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Throwaway because I don't want my co-workers to know. I was poor. My father left home when I was a kid in middle school. My mom worked part time cleaning house

• syops 6y ago
  I very much enjoyed reading your post. You made a statement that, taken literally, I disagree with and wonder if you care to elaborate more on it. I made it and you can too. It seems to me that luck plays a huge role in each success story like yours. My wife had a similar trajectory and makes quite a bit of money. However, along the way, there were hundreds of decisions made that could have gone the wrong way. She's smart and ambitious and quite lucky.
  • vorpalhex 6y ago
    I didn't have it as hard as the parent, but I remember choosing between bus fare and meals quite a few times. My first paycheck was spent on white bread and a tube of sausage, and now I live a pretty comfortable life. Most everyone in my orbit has improved their situation too. Sometimes that was with help from a family member, but generally things have gotten better for friends who were in the same circumstances I was. The two exceptions are those who got into drugs and never got out (a few folks I know seemed to never have issues, but they're the exception and not the rule) and a single friend who has some non-drug problems that probably need counseling work.
    • andromeduck 6y ago
      This is my experience too - almost everyone who hung out with me in the library, computer lab or metal shop seemed to do fairly well for themselves - not like 200k tech job well but like 80k blue collar or white collar when most of us grew up with less than 40k combined household income. Half of us first or second generation immigrants and refugees, lots of broken families, lots of substance abuse, lots from Romania, Serbia, Irab, Iraq, China. IMO it was passion for reading and building things with our hands that that seperated our cohort from the rest - that and the bond between those of us who knew we hadn't much of a safety net to rely on.
      • cammikebrown 6y ago
        I’m not sure of your age, but for instance, my dad, the sole breadwinner at the time, made $40k/year in 1989 when I was born, which is equivalent to $84k today. So, making $80k now and being raised on $40k/year then are the same thing if you adjust for inflation. (Furthermore, I’d argue healthcare, college, and housing are much more expensive now than they were then.)
        • andromeduck 6y ago
          I'm 28 now so this was about a decae ago. I personally never expected to make much more than 50k out of college, 100k by 35 career wise until my first internship. I think I can still live quite happily with ~60k by myself or ~90k with a loving family. Good books and good company were all I had and all I think I'll ever need - that and the satisfaction of a job well done be it a piece of code well written, a field well groomed and raked or a McDonalds well wiped and scrubbed.
      • deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
  • YinglingLight 6y ago
    It seems to me that luck plays a huge role The concept of Talent Stacking: https://personalexcellence.co/blog/talent-stack/ https://personalexcellence.co/blog/talent-stack/ Those who accrue and leverage a variety of skills tend to get 'lucky'. This is why you could strip most entrepreneurs of all their money and assets, and not be surprised to see them enjoying success in 5 years. You put into place a system that makes making the right decisions inevitable, and learning from the wrong decisions. To believe that your success is out of your hands is incredibly disempowering. I understand it's primary function is to help you empathize with others, but it subconsciously has a hold on you. A very limiting belief, I'd 'yeet' it immediately.
    • scsilver 6y ago
      Remove them from their network and see what happens.
      • pbronez 6y ago
        Sure, but social capital is an asset you build like anything else. Remove a big chunk of anyone’s wealth - liquid, paper, social, health - and it’s gonna be painful and disruptive. The point isn’t that they’d be poor if you took away what they built... it’s that they succeed in building it in the first place! That process of building wealth in all its forms is the key. It’s not easy. It’s definitely not fair. Some people start out way ahead. Some people start out way behind and don’t even have role models to show how it’s done. It always takes time. My view is that you just have to accept people where they are, respect their efforts, politely look past their structural (dis)advantages, and deal with them as human beings who deserve love and support for their own sake.
        • pnutjam 6y ago
          I think a big part of it is also the moral choices people are willing to make. Most people climb to success because they are incredibly talented (rare), incredibly lucky (nobody likes to admit it), or because it's always bowb your buddy week to them. Sometimes they are able to do a minor hurt to a vast number of people (marketing, some sales, etc...) and they don't feel like they are doing anything wrong. Sometimes they are just conforming to the standards our society has set, (everybody is doing it). I myself try to do the best, but I've discovered the only way to advance is to job hop my way to a decent salary. I'm sure this has caused problems for others, but it's accepted in this industry. I've seen others who won't job hop languish with much lower salaries.
  • dionidium 6y ago
    Of course luck plays a factor in everything everybody does. The question isn't whether luck plays a role; it's how much salience it deserves. This person made hundreds of good choices across decades to achieve the success they have, so it seems a bit perverse to focus instead on the hundreds of things outside their control.
    • jschwartzi 6y ago
      luck is just another word for other people.
    • II2II 6y ago
      Luck was not mentioned to diminish what the person has accomplished. It was intended to point out that their story may be difficult to replicate.
      • old_fart_dev 6y ago
        Re-read the objected to line: "I made it and you can too." Note that I emphasized "can" in that quote. "Can", not "will". This isn't a guarantee by throwaway-0987, it's words of encouragement to try. On a forum that celebrates startup moonshots, I find it odd that anyone would piss on the idea that trying is worth while.
        • KittenInABox 6y ago
          I genuinely don't know if even "can" is applicable to allpoor people in this context. A person who has a similar background but ended up with a chronic illness preventing them from working... that dream of working for 200k/yr is impossible.
          • tobib 6y ago
            We're not even talking about "that dream of working for 200k/yr" but the dream of living a decent life
  • jbluepolarbear 6y ago
    I think it’s not so much luck, but perseverance. I have a similar poor upbringing and I have built a pretty comfortable life by never letting myself get too down and always keep working towards a better life. Being smart helps, but really the best thing that works for me is being okay with failure. When you’re poor you fail a lot, being able to take that failure and learn from it separates the successful and the unsuccessful. If you’re rich none of this matters because life isn’t fair.
    • newswasboring 6y ago
      See you are disregarding all the luck a person had while being born in the right side of the world. I would say being born in the first world, even if poor, is a huge privilege which large parts of the world can't get. You win that lottery, and you already have a huge leg up. Now I don't want to convert this thread into misery olympics, all sadness is valid if felt genuinely and just because you are privilege in one sense doesn't mean your life is not incredibly hard. But if you think the large amounts of generationally poor, even in the first world, lack perseverance then you don't understand the game.
      • jbluepolarbear 6y ago
        I can only pull from my experiences, but I have witnessed many in my family and other poor families that only work hard enough to get what they need. And very few go beyond that and work for what they want. It’s hard, exhausting work. I regularly slept less than 4 hours because I’d be up all night working jobs, projects, anything to get a better life. My mom is mixed and my dad is white, I look like my mom but with really light skin. Being mostly white and not having my moms Arabic name helped get interviews and my foot in the door. What some see as luck is others using absolutely every advantage they can muster to go further than they would be able to otherwise.
      • andi999 6y ago
        Actually most of the third world has been progressing as well (with exceptions of course)
  • PragmaticPulp 6y ago
    The important part is to focus on the things you can control. Luck always plays a role, but your own actions decide how prepared you are to capitalize on lucky breaks when they arrive. Luck is important, but it’s a mistake to try to attribute the success of others purely to luck. Someone winning the lottery is lucky. Someone who gets hired because a company noticed their quality GitHub commits to a project relevant to their needs is also lucky, but their success isn’t the result of luck alone.
    • andromeduck 6y ago
      Yeah there's also thousands of potential opportunities like that over course of years, each with the potential to open new doors. One lucky break does not success make and a lucky break without the talent or drive to back it quickly collapses.
  • grumple 6y ago
    I have a similar story and luck played no part of it. I spent lots of time in public libraries and on public computers as a kid. As a result, I got an academic scholarship. A few years after graduating amidst the 2008 economic crisis, I heard about a company that used a particular programming language. I learned that language and convinced someone I knew at the company to get me an interview. I aced the interview and got the job. A lot of studying and a couple of job interviews later and I'm making good money at another company. If you study the right things, you'll get "lucky" in interviews because the more problems you've seen in the domain, the more likely you are to be tested against the knowledge you've already acquired. But that's clearly not luck - it's preparation. You won't ace every interview, but you'll do well in enough. I made the wrong decisions several times. I lacked focus in and after university that cost me several years in my twenties. As soon as I made a plan to change things, the plan worked. When a plan goes wrong, you evaluate and make a new plan. Every idea doesn't always work - you just need one that does.
    • nitrogen 6y ago
      someone I knew at the company Sounds fortunate. This is one aspect where I too have been "lucky" in the past, but you have to be both lucky and good.
      • grumple 6y ago
        I think the key is looking at the opportunities that you have, whatever they may be, and putting in the work to take advantage of them. I have hundreds of friends who are relatively poor and who have many opportunities they don’t take. For example, I’ve offered to give free guidance or instruction to many, but it turns out most people don’t want to take advantage of that. I told people I could hire them (into the very same role I first had), but they didn’t recognize the opportunity. People want easy, so they ignore opportunities like this in their lives.
        • nitrogen 6y ago
          Definitely agree that it's frustrating to offer to teach someone to code or something, and they act like "Who the F are you to think you can teach me?" or "Nah, seems boring" but then they turn around and resent you for your success. Some of the advice I wish friends would take is this: accept help wherever you can get it, as long as it won't distort your relationship or create an untenable dependency.
  • beaner 6y ago
    If it came down to hundreds of decisions along the way, not just one or two, that isn't luck. She's a good decision maker.
    • craftinator 6y ago
      Bad decisions can have good outcomes. People are notoriously bad at predicting the future, so really it depends on how often you get lucky. I think charisma has the greatest effect on this.
      • beaner 6y ago
        This is what people who make bad decisions tell themselves.
      • EvilEy3 6y ago
        I would argue if bad decision leads to better outcome then it is a good decision.
  • jinjin2 6y ago
    > along the way, there were hundreds of decisions made that could have gone the wrong way. And probably and equal amount of decisions that could have turned out better. So rather than being the result of one or two lucky or unlucky events, the final outcome is more likely to be the average of the quality of all the decisions over time.
    • clairity 6y ago
      no, it depends on the shape of the modeling function, and sociobiological functions are highly complex, possibly unknowable, but certainly not a simple linear function around which decisions revert to the same mean. for instance, consider success to be a knowable function (like y = ax^2 + bx + c ). luck would be like having high (initial) coefficients and constants through no effort of your own (e.g., being born into a wealthy, connected family). hard work and good decisions might allow you to increase (or decrease through neglect/bad decisions) these coefficients at the margin, but the relative advantage often remains many multiples of the disadvantaged.
  • kungito 6y ago
    I think this issue is very important and when I think about it I cannot help but think the answer lies all the way down in the question whether we have free will. Some people say "you have to be perseverant like me and you will make it and often time we think about people who have simply cannot be perseverant enough but they are good people. Can they be better "if they wanted it more" or "if someone helped them" and who would that person be? People especially here have stories with "I was in a bad situation but I worked hard learning coding" while many people were in a similar situation but didn't pick up coding as these people did. Are they to blame and did the other people pick coding because they knew it would launch them to great heights?
    • PragmaticPulp 6y ago
      > Are they to blame I think we’ve become so afraid of giving the impression of victim-blaming people who are down on their luck that we’re afraid to acknowledge that people can and do work their way into better life circumstances. Even if we think of luck as the central determinant of a person’s success in life, then we still have to acknowledge that the person’s own choices and actions will pivot their destiny around that luck. Licking in to a dream job through connections and serendipity doesn’t go very far if someone decides not to put in the effort required to succeed at the job, for example.
      • craftinator 6y ago
        > if someone decides not to put in the effort required to succeed at the job I read this rhetoric constantly, then I look at a bunch of hard working people that I know, who are poor. Luck is the opportunity to succeed, hard work is the way to capitalize on that opportunity. One without the other means no success. And on that same note, you can make "good decision" that cause you to miss out on amazing opportunities, and "bad decisions" that end you up in with great opportunities. I've made plenty of decisions that I thought at the time were kinda dumb, but put me in serendipitous situations which ended up landing me great jobs. So really, the luckier you are, the more chances you'll have to escape poverty; if you're willing to work hard at those critical times, you'll actually succeed.
      • 6y ago
  • sologoub 6y ago
    As someone who has experienced pretty rough times (different from the OP), but doing just fine myself, of course luck has a lot to do with it, but why in the world so many people feel so compelled to belittle the accomplishment of OP climbing out and then encouraging others to at least hope for the same? I’m pretty sure things would be very different today if I didn’t have that hope. Don’t take the hope from people even if it’s a long shot. For all those reading this who are in a bad place financially or otherwise - YOU CAN DO IT! Do not listen to nay sayers and just do your best (or better yet, do even better - you can never really know your own limits/potential unless you try). It’s not a done deal, but is better than the alternative.
    • nameequalsmain 6y ago
      I don't think the point is to belittle their accomplishments, but rather a realistic take on poverty. A lot of people try really hard, and still cannot get out of poverty. This is something we as a society need to deal with, and not disregard a systematic problem with anecdotal success stories and saying "You can too!"
    • solidasparagus 6y ago
      If you read "you can do it" as encouragement to others in the same situation, it's a good thing. When you read it as a justification for why we shouldn't expand the social net, it's pretty terrible. No one is trying to belittle OP's accomplishments, but "I did it and you can too" sounds like a line from an anti-welfare politician so it shouldn't be surprising that many people take issue with it.
      • pmiller2 6y ago
        Agreed. "It can be done" would be a more appropriate phrasing, IMO. I dug myself out of worse circumstances than OP described, but it took a lot of luck, persistence, and a good amount of risk taking to get there. I guess it helped that I was at a point where I didn't have much to lose, so, risk taking seemed less risky than staying where I was.
      • syops 6y ago
  • chunkyfunky 6y ago
    As someone who came from a fairly poor background (not half as as bad as the OP to be fair) and who has managed to "break out" I can say for sure that looking back I had a ton of lucky breaks - but, and this to me is crucial, only after I stopped worrying about what might go wrong and focus on what I could do right. If I had predicated my success on somehow getting lucky I don't think I would have made it. So to me - and not wanting to speak for the OP of course - but the way I look at this is that the simple encouragement of "I made it and you can too" is more motivating than "I made it but then again looking back I had a ton of lucky coincidences that you probably won't have so, sure, try it, but don't expect success" :)
    • wwweston 6y ago
      Thanks for articulating this. I'd already wondered why I both like and dislike "I made it and you can too" and you captured it. It's good for motivation and ... less good for social policy.
    • taurath 6y ago
      I only think of it as “failure is understandable and doesn’t reflect on you as a person” - but you bring up a good point. I have no patience for people who say “because I made it everyone else can too” which is a really common attitude. People play up their adversity (understandable; it’s the adversity one has had) and downplay their advantages. Lack of empathy and help for those struggling is unacceptable to me. As people succeed they tend to stop congregating around those that don’t, and I think that’s fine but to sit around those successful and vote against policies to help those not succeeding is to me a moral failing. For those struggling through poverty - one must know that one CAN succeed, or else you end up in a psychological hole waiting for the next nibble of luck. A tempered balance of both optimism and also a real social safety net seems like the best of both worlds to me.
  • EvilEy3 6y ago
    Luck is opportunity + skills. It is not some arcane skill that you're born with or not.
  • estaseuropano 6y ago
    Probably nearly everyone can make it. Even the Pakistani kid born into intergenerational debt slavery that means he is making bricks from when he's 5 years old and has no access to school, healthcare or balanced nutrition. It's a difference of a 50% chance for the luckiest to 0.00005% chance for the least lucky. But to see the world through the lens 'everyone van make it, just put effort and stop worrying' is simply absurd.
  • sershe 6y ago
    Aside from the socioeconomic circumstances of one's birth, luck favors the prepared. I also come from a poor background and got "lucky" a few times in my life (in particular the sequence of events leading to me joining a US tech company while making web apps in Russia was rather tenuous), but the cause for the luck each time was prep. E.g. I aced an interview question on GC design because, after doing some GC tuning for a web app at work I read GC docs and then a couple research papers at home to understand it better. After the (group) interview loop, someone told me they were asked a hypothetical SQL backend design question they had trouble with, and I realized I knew then how SQL Server solved that, for similar reasons, so I could have aced that question too. Sure, I could have gotten yet another design question that I knew nothing about ("unlucky"), but to even have a chance to get "lucky" you need to prepare... to win the lottery you at a minimum need to buy a ticket ;) As for the luck of the birth, almost by definition, when you are poor you grow up surrounded by people in similar circumstances; if you "make it", it is very easy to judge those who didn't, because well, they were in similar circumstances to you and you saw what they did differently, often in detail.
• deleted 6y ago
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• busterarm 6y ago
  Fellow former-poor here. It's the kind of thing that casts a shadow over your whole life. And in this industry, nobody is comfortable talking about it. Most of the people I work with graduated from school as guaranteed millionaires. I hear things get said by people that are so far from the orbit of my reality and I cringe. Reading the article was really eye opening for me because I hadn't thought of all of the life skills that I've picked up simply as a result of being poor. It even affects how I think about my new-found wealth. I spend an enormous amount of money on tools and equipment. I'm the one helping all of my friends build, move or fix things.
  • ed25519FUUU 6y ago
    > And in this industry, nobody is comfortable talking about it. Most of the people I work with graduated from school as guaranteed millionaires. This is surprising to me. I’m also a former poor. A lot of people I work with in tech come from generally “normal” backgrounds. Middle to lower class (in excluding h1b and green card holders). It just turned out for them that their passion and hobby (computers) ended up being a great career. Now things are probably different for younger generations now that the secret is out about P90 software salaries. Good thing I got in while they were still taking nobodies.
    • JKCalhoun 6y ago
      Ha ha, you and me too. Grew up in a single-parent home where mom was a "secretary" (remember that?). I've been a blue-collar programmer (not Software Engineer) my entire career. I think they're finally on to me though and I may have to skip out soon. Code reviews, unit tests and Scrum are not my thing anyway. ;-)
    • ryandrake 6y ago
      > Good thing I got in while they were still taking nobodies. I feel the same way! I look around at my younger peers with such impressive pedigrees: Stanford, Ivy League, PhD’s, former founders, etc. and I think “wow, I’d never even get my foot in the door if I were entering today!
• walkedaway 6y ago
  Your general story of poor-to-doing-well is the majority story in the US (not sure of other countries). Income mobility is a huge thing in the US, a great feature that I see mentioned very little outside of academics. Something like 80% of people will be in the top 10% of earners at some point in their lifetime, and 98% of people will be in the top 50%. "poor" and "rich" are not static labels, and they vary greatly even year to year (Thomas Sowell has excellent data and analysis on this). FWIW I grew up poor and I do the same as you - no debt, pay cash for cars (even expensive ones) and despite millions in the bank, I fear not being able to provide for the family. At my age, I've learned that this is a good thing, as opposed to people my age that have spent lavishly and are now wondering how to start saving for their retirement in 10 years.
  • sanp 6y ago
    Can u provide sources for your income mobility claim? The numbers here do not seem to line up with what you are quoting https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/aparnamathur/2018/07/16/the-u-s-does-poorly-on-yet-another-metric-of-economic-mobility/amp/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/aparnamath...
  • Flex247A 6y ago
    If you don't mind, can you share your story here?
  • CraigJPerry 6y ago
    That claim doesn’t even pass the sniff test. The idea that 80% of people - which must include those born into multi generational deprived families just by numbers alone - suddenly find themselves for a period of time on the other side of the glass ceiling of poverty, it’s outrageous. I’d love to be corrected on this.
    • StrictDabbler 6y ago
      Walkedaway is exaggerating a claim made by the conservative American Enterprise Institute: https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/some-amazing-findings-on-income-mobility-in-the-us-including-this-the-image-of-a-static-1-and-99-percent-is-false/ https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/some-amazing-findings-on-inco... This is how they counter all the talk about the 1%. They suggest that 56% of people will be in the top 10% for one year or more. In their entire working lives. Distortions include: -income is not wealth -some kinds of income are very uneven year-over-year -jumping into the top bracket for only one year doesn't indicate income or class mobility -most of the top 1% of income do in fact stay in the top 1% of income People who earn a lot in one year but don't become wealthy may include: -actors who get one TV commercial -waiters at high-end restaurants who burn out -realtors who get a few good sales in a row -victims of disabling accidents receiving large insurance payouts -oil and other trade workers in Alaska -minor lottery winners -people cashing in a retirement fund to deal with emergency spending The fact that America is a land of random windfalls doesn't help with social mobility. A family with multi-generational poverty gets a windfall and immediately has to spend it just trying to catch up a bit.
• lkbm 6y ago
  I'm curious what about your fears are driving your family crazy. Is it living well below your means, forgoing luxuries they'd like (and you can afford), or agonizing over every spending decision, or what? I've lived on <$20k (as an individual), and lived very frugally as a result, but I've never been in a position where I was struggling financially, so I lack any trauma around that. I do still have some lingering "Is this $5 item worth it?" tendencies, though. Automating bills away can help, but what I really like is having a spreadsheet of "if I had to cut back, I could easily live on $X month" + "I have $Y saved up" and focusing on that ratio. Gives me the appropriate background sense of "I'm doing fine", and allows me to say "fuck it" and spend money more readily. At any rate, if you're driving your family crazy, and you think counseling might help, try it. That's one life-improvement investment that doesn't saddle you any long-term financial obligations. Your "If I had to cut back" number stays low.
  • 35fbe7d3d5b9 6y ago
    As someone who grew up poor, one of the best things I've ever done to get past that real hesitancy around spending money is to use envelope budgeting (I use YNAB but the tool isn't important). My old habits had me tracking after the fact and I found that I either obsessed over minutiae, failed to plan for the future, or worried too little about bigger purchases. But now, I put my money in a virtual envelope the moment it comes in, and I have to start thinking about how I'm using it: if I empty out the "restaurant" fund, I have the freedom to reallocate, but I'm forced to decide to reallocate – I don't just swipe a card and figure it out later. This also shows me without any question what my current baseline is: I can look month over month and know how much of my spending is discretionary, how much is saving, and what the bare minimum is that I need to survive.
• devwastaken 6y ago
  If it were as easy now as getting paid to go to college and get a decent job it wouldn't be so bad - but prices have increased exponentially due to that federal aid. Instructor quality has significantly decreased, and administrative bloat has skyrocketed (these people can't get Jobs in the private sector either and government money is free). Jobs in technical fields are not in demand in the manner higher education advertises. As I've said before here I still have friends with bachelor CS degrees turned down from entry positions because the majority of companies are experience siphoners. There's entire youtube channels exampling the level of exploit companies can do because CS grads don't have the choice. Sure, overcoming poverty is possible, but it's a shifting scale over time thats heading in much worse directions due to inflation in basic living costs and companies and individuals breaking the ladder that got them on the surface.
• throwaway846 6y ago
  Similar story I'm now late 30s; father left when i was 2 died of aids when I was 6 Mother washed dishes then was unemployed from age 12-now and we bounced around her boyfriends houses My metric (edit: for myself) "have you been poor" is gathering extra condiments from a gas station and having mustard on bread for a meal. We had food stamps, and a small social security check. I always had a bed, and food, but barely and i was aware how close we were as we midnight moved at least once. I got my college degrees through federal grants and employer sponsorship; now making north of 200k I reflect on how privileged I am to get here. My mother kept me in an upper middle class public school system using a po box, I'm a white man who loved computers in the 90s. I ended up with a social network and a background that looks upper middle class. I don't subscribe to that "I made it and so can you" I see my story as a I had privilege, how can we make privilege into equity.
  • newswasboring 6y ago
    > My metric for "have you been poor" is gathering extra condiments from a gas station and having mustard on bread for a meal. Do you really mean that or is that hyperbole? Because if you really mean that, thats a bit gate keeperish, isn't it? What if someone had their own mustard but dinner was still bread mustard? Its a ridiculous example, I know, but so is this yardstick.
    • throwaway846 6y ago
      Metric for myself; not others. I can't pretend to know what "line" people have in their mind that gives them anxiety around money. (I'll edit for clarity) It ends up being a discussion point with my wife for lots of topics where I'm not picky about the quality of food because it's not mustard on bread.
      • newswasboring 6y ago
        Oh in that case I understand your trauma. But you need to understand that it is trauma and not facts of life. I am, for the past few years, learning how to be happy. I realized that most of my life training has been around learning how to survive because that's how it is where I was born. And because that's all I knew, I thought that was somehow superior. Our media also tries very hard to glamorize "struggling", there are no stories about how to be happy because it will be laughed out of room. It will be counted as either "privileged people being privileged" or they will tie it to family/love as the only posed answer. Seriously man, I want to be happy and nobody out there wants to tell me how. I am slowly discovering it for myself, but I feel like this is a deficiency in our media.
• adkadskhj 6y ago
  I think similarly. Add in a pinch of imposter syndrome and the anxiety hiding under my privileged life is.. interesting. Eg i am super, super fortunate. I definitely don't make 200k, but i had no experience, managed to work my way into some experience and now make a comfortable living. My wife and I are DINKs, so while neither of us make amazing money in combination we make a solid wage. No retirement (yet), but a house, and an income that is starting to pay off life (house/retirement/etc) with lots of safety buffer. With all that said, i'm still terrified of losing everything. I'm sure i've acquired some skills, but passing interviews is difficult so i always think losing it all is one job loss away. I just have to focus on improving myself, to mitigate my fear of losing it all. I'd like to build software to help people. I'd like to make enough money to eventually help some individuals, too. Maybe being poor gives you perspective, but i loathe the "bootstraps" mantra. The overwhelming hopelessness you can feel when you're poor and see no path upwards. Yea, you can get a job, but minimum wage barely pays for itself. You want some modest things in life like a house, a car.. but saving for those at $200/m takes a long, long time. I got out. I hope to stay out. But i consider myself lucky.
• gexla 6y ago
  Interested to hear your thoughts about the thread about living in a van which hit the front page the other day.
• krmmalik 6y ago
  Have you considered trauma release (there are many different ways you can do this) in order to get over your fear of being poor? From the way you're speaking (for want of a better phrase), it sounds like the poverty experience traumatised you, and you're re-living your trauma each day.
  • nomel 6y ago
    I can relate very closely with grandparent. For me, I don't consider it "traumatizing" as much as "moderating" from a very clear perspective of how well I have it now, how rare that actually is, and how much ridiculous excess most people are comfortable with.
• pnutjam 6y ago
  $200k per year is in the top 10% of salary, I think it's actually around top 8%. So, obviously not everyone is going to be able to do that. Errors can cause big problems that compound, so early in your career it's much easier to be derailed. We all like to say, "you could do this too", but it's more accurate to say, "I could have ended up like you too, but I got lucky". Speaking as a very lucky person who makes less then you.
• sandoze 6y ago
  Very similar situation. I had a single mother and spent time with family and non-family members most of my life. I never had much and essentially grew up in a trailer park throughout my teenage years with an elderly couple that I called my grandparents but weren’t even related. They were kind enough to take me in. Fast forward to my 40s and I make a quarter million a year. Have a net worth of over a million, a quarter of which is liquid sitting in several bank accounts making zero interest.. but I NEED it there. Own a house outright that is far too small for the family I raised in it (the kids have begun to move away so it’s getting ‘bigger’). Max my retirement plans. Go long on safe market bets. My car is 12 years old and burns oil (it’s a Prius so.. it evens out?). I pay my kids college tuition and squirrel away all my money. My wife says most people like to collect things and I collect money. I probably need help but between growing up poor, not figuring out a career path until 30, and the Great Recession... everything is a bubble and unsafe.
  • david-gpu 6y ago
    I can relate. You may find that passive value investing resonates with you once you learn more about it.
  • JKCalhoun 6y ago
    I collect tools. Why? Because when I am poor again (retirement?) I won't be able to afford those expensive tools. Wood and Raspberry Pis, comparatively speaking, are cheaper than table saws and oscilloscopes.
• simonh 6y ago
  Ive never been truly impoverished. The nearest I ever got was living off the minimum student allowance back in the 80s. On the edge of solvency it takes so little for things to go badly wrong, even if your scrupulously careful. On the other hand, it's the ability to make effective use of financing options and to leverage even modest wealth or income through mortgages and such that enables a lot of middle class families to prosper as much as they do.
• SN76477 6y ago
  Thank you for your story I can relate. I grew up with out enough, and now I am terrified of spending money.
• technofiend 6y ago
  Go read The Millionaire Next Door. You'll see that there are plenty of people like yourself who remain frugal after managing to pull themselves out of poverty. I'm suggesting the book to both validate your behavior but also give you some examples so you can perhaps moderate it if you still feel that's needed. I can give a single example from my life: my uncle managed to snag a liquor distributorship after WW II. It was a license to print money. He never moved out of the first postwar house he purchased when he started his business because he just didn't see the need and he felt showing off his newfound wealth in poor taste. In short, you're not alone and as long as you're not making yourself or people in your life miserable well maybe you're not too far off from where you need to be. https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Stanley-Thomas/dp/B008AUL830/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=the+millionaire+next+door&qid=1614616151&sr=8-4 https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Stanley-Thomas/... I will say the folks who come from richer backgrounds do have some advantages over us who grew up poor. For instance I had no idea how much scholarships subsidized learning and went to the state school I could afford to fund on my own.
  • 52-6F-62 6y ago
    I can appreciate the sentiment of books like that, however reality isn't that ...fair. For any one "millionaire next door" who made it by being frugal, many more starve no matter how frugally they live. Many will rise and fall, many more will never even rise above poverty. I'd like to see the statistics on lifetime well-being between frugality and financial risk-taking†. I'll bet the disparity is shallower than we'd like to believe. These discussions always interest me, but I'm disappointed by the amount of puritan dogma that usually gets treated as some kind of natural truth. If being poor taught me anything, it's that there is no dogma you can lean on. † Caveat: the risks being made with a goal to "level-up" (read: escape poverty), rather than blind self-indulgence. Ex—do you max out your credit card (/whatever available leverage) to acquire the tool you need to perform a job in the manner of quality you know can be accomplished with said tool, or do you buy the tool you can "afford" and gradually, over time, work your way up to the "right tool" in this case. In the past, more of the latter may have been possible. These days, I think you're at an even more immense disadvantage by taking that path. Admittedly, my outlook might be too coloured by my own experience. Had I not taken the chances (sometimes enormously painful), I would probably still be trying to squirrel-away $5 bills at a time while working 11 hour warehouse shifts.
• phunster 6y ago
  "Throwaway because I don't want my co-workers to know." -Why don't you want your co-workers to find out? "I made it and you can too" - That's just either ignorance or really wishful thinking.
  • a1369209993 6y ago
    > That's just either ignorance or really wishful thinking. Or misleading (as a possibly good-faith mistake) use of the word "can", that would be better phrased as "I made it and you might too".
• WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
  I'm on the same path. House cost 200% yearly pay... drive 2005 Toyota Corolla. I'm the poorest dressed millionare you will know. I buy two shirts a year and wear conference shirts.
• sologoub 6y ago
  Thank you for sharing your experience and the optimism. That fear feels similar to PTSD - we experienced something we never want us or anyone else to experience. A lot of people don’t really understand how much space and luxuries we actually have around us. The trick is that in that modest house everything works, nothing leaks. The car starts and is safe and comfortable enough. If you take these for granted, it’s no big deal. But if you understand that this is in and of itself better than many places, boy is it satisfying when you have it. It is also terrifying that you may lose it again. The knowledge I feel makes for the better life. The fear unfortunately poisoned it for me for a long time, but I think I’m almost past it. Hope you are as well!
• mc32 6y ago
  One of the things I know poverty did was make me hesitate to take on a mortgage. It was such a burden to think at any moment I might not have a job and then lose everything. I also remember being the kid who didn’t buy Nikes or the natural rubber soles to play sports on parquet, so had to do with other sports that didn’t have that requirement. I also remember the PE teacher telling me I could not just wear short pants, I needed to get sports shorts...
  • JKCalhoun 6y ago
    Yes, I was afraid of a mortgage as well. But seeing the cost of homes rise to outpace my ability to save was what opened my eyes. After buying (mortgaging) a home though, I was surprised that it was not the liability I expected it to be — even with the interest on the mortgage, it was my biggest asset and always has been.
    • adkadskhj 6y ago
      Yea, that's why i ended up with a house, too. Rent was so variable. It went up and up and up, and while i didn't have to deal with repair/etc, it felt like i had no control. At least with a house i can budget to pay it off and budget to repair it. Both seem reasonably stable to plan for, assuming you make enough money.
• whack 6y ago
  > I made it and you can too. Poverty has no color. It impacts everyone. You can't tell just by looking at someone. I love your story. There's also a ton of people who will delight in cherry-picking your story, as justification for not expanding the social safety net. "throwaway-0987 did it, and you can too! You just need to stop being so lazy" A few factors to consider: - You had an aunt you could live with - As a youth, you were wise enough to go to trade school and college - As a youth, you were wise/careful enough to not have babies. Furthering your education would be far tougher when you have kids to take care of - You had access to government programs such as Pell Grants, which many people would deride as being "government handouts" - As a youth, you were wise enough to avoid crimes that would disqualify you from educational/employment opportunities in your adult life Stories like yours are wonderful in inspiring people to make something of themselves. But it doesn't change the fact that we as a society should do more to help people who are caught in a poverty trap, especially because of poor decisions made when they were teenagers. Just because someone ran a 4-minute-mile doesn't mean it's reasonable to expect everyone to do so. > Anyway, people think I'm 'privileged' now because I earn a lot of money, but they have no idea that I used to sleep on the floor and eat in soup lines. As always in such discussions, privilege is on a spectrum and has many dimensions. To give an obvious example, even as a youth, you were privileged to be an American citizen, with all the rights, assistance and opportunities it entails. If you were born in the same circumstances in Mexico or Congo, you would find yourself facing a far different outcome.
  • theodric 6y ago
    Insufferable.
  • asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
    Does it really help to inform someone sharing a story of their privation that they could have had it worse? I mean I am on board with the notion that there are various aspects of privilege, and that someone who had it hard in some dimension might have some privilege in others. But it doesn't seem like an appropriate response in this context.
    • alephu5 6y ago
• zusemo 6y ago
  Joining the throwaway train here... > My fears about being poor again drive my wife and kids crazy. They think I'm nuts and say I need counseling. I probably do. Do it. This is on the PTSD spectrum and in my own case the habits of poverty have substantially impacted how I've experienced my own life. 10 years of working 2-3 jobs was enough to crawl out of deferred expenses land and pay for a few community college classes. I lucked my way into an unexpected pile of cash and a decent paying job. I bought a house and a car, and savings started piling up. I continued to be hounded by anxiety that I didn't notice, because it was the same pot of anxiety I'd been boiled in to that point. Everything was fine and rosy for a while. Eventually the anxiety burned out enough fuses to start directing choices. What seemed like interests became obsessions. Unpowered hand tools can't run out of gas, work when the electricity's off, and are easy to fix if they break. Gardening replaced more of the shopping list. Wild edibles supplemented gardening. Bicycle commuting saves money and makes scavenging more accessible. Years of anxiety slowly bloomed into delusions, one thing led to another, and quite suddenly I was living out of a bicycle and two panniers. The persisting anxiety of poverty pulled the plug on my success. Homelessness, poverty, and mental illness are all outcomes of one another. Removing someone from the circumstances of poverty or homelessness is only the first step. I got lucky again, managing to stumble over housing and a surfeit of income before homelessness made its recognizable mark. Profoundly lucky that by chance I came to know folks who've done social work with others recovering from homelessness, who told me to get some counseling so I could learn to experience the life I had, feel like I own the things I own, and stop alternating between resentfulness and fear of my own success. Anyway, I'm gonna be that person now and offer the perspective that poverty in the USA is only transactionally similar across lines of discrimination. People of color (and other marginalized persons) do experience a source of trauma and hardship that doesn't go away like poverty does, but does additionally compound the frequency and quality of poverty they experience.
• deleted 6y ago
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• bsanr2 6y ago
  You were lucky. By that, I mean that a non-trivial percentage of the people in your circumstances at every step of the way (soup kitchen, GED attainment, degree attainment, buying your Corolla, buying your house, applying for your $200k/yr job) didn't make it. I admire your accomplishments. I loathe and rebuke your, "And you can too!". The entire point of the essay you're replying to is to encourage sympathy and empathy for the people who cannot and will not, who will continue to exist in large numbers as long as our society remains as it is. You missed the point.
  • nomel 6y ago
    This is being downvoted, but I think there's some truth here. I had a stroke that resulted in some permanent loss of intelligence. Like most here, I started out a bit higher than average, but experienced what it was like to be below average (right after) and ramp up to a bit below where I was before (after 2 years). My intelligence, and it's ability to show me the answers to difficult problems, the thing that gave me all of my success, is only very slightly tied to my efforts/education. I was lucky to have been born smart, and it's the only reason I "made it". Maybe I could have "made it" some other way, but it made my climb out of poverty so much easier. Not everyone will be able to climb as well.
• throwaway-0987 6y ago
  I can't edit the original post, but I wanted to clarify that the last paragraph was intended to give other poor people hope, not to make them feel inadequate. Sort of a cheer leader type thing. I probably should have left it out. You are all right. I was lucky. We all are to some extent. I consider my aunt my only real family. I still drive to visit her grave each year.
  • Aperocky 6y ago
    > They think I'm nuts and say I need counseling. I probably do. Good realization. Too many of us deride counseling as an admittance of weakness, it isn't. Hiding from it while maintaining there's nothing wrong is.
  • old_fart_dev 6y ago
    Don't apologize for being optimistic. I wouldn't have gotten where I have without someone telling me to take my shot and apply to a good college I dreamed about applying to when I was much younger. My parents encouraged me to with their blessing. There were plenty of neighbors and friend who told me it was a moonshot to get in, that I should go to state school, that I couldn't afford it, I wouldn't fit in, yadda, yadda, yadda. But I got in, went, graduated, and I've done well. I'm sure if my parents told me it was a long shot, I wouldn't have applied. And, I can imagine internalizing this idea that I never had a chance because of who I was and where I was from. So don't apologize. You don't need to feed the self-righteousness of others.
• jimmaswell 6y ago
  It's frustrating talking with my friend who needs a new car but has no money and bad credit. They have a small windfall to afford a $3000 or so car with but they think you can't get anything worth driving for less than $15000 and with 100k miles or less. Meanwhile I've been driving my $800 Jeep for years and it's still running strong nearing 200k miles. They also balk at used appliances, furniture etc. Some people get stuck in debt forever because of these bad mindsets.
• diob 6y ago
  Depending on where you live, you're right to live in fear. In the USA, you're probably one medical emergency (cancer?) away from bankruptcy. I'm glad you got out, but hard work is no guarantee. A lot in this world is luck and connections. "I made it and you can too" should be "I made it, but lots of others don't. If you work hard, you might, but don't be discouraged if you don't. It's possible to do all the right things and not make it out. If you make it out, give back to those who are in similar situations, and try to improve the pathway out of the darkness."
• oblio 6y ago
  > I made it and you can too. Poverty has no color. It impacts everyone. You can't tell just by looking at someone. And yet statistics disagree with you... Edit: Nevermind, I saw your other comment. You meant to cheer people up, not make a moral judgment.
• birdyrooster 6y ago
  I was poor, received food stamps, stole to eat, and was unemployed selling drugs on the side to make scratch. Now I make half a million a year and I still recognize my privilege, I was a huge outlier. No matter how bad it got, I was still a fairly attractive white male who had been introduced to computing by his single mother as a very small boy and spent my latch key kid time on donated computers. Had I gotten caught up in the criminal justice system as a black man, or interviewed as a black man, or any of that and my success could not have been achieved.
• aaroninsf 6y ago
  > I won the lottery and you can too. Luck has no color. Maybe the Wish will help, or Intentionality. Prayer also popular. Against this never lose sight of the fact that since 1971 economic mobility in this country has eroded as comprehensively as has the social safety net as has access to high quality public education not to mention health care. Since 1971 wealth inequality has increased and we are now over the event horizon. So much wealth has been concentrated in the hands of the ultrarich that they have successfully captured both discourse and polity. The possibility space is defined by those who own the means of not just literal communication but the fabrication of consensus opinion and the boundaries of the political spectrum. What was possible, like this, a generation ago, is literally orders of magnitude more unlikely today. The status quo cannot hold, and it isn't holding. We remain on the brink of literal violent fascist coup and permanent kleptocracy. Take a look at the headlines from CPAC... These are dark days. Most readers here are part of the precariate 10% or aspire to be, the buffer zone of the rich-enough who zealously angrily defend the prerogatives of the very wealthy with whom they identify though they are no more of that class than the utterly disenfranchised permanent Lower Class who have roil and rage in Nomadland, controlled by the surveillance capitalism systems so many of us are building... It's not going to hold. It's not holding.
  • Bakary 6y ago
    You would be surprised how long this sort of thing can hold. To paraphrase a bit, societies can remain irrational longer than citizens can remain sane...
• k__ 6y ago
  Same here. My father left when I was 6. My mother went cleaning to make some money. Later, she remarried and my step dad was well off, but he also had kids of his own, so it wasn't that much of an improvement. We didn't have much and all of my childhood I played video games I borrowed from friends on PCs I built of old parts I got from friends or in the trash. When I went to university, I suddendly met many people who had rich parents and I felt like the dumbest person around. I guess, I probably was, haha. Since coding paid well, I could clear all my dept realatively early after my degree and now I have saved some money. But I still have the feeling tomorrow all my clients will desert me.
• deleted 6y ago
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• standardUser 6y ago
  I really enjoy your story, but to say "I made it and you can too" presumes there is an endless supply of $200k jobs in this country. There obviously is not, and we can't conceive of an economy wherein there would be, so the "you" who can make it "too" is always going to be an exclusive and finite group.
• throw0932439 6y ago
  Just want to say I hate the "yeah but luck"/"yeah but you're still privileged because x" going on in the comments and I found your comment inspiring, in case you ever doubt it. I'm poor, but not extreme poverty poor only because I'm "lucky" that I've had my parents be able to support me. I have several health problems which border on being disabilities (for which actually getting support would be very hard). Without my parents I'd probably be dead. My goal isn't even not being poor just self-sufficient. Of course I'm grateful for having them and how hard they've worked to get where they are now, but anyone pointing out this "luck" anytime I try to comment about my experiences pisses me off to no end. Do you think I don't ponder how much worse off I could be? Will dwelling on that even more than usual help me or anyone like me? No. It already depresses me enough as it is. What helps is hearing that other people have managed to improve their lives too (I also look at ways I could apply what they did). The worse part is when people say it in a way that dismisses all effort on my part (which is how it's usually put even if the people writing it don't realize it). As if, because statistically there are people at my level with worse/better luck that somehow should mean anything to me. I'd rather some ignorant rich person complain about being "poor" than that sort of thinking. If I had put in no effort I would probably still be stuck at home, in pain, probably suicidal. I can't speak for people in extreme poverty, but I can't imagine "well, you got the short end of the stick" helps them in any way. I would say, yeah, you got the short end of the stick, but even more because of that, if you don't try to dig yourself out, no one is going to come do it for you. You'll fail, again and again and again probably. It's not your fault, and yeah, it's not fair. But if you give up there is not even the chance of getting out.
  • robotnikman 6y ago
    It requires both hard work and luck, and neither will really come without the other. To discredit either one playing part in success seems to be looking at only half of the picture
• sandworm101 6y ago
  >> My father left home ... My mom ... left us when she found a new husband. The horrible thing is that much worse situations are common today. The most common one I've witnessed into is "Dad left, mom is sick". The children become primary care givers to the remaining disabled parent. That basically axes higher education options. Such kids often cannot work outside the home and if they do it will be at most part time and very local. One can choose not to have children. One can decide not to commit crimes. But one cannot choose whether or not to have disabled parents/siblings that need 24/7 care. The really dark aspect is that children grow up. An unplanned child will grow and eventually not need 24/7 care. An aging disabled parent can remain at the same level need for many decades, normally progressing to greater need with time.
• zouhair 6y ago
  > I made it and you can too. Poverty has no color. It impacts everyone. You can't tell just by looking at someone. You lost me at this conclusion. This is wrong in every sense of the word and perfect case of Survivorship Bias[0] The point of having societies is so we should not fend for ourselves, especially rich societies. In rich countries there should be no poor people and charity should not exist because it is not needed. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
• you_know_the_ 6y ago
  I don’t think we ever can overcome the fear of being poor again. I struggle with it as well.
• wonderwonder 6y ago
  I got to experience wealth and poverty growing up, unfortunately in that order. Parents were pretty wealthy and then we moved to the US at 13 and had to leave everything behind. Going from a house with pool, BMW's etc to food stamps, constant threat of foreclosure and no health insurance is pretty jarring. I was way better off than many others though. Far better off than OP's start. Worst part of being poor or being raised by those that are poor due to both circumstances and bad choices is that you dont learn to make sane financial decisions. I was never taught how to balance a check book or to live within my means and that lack of both education and discipline has haunted me my whole life. Reached a point where I make over 200k now and finally the surplus of funds have been a wakeup call that 'Hey, you can save and you can eventually retire if you just wake up and stop spending like you're going to die tomorrow'. Another vital lesson is to focus on the long run instead of trying to hit a home run with every investment. Financial literacy should be the a 4 year highschool class. Not being fluent is a detriment to millions.
• rafiki6 6y ago
  > If you have never been poor, you may not realize how awesome Small houses and Toyota Corollas are. Love this. These are luxury products for upper middle class folks in a lot of developing countries. I don't think people really grasp this until they experience it themselves.
• Bukhmanizer 6y ago
  > Anyway, people think I'm 'privileged' now because I earn a lot of money, but they have no idea that I used to sleep on the floor and eat in soup lines. > I made it and you can too. Poverty has no color. It impacts everyone. You can't tell just by looking at someone. These two statements are so irritatingly bland and dismissive. > Anyway, people think I'm 'privileged' now Yeah, so if people look at you and say "that person probably grew up in a nice home with good parents", that is a privilege. Boo-hoo, middle-class people accept you and think you belong within their social tier. The fact that you're afraid your co-workers will know that you grew up poor is proof of how much of a privilege it is.
• zigzaggy 6y ago
  I'm glad to hear you made it. I have a similar story, except mine involves health problems and homelessness in adulthood. I "made it" from living on the streets in Austin TX to being a senior manager at a big company. It's SO HARD to dig yourself out of that, and I just wanted to say GOOD JOB!
• SMAAART 6y ago
  My story is somewhat similar to yours, grew up poor AF and in a toxic environment. I escaped in my late 20's, moved cross country and put myself through college and then MBA part time while working full time. Fast forward to today I am doing well, like you I have no debt whatsoever, decent cash flow, and decent net work. A couple of interesting things: 1. 1/3 of homeowners in the US are mortgage free 2. Read the book "The Millionaire Next door" Third anecdotal note: I have recently switched job, and I work in a company where there are about 25 people. Well I have noticed that the amount of $ spend on lunch is inversely proportional to the pay: the highest paid employees pack their lunch from home; the lowest paid go out and buy lunch most days, and more expensive lunches.
• game_the0ry 6y ago
  This comment was a gut punch. I came from a family that was lower middle class when I was young, then upper middle class, then back to lower class before I graduated college. And I graduated into the 2008 recession. When I got my current job back in 2017, I finally felt what I though was economic optimism - a sense that the future would be better than the past. What a feeling. This phrase is over-used, but it did feel like a weight off my shoulders. Then COVID happened...
• allarm 6y ago
  I think if we just replace “privileged” with “lucky” it would greatly improve the overall tone of the message for many, myself included. I.e. “I was lucky enough to be born in a family of engineers” sounds much better than “privileged” in this context.
• ubermonkey 6y ago
  I have never been Poor, but the kinds of reactions you describe can take root with even pretty transient financial stress. I had a couple very thin years -- savings dwindling, and then gone; work was scarce. Collectors were calling. I was afraid I was going to lose my house. My power got cut off. I scraped by, and got out of it, and find myself now in a very fortunate position -- better off than I was before, excellent income, minimal debt (and zero consumer debt), etc. -- but even a couple years of that kind of instability leaves a mark. It's not as much as throwaway's, but I'm very debt-averse. I'm very risk-averse. We save a LOT. I'll never be in that position again. I find that most people never consider how precarious their position really is until an object lesson comes along.
• throwaway2a02 6y ago
  > Anyway, people think I'm 'privileged' now because I earn a lot of money Any they are right thinking that,aren't they? That kind of money and wealth gives you a huge safety blanket and insulates you from most of the stresses described in the article. That's the whole point of the article, that this is a huge privilege that's overlooked by the well off.
• steve_adams_86 6y ago
  > My fears about being poor again drive my wife and kids crazy. They think I'm nuts and say I need counseling. I probably do. Same with mine. I never travelled outside of Canada until my mid thirties because the notion of spending that kind of money (despite having it) seemed absurd. My kids lost opportunities because in the back of my mind, we’re constantly on the brink of homelessness. I have a seriously difficult time shaking this state of mind. Something I’ve found useful is reminding myself that 1) I managed to survive and stay healthy despite how poor I was, and when things go wrong, there is typically a way forward. If something were to go wrong, it would likely be outside of my control. 2) my energy is better spent being moderate about money, otherwise relaxing about it, but then focusing my energy on immediate things which matter and are within my control. 3) most people I know carry and manage more debt that I’ve had in my entire lifetime. If I were to lose everything tomorrow, I’d still be ahead of them. I always exaggerate my risks. Good luck.
• 4AoZqrH2fsk5UB 6y ago
  My story is not as extreme, but similar. There past that made me comment is the wife and kids comment. I feel that too. Knowing just how bad things can get, especially when you have kids, motivates you to maintain a large cushion in a way for people who haven’t seen things fall apart have a difficult time relating to
• Grustaf 6y ago
  > Anyway, people think I'm 'privileged' now because I earn a lot of money, but they have no idea that I used to sleep on the floor and eat in soup lines. Don't worry too much about that, I've seen people here seriously claim that you're privileged unless you are destitute and homeless. The word has lost all meaning.
• sershe 6y ago
  Interesting, I have two conflicting feelings about this. On one hand I agree with you and I am super paranoid about being poor. On the other hand, one thing that I definitely learned from growing up poor (I like the original article say "it’s very small (think ~900 sqft)", cause I had stable housing when I was growing up and it was 600sqft for 3-4 people ;)) is how little you need to be happy. In college, when we were somewhat better off but before I could work a real job, I often had a choice of either paying my internet bill, buying (cheap) cafeteria lunches, or buying beer. So, unless I wanted to and could find a part-time job, I liked to joke that my choices were - hungry, sober, and online; sated, sober and offline; and hungry, drunk and offline. I was still happy. After I got my first job, sometimes I would get impostor syndrome and become afraid of losing it; then I'd be like, well I used to be happy when I was choosing between the three options, so anything on top of that is just a nice bonus. As long as I have 150sqft of housing, some food and an internet connection I will be fine. I like to think about that every time I'm afraid of losing my current level of privilege.
  • burntoutfire 6y ago
    > As long as I have 150sqft of housing, some food and an internet connection I will be fine. I like to think about that every time I'm afraid of losing my current level of privilege. I tend to agree, but I also need a couple of things on top of that: - the place needs to be relatively quiet (no asshole neighbors on the other side of the wall, or a busy street) - I need to have an access to relatively peaceful area for walks, preferably green - I need to live in an area that's not depressing because it's decrepit or filled with aggressive idiots - I need friends in a distance that makes seeing them often not a nuisance Take away any of the above and I'm not doing too well long-term. Also, I suspect most people in the world are missing at least one thing from my list.
    • sershe 6y ago
      Some of these things are (more or less) free, some are just a matter of perspective. E.g. a place being decrepit is fine, or becomes fine over time, it just blends into the background. The noise is spot on, I guess I meant 150sqft of ok-quality housing :)