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Oh man this resonates in a weird way... I don't know jack shit about being poor. I grew up extremely well-off in the late 80s and 90s. My college education was

Oh man this resonates in a weird way... I don't know jack shit about being poor. I grew up extremely well-off in the late 80s and 90s. My college education was paid 100% by my parents without a loan. We had nice cars and belonged to country clubs. Even in my first job where I was only making 35K/yr my parents gave me quite a bit of help so it was easy. I have a few friends that are poor... I feel for their issues, I always try and help out when asked, but I also know to keep my mouth shut about problems the poor face or how I think they should solve the problem because my solutions are usually so detached from the reality of their grinding life that it comes off as patronizing and unempathetic. My dad gets it, he grew up as a poor kid in an Italian immigrant household. First kid to college and then he did really well after that in business. He understands it in ways I'll never know. He mostly keeps his opinions to himself on the matter but I've never heard him rattle off any easy solutions or tropes like "they just need to work harder" because he knows his mother and father busted their butts and never stopped being poor. It was only when he became an adult and started making money that he could help them live comfortably. My mother (love her) she grew up middle class during the American Dream years of the 50's and 60's and has never known poverty either, but she has strong opinions on it... always of the variety of they are "lazy" or need to "work harder", or the solutions are impractical or grounded in a reality that hasn't existed since the early 70s. I think my Dad has given up at this point changing her mind as they're both well into their 70s, but yea I never want to be like my mother.

mlac 5y ago
Volunteer & serve on the board of a non-profit that focuses on meeting a community need. Did you know that diapers are not covered in the United States by government assistance? So the current setup is that we have a lot of diaper banks across the United States that provide diapers to those in need. Diapers are sold as single items in corner stores in low income areas at extreme markups, and sometimes parents can only afford one a day. If the baby poops or pees right after the change… Well. Yeah. I serve on the board of one [1], and we’ve had events that have given out 100k diapers to those in need in a day. The frustrating thing is that there is no sustainable model here - the diaper banks get donations from companies and and we can buy them using donated money / grants for a discount, but we obviously don’t charge those who need them for the diapers (and I do not believe we can sell them as a bank). I think there are two main pain points for people who do not have a lot of money: 1) There are economies of scale as you “level up” in income - cost per diaper gets much cheaper when you can buy from Sam’s club vs. paying $1 per at the corner store. Even shopping at Sam’s is out the window because it assumes you have a car to get there… 2) the “fixed costs” of life are fairly standard. It takes a salary of $85K for the happiness to have marginal returns, and I think this is because you hit the point where your basic needs are met for an American lifestyle and everything else is gravy. It covers medical (within reason), insurance, transportation, some fun thing, housing, food, etc. and gets you to the level where you can finally get ahead. [1] https://www.wpadiaperbank.org/ https://www.wpadiaperbank.org/ [2] https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/money-buys-happiness-depending-on-income-level-2021-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/money-buys-...
- voidfunc 5y ago
  Im sad this a real problem (and its a good example of a problem I would never have thought existed). Ill take a look at the links, thank you.
  - mlac 5y ago
    Yeah I didn’t realize it existed either and that’s why I’m spending my time on the organization. I think most people just assume that people can use government benefits to buy diapers. Here is another way to look at it: Take your salary (or income from investments) divided by the poverty line to get a multiplying factor. The poverty line for a one person household is $12,880 [1]. For simplicity, let’s say you make $128,880 a year. That’s 10x the poverty line and a 10x multiplier. The simple approach is to just multiply everything by that multiplying factor - in our example, filling up a gas tank would be $500 instead of $50. I know that would make me consider getting half a tank instead of just filling up… For a more complex thing - take an expense category for the month, like food. Multiply every dollar you spend on food for the month by 10 (the factor above). So say you spend $500 a month on food - set aside an additional $4500. $100 on alcohol, set aside $900. You will quickly see how fast money goes. I recently had a child, so I am going to do this with diapers one month and donate the difference to the diaper bank. You could do the same with a cause you care about. The thing that surprised me about the non-profit scene is how cut throat it is. There is a lack of funding, people compete on grants, and everyone is extremely passionate about their cause. So some people view it as a zero sum game and have the attitude of “I don’t care if a few babies have a wet diaper, my non-profit fixing cause X has a bigger impact” and they will use their altruistic end to justify some pretty crappy behavior. I’m of the mindset that we need to work together, and fortunately most others in the space are too. But a dollar is a dollar, and there are people that are very passionate with strong beliefs about how the next dollar given to the non-profit space should be spent to optimize the societal benefit. [1] https://aspe.hhs.gov/2021-poverty-guidelines https://aspe.hhs.gov/2021-poverty-guidelines * one can argue there are a lot of government benefits available to those near the poverty line, but the point of the exercise is to get in the same ballpark. Plus accessing those services isn’t easy - Millions of people spend hundreds to hire an accountant to interface with the IRS once a year so that they can pay the government. Getting things from the government is more difficult...
9dev 5y ago
If you don’t mind me asking, what’s your perspective on your purpose in life? I always wondered if the outlook is different for someone starting from Boardwalk instead of Baltic Avenue, so to speak.
- voidfunc 5y ago
  I gotta be honest, I don’t really feel like I have a purpose. I just kinda exist and try to be happy by surrounding myself with activities and people I enjoy spending time with. Im not saying its all roses all the time, I get depressed (badly so sometimes) but I get through it and return to a happy stable existence. I have a brother, I think we both disappoint our parents a great deal because we are both kidless (by choice in my case, I do not speak for my brother). They would love grand kids and I think they would be wonderful grandparents. I dont have a partner but I would love to find someone with the same easy-living philosophy. I like working on interesting things, I like playing golf, and I like traveling. Its honestly hard to find someone like that and that causes me the most sadness sometimes... so maybe my life goal is to find my other? My biggest fear in life is not having enough health or money to maintain my baseline standard of living (admittedly I am more frugal than this post hints at). I actually do not give a damn if I die tomorrow but I would be immensely unhappy with a life altering injury or loss of wealth. I dunno if I would say I grew up on Boardwalk, but whats the green ones just before Boardwalk? That always felt more fitting.

mlac 5y ago

Volunteer & serve on the board of a non-profit that focuses on meeting a community need. Did you know that diapers are not covered in the United States by government assistance? So the current setup is that we have a lot of diaper banks across the United States that provide diapers to those in need. Diapers are sold as single items in corner stores in low income areas at extreme markups, and sometimes parents can only afford one a day. If the baby poops or pees right after the change… Well. Yeah. I serve on the board of one [1], and we’ve had events that have given out 100k diapers to those in need in a day. The frustrating thing is that there is no sustainable model here - the diaper banks get donations from companies and and we can buy them using donated money / grants for a discount, but we obviously don’t charge those who need them for the diapers (and I do not believe we can sell them as a bank). I think there are two main pain points for people who do not have a lot of money: 1) There are economies of scale as you “level up” in income - cost per diaper gets much cheaper when you can buy from Sam’s club vs. paying $1 per at the corner store. Even shopping at Sam’s is out the window because it assumes you have a car to get there… 2) the “fixed costs” of life are fairly standard. It takes a salary of $85K for the happiness to have marginal returns, and I think this is because you hit the point where your basic needs are met for an American lifestyle and everything else is gravy. It covers medical (within reason), insurance, transportation, some fun thing, housing, food, etc. and gets you to the level where you can finally get ahead. [1] https://www.wpadiaperbank.org/ https://www.wpadiaperbank.org/ [2] https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/money-buys-happiness-depending-on-income-level-2021-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/money-buys-...

voidfunc 5y ago
Im sad this a real problem (and its a good example of a problem I would never have thought existed). Ill take a look at the links, thank you.
- mlac 5y ago
  Yeah I didn’t realize it existed either and that’s why I’m spending my time on the organization. I think most people just assume that people can use government benefits to buy diapers. Here is another way to look at it: Take your salary (or income from investments) divided by the poverty line to get a multiplying factor. The poverty line for a one person household is $12,880 [1]. For simplicity, let’s say you make $128,880 a year. That’s 10x the poverty line and a 10x multiplier. The simple approach is to just multiply everything by that multiplying factor - in our example, filling up a gas tank would be $500 instead of $50. I know that would make me consider getting half a tank instead of just filling up… For a more complex thing - take an expense category for the month, like food. Multiply every dollar you spend on food for the month by 10 (the factor above). So say you spend $500 a month on food - set aside an additional $4500. $100 on alcohol, set aside $900. You will quickly see how fast money goes. I recently had a child, so I am going to do this with diapers one month and donate the difference to the diaper bank. You could do the same with a cause you care about. The thing that surprised me about the non-profit scene is how cut throat it is. There is a lack of funding, people compete on grants, and everyone is extremely passionate about their cause. So some people view it as a zero sum game and have the attitude of “I don’t care if a few babies have a wet diaper, my non-profit fixing cause X has a bigger impact” and they will use their altruistic end to justify some pretty crappy behavior. I’m of the mindset that we need to work together, and fortunately most others in the space are too. But a dollar is a dollar, and there are people that are very passionate with strong beliefs about how the next dollar given to the non-profit space should be spent to optimize the societal benefit. [1] https://aspe.hhs.gov/2021-poverty-guidelines https://aspe.hhs.gov/2021-poverty-guidelines * one can argue there are a lot of government benefits available to those near the poverty line, but the point of the exercise is to get in the same ballpark. Plus accessing those services isn’t easy - Millions of people spend hundreds to hire an accountant to interface with the IRS once a year so that they can pay the government. Getting things from the government is more difficult...

9dev 5y ago

If you don’t mind me asking, what’s your perspective on your purpose in life? I always wondered if the outlook is different for someone starting from Boardwalk instead of Baltic Avenue, so to speak.

voidfunc 5y ago
I gotta be honest, I don’t really feel like I have a purpose. I just kinda exist and try to be happy by surrounding myself with activities and people I enjoy spending time with. Im not saying its all roses all the time, I get depressed (badly so sometimes) but I get through it and return to a happy stable existence. I have a brother, I think we both disappoint our parents a great deal because we are both kidless (by choice in my case, I do not speak for my brother). They would love grand kids and I think they would be wonderful grandparents. I dont have a partner but I would love to find someone with the same easy-living philosophy. I like working on interesting things, I like playing golf, and I like traveling. Its honestly hard to find someone like that and that causes me the most sadness sometimes... so maybe my life goal is to find my other? My biggest fear in life is not having enough health or money to maintain my baseline standard of living (admittedly I am more frugal than this post hints at). I actually do not give a damn if I die tomorrow but I would be immensely unhappy with a life altering injury or loss of wealth. I dunno if I would say I grew up on Boardwalk, but whats the green ones just before Boardwalk? That always felt more fitting.