8 ms·

I think you're really, really on to something, but just simply that calling it "surviving poverty" will give most people the wrong impression. You've got to co

I think you're really, really on to something, but just simply that calling it "surviving poverty" will give most people the wrong impression. You've got to convince people that by spending every windfall (and by windfall I literally mean like 20 to 50 extra dollars) to "make up" for the resentment they felt when they couldn't pay their rent on time and got Eviction Notice #1... they've got to SAVE IT or the entire rest of their life will just be a boom and bust cycle of windfalls. Once you are proactively "defending" not eating into your hard earned savings account, your mentality changes 180 degrees - in a single day vs when you are living in the red 365 day/yr. I know a guy from college, poorest guy I know, constantly begging off family & getting late fees on his rent. He works a crap job though at least 250% minimum wage because he couldn't finish school on the 6 years of full-ride scholarship he got for having the right skin color (school diversity scholarship) and then still wanted a degree so took out a $80,000 loan for a fraud school. He failed out. I lived 2 years on his same income, it is low, but he doesn't live in a HCOL area - so I can assure you it is plenty if carefully managed. He doesn't buy anything impressive, he appears to live a basic life, BUT: He just has no idea how to manage his emotions and therefore to manage his occasional spending. There are probably 10 guys like him for every person who actually is so broke there is no way out. I know how he uses his windfalls - he openly admits it to me without even thinking for a second that it makes no sense - and he's in his 40s now. I can't lecture on it because the emotional wall that comes up won't let him hear - it is "capitalism" that is to blame apparently and some politicians. This is what America's "poor" looks like, it is far more a mental state than concrete reality.

Broken_Hippo 6y ago
There is no windfall in poverty. In general, folks with money are able to have things like comfortable shoes, entertainment, and not worry about their electricity being turned off if they have a flat tire. Every "windfall" takes care of a need, makes you more secure with things like food and shelter, or gives you some mental relief by providing a few moments of entertainment. There is no saving for those other things if you have been walking to work because you can't afford to fix the flat tire or if you've been in pain due to poor shoes. There is no advice on how to afford things if you only have $5 extra at the end of the month and definitely no advice on how to afford life if you simply don't earn enough. "Saving a windfall" is pointless if you have a hospital bill that is threatening to sue and deduct the money from your paycheck. I am not sure you really understand poverty.
- silverpepsi 6y ago
  False theories of poverty spread by people like yourself are the reason more people don't get the right advice to get out. They're told something crazy like "well yeah you just don't have enough money, too bad" The guy I'm talking about has windfalls - and when they come he'll feel so bad he goes out with friends and blows $30 on a meal. If he changed his celebrations to $15 meals using a coupon clipped from the paper (I know he can, I've been with him I know his world and options) and saved the other $15, the next time he got an unexpected bill he would have the savings to cover it. (The definition of unexpected here is very loose - because for him it is very loose. Everything is "unexpected" and "unplanned" - but YES - a flat tire) He does this and before long his credit score starts to improve, before long he has balance free transfer offers, before long he is no longer throwing money at credit card interest but instead paying down the balance because he has 18 months 0 interest My OTHER friend, who is now a millionaire, was earning the same super low income. But he was already investing based on this income by making hard compromises on day-to-day living. He is Asian, so has a completely different cultural background based on his immigrate parents believing one needs to save no matter how low their income. Yeah if he didn't get a better job he probably wouldn't have made it to the millions, but, on a poor salary he was already well on his way to home ownership and all the domino effect line of decisions that lead to lower and lower cost of living (once you're in a home equity is building instead of disappearing on rent) etc. even on the same low salary. If I didn't know the Asian guy, I'd probably still be using your same line of argumentation - pretending that there is some lower limit where you "just don't have enough" but it is just such hogwash & excuses that got the poor where they are in 9 of 10 cases of poverty in the US at least. Clearly there is a huge difference with the 1 case or with cases in another country where the political system's own evils may cause it
  - ghufran_syed 6y ago
    I have no idea of this applies to all low-income people, but I certainly known people who would have trouble paying their rent during the year, but would later spend their tax refund on a trip to hawaii (from california) rather than save it for a rainy day. I went to university with a student who couldn't afford a $30 calculator for class, but would buy a $200 bottle of booze while on a night out for her friend's birthday. Pretending that none of the poor have maladaptive behaviors is not helpful to them. There are also many other reasons for poverty, many of which are not under that person's control - but that makes it more important to control what you can "Black rednecks and white liberals" by Thomas Sowell has a lot more details about cultural traits associated with persistent vs transient poverty
BoiledCabbage 6y ago
> There are probably 10 guys like him for every person who actually is so broke there is no way out...This is what America's "poor" looks like, it is far more a mental state than concrete reality. No, this is what poverty looks like in the strawman you've built up in your head. I guarantee you the person you describe exists, and is just as you describe - but they're also not representative of American poverty. But they're certainly the caricature of it that certain groups love to push for political reasons and have been doing so consistently for decades. In the 80s it went by the myth of the 'welfare queens'. A caricature that was demonstrably false - but that didn't stop it from becoming a commonly held perspective at the time (people have since learned the truth). And the process goes back further than that.
- BurningFrog 6y ago
  I won't speculate about numbers, but until I dealt with people with "spending problems", I had NO IDEA seemingly smart people could be like that! Simplest way to describe it is that their definition of "I can afford X" is "right now I have more money than X costs". Really! These people will of course always be poor, regardless of income, subsidies etc. How many they are is an empirical question, and I haven't seen any data. One idea to handle them I like is to pay people daily, instead of monthly/biweekly. In the modern computerized world, that should be simple, and could really help some people.
  - FlyMoreRockets 6y ago
    Living month to month from cash reserves is the general way to describe this mindset, and is is the reason the nation sees a significant increase in purchases of durable goods when tax returns roll in each spring. Your idea of daily payouts is a very clever hack on the system and deserves a practical trial. It would be most interesting to see if it encourages inceased savings on this scale.
- tjs8rj 6y ago
  Asking in good faith: data to back you up? Just my anecdata, growing up living in apartments with 8 siblings at one point, many friends who grew up in foster homes and trailer parks - maybe 1 or 2 I could recall who were “doing everything right” but still poor, and that seemed primarily because they were on disability and elderly. The rest? Spent every paycheck, griped about immigrants and how the govt takes too much, bought lottery tickets, tons of toys at Christmas. One couple even lost had his kids taken away by CPS, was told they’d get them back once they could move out of the hotel they were living in and demonstrate they could stick to a budget - they spent their tax refund on a used Mustang. Perhaps there are plenty of people who save what they can, make smart financial decisions, and STILL struggle in poverty. That’s not the case in my experience, but I’d love to be wrong. The hardest part about escaping may just be having no clue how to, or just plain refusing to implement it.
aiisjustanif 6y ago
If that’s the poorest guy you know, then you don’t really know poverty. Come on over to Mississippi.

Broken_Hippo 6y ago

There is no windfall in poverty. In general, folks with money are able to have things like comfortable shoes, entertainment, and not worry about their electricity being turned off if they have a flat tire. Every "windfall" takes care of a need, makes you more secure with things like food and shelter, or gives you some mental relief by providing a few moments of entertainment. There is no saving for those other things if you have been walking to work because you can't afford to fix the flat tire or if you've been in pain due to poor shoes. There is no advice on how to afford things if you only have $5 extra at the end of the month and definitely no advice on how to afford life if you simply don't earn enough. "Saving a windfall" is pointless if you have a hospital bill that is threatening to sue and deduct the money from your paycheck. I am not sure you really understand poverty.

silverpepsi 6y ago
False theories of poverty spread by people like yourself are the reason more people don't get the right advice to get out. They're told something crazy like "well yeah you just don't have enough money, too bad" The guy I'm talking about has windfalls - and when they come he'll feel so bad he goes out with friends and blows $30 on a meal. If he changed his celebrations to $15 meals using a coupon clipped from the paper (I know he can, I've been with him I know his world and options) and saved the other $15, the next time he got an unexpected bill he would have the savings to cover it. (The definition of unexpected here is very loose - because for him it is very loose. Everything is "unexpected" and "unplanned" - but YES - a flat tire) He does this and before long his credit score starts to improve, before long he has balance free transfer offers, before long he is no longer throwing money at credit card interest but instead paying down the balance because he has 18 months 0 interest My OTHER friend, who is now a millionaire, was earning the same super low income. But he was already investing based on this income by making hard compromises on day-to-day living. He is Asian, so has a completely different cultural background based on his immigrate parents believing one needs to save no matter how low their income. Yeah if he didn't get a better job he probably wouldn't have made it to the millions, but, on a poor salary he was already well on his way to home ownership and all the domino effect line of decisions that lead to lower and lower cost of living (once you're in a home equity is building instead of disappearing on rent) etc. even on the same low salary. If I didn't know the Asian guy, I'd probably still be using your same line of argumentation - pretending that there is some lower limit where you "just don't have enough" but it is just such hogwash & excuses that got the poor where they are in 9 of 10 cases of poverty in the US at least. Clearly there is a huge difference with the 1 case or with cases in another country where the political system's own evils may cause it
- ghufran_syed 6y ago
  I have no idea of this applies to all low-income people, but I certainly known people who would have trouble paying their rent during the year, but would later spend their tax refund on a trip to hawaii (from california) rather than save it for a rainy day. I went to university with a student who couldn't afford a $30 calculator for class, but would buy a $200 bottle of booze while on a night out for her friend's birthday. Pretending that none of the poor have maladaptive behaviors is not helpful to them. There are also many other reasons for poverty, many of which are not under that person's control - but that makes it more important to control what you can "Black rednecks and white liberals" by Thomas Sowell has a lot more details about cultural traits associated with persistent vs transient poverty

BoiledCabbage 6y ago

> There are probably 10 guys like him for every person who actually is so broke there is no way out...This is what America's "poor" looks like, it is far more a mental state than concrete reality. No, this is what poverty looks like in the strawman you've built up in your head. I guarantee you the person you describe exists, and is just as you describe - but they're also not representative of American poverty. But they're certainly the caricature of it that certain groups love to push for political reasons and have been doing so consistently for decades. In the 80s it went by the myth of the 'welfare queens'. A caricature that was demonstrably false - but that didn't stop it from becoming a commonly held perspective at the time (people have since learned the truth). And the process goes back further than that.

BurningFrog 6y ago
I won't speculate about numbers, but until I dealt with people with "spending problems", I had NO IDEA seemingly smart people could be like that! Simplest way to describe it is that their definition of "I can afford X" is "right now I have more money than X costs". Really! These people will of course always be poor, regardless of income, subsidies etc. How many they are is an empirical question, and I haven't seen any data. One idea to handle them I like is to pay people daily, instead of monthly/biweekly. In the modern computerized world, that should be simple, and could really help some people.
- FlyMoreRockets 6y ago
  Living month to month from cash reserves is the general way to describe this mindset, and is is the reason the nation sees a significant increase in purchases of durable goods when tax returns roll in each spring. Your idea of daily payouts is a very clever hack on the system and deserves a practical trial. It would be most interesting to see if it encourages inceased savings on this scale.
tjs8rj 6y ago
Asking in good faith: data to back you up? Just my anecdata, growing up living in apartments with 8 siblings at one point, many friends who grew up in foster homes and trailer parks - maybe 1 or 2 I could recall who were “doing everything right” but still poor, and that seemed primarily because they were on disability and elderly. The rest? Spent every paycheck, griped about immigrants and how the govt takes too much, bought lottery tickets, tons of toys at Christmas. One couple even lost had his kids taken away by CPS, was told they’d get them back once they could move out of the hotel they were living in and demonstrate they could stick to a budget - they spent their tax refund on a used Mustang. Perhaps there are plenty of people who save what they can, make smart financial decisions, and STILL struggle in poverty. That’s not the case in my experience, but I’d love to be wrong. The hardest part about escaping may just be having no clue how to, or just plain refusing to implement it.

aiisjustanif 6y ago

If that’s the poorest guy you know, then you don’t really know poverty. Come on over to Mississippi.