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This kind of comment can only come from someone well off. Poverty is not simply a problem of money, but of time and opportunity as well. When you're poor, you

This kind of comment can only come from someone well off. Poverty is not simply a problem of money, but of time and opportunity as well. When you're poor, you can't take advantage of opportunities to save money, because your needs are immediate, your coffers low, and your ability to store limited. You work long hours, hungry all the time, and then go home exhausted, unable to even think about spending time planning and preparing meals or dealing with the growing mountain of paperwork, or worrying about what broke that needs fixing. I've been in this situation, and it's not fun. At one point, I spent a month living on bean sprouts and instant ramen, because that was the only thing within walking range that was chaep. You get calories, yes, so you don't die. But your brain suffers, your judgment suffers, and you're tired all the time. I'm shocked I didn't get scurvy, tbh. When you're in the poverty spiral, it's almost impossibly difficult to pull yourself out.

d1zzy 8y ago
While I haven't had to live with hunger all my life, I've been through some months of real hunger, with no money to buy food. Your description above comes very close to my (foggy) memories of the experience. It changed me. Things that I remember: - like you said, I was constantly tired because of the constant feeling of hunger. I was mostly one minded, thinking about how to get any food. - I was also grumpy (low blood sugar), didn't talk almost at all (although I was sharing my room with other people so there was plenty of opportunity to speak). Also made me feel like the lowest person around, useless, because I would just wait around until my room mates would prepare something to eat hoping that they'd invite me to share, that was really bad for self esteem. I was starting to think (could be real, but in my state of mind at the time I can't be sure) that my room mates were going hungry/delaying eating to avoid me being there so I started going out just to let them eat and not feel bad of not being able to share - it didn't help that I got fired from my first job after 2 weeks of work (and they didn't pay me anything) I got out of it by blind luck, a friend found someone that was looking to hire someone with my skills and told me about it.

d1zzy 8y ago

While I haven't had to live with hunger all my life, I've been through some months of real hunger, with no money to buy food. Your description above comes very close to my (foggy) memories of the experience. It changed me. Things that I remember: - like you said, I was constantly tired because of the constant feeling of hunger. I was mostly one minded, thinking about how to get any food. - I was also grumpy (low blood sugar), didn't talk almost at all (although I was sharing my room with other people so there was plenty of opportunity to speak). Also made me feel like the lowest person around, useless, because I would just wait around until my room mates would prepare something to eat hoping that they'd invite me to share, that was really bad for self esteem. I was starting to think (could be real, but in my state of mind at the time I can't be sure) that my room mates were going hungry/delaying eating to avoid me being there so I started going out just to let them eat and not feel bad of not being able to share - it didn't help that I got fired from my first job after 2 weeks of work (and they didn't pay me anything) I got out of it by blind luck, a friend found someone that was looking to hire someone with my skills and told me about it.