those with wealth take for granted. Judging the spending habits of the poor on small luxuries is a common way we shift the blame of poverty onto the poor. It allows the rich to feel better about themselves and about the society they've built.
- umvi 8y ago
  I understand that poor people aren't to blame for being poor (the vast majority, at least). But this mindset only serves to keep them going in the same rut. "Poor people deserve small luxuries", "Can't you just allow them to have a few rays of sunshine in their bleak lives?", etc. In order to escape poverty, at some point you need to stop thinking and acting like a poor person and start thinking and acting like a middle class person. When and how do you propose that happens? Frugal middle class don't smoke and drink their money away, nor buy top shelf electronics and food products if money is tight. They cut coupons, buy off-brand, save, and invest. At some point, poor people need to be somehow taught these things that we intrinsically know. Poor people need money, but they need (perhaps even more) education and role models to emulate which is something the government can't easily provide. It's probably the oldest and most difficult problem to solve in the history of humanity because it requires a large amount of people to be empathetic and charitable with not just their money, but their time.
  - DoreenMichele 8y ago
    You implicitly seem to assume that poverty is mostly about poor money management. In reality, it's substantially more complicated than that. For some people, whose larger problems are likely unresolvable, small bright spots are the only thing making life somewhat worthwhile.
ams6110 8y ago
Same. I make good money, I have cheap Motorola Android phone and a $12/month talk/ text plan. It's fine for email, surfing, YouTube, etc. (on wifi; there's no mobile data, but free WiFi is easy to find)
darpa_escapee 8y ago
> Why would you choose to take on a $40/mo expense when you could buy an entire fully functioning low end Android phone for $40? I've used $40 Android phones, and they're barely usable with modern apps. Once the battery starts to degrade, which happens quickly, performance drops from barely usable to intermittently usable, with frequent freezing and reboots. Looking at Sprint.com, iPhones are available for $18 a month. Do you own a laptop or a workstation?
- scarface74 8y ago
  My son couldn’t even get Uber to work on his cheap Android Phone and the battery life was horrible. On the other hand my “luxurious” iPhone 6s I bought in 2015, is still going strong, getting updates, and speed wise, is still faster than most modern Android phones.
scarface74 8y ago
I’m not saying they should buy iPhones. But if a smart phone is thier only computer, it makes perfect sense to buy a higher end phone.
DarthTetanus 8y ago
I hope your (probably imaginary) neighbors literally eat you.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

Riseed 8y ago

> Having an iPhone isn't inexplicable. You can finance or lease a phone for $30-$40 a month. You can also be given an iPhone as a gift or hand-me-down. Or decide to keep it instead of selling it when you lose your job or get really sick the rest of your life goes off the rails.