5 ms·

It's a question of magnitude. A phone is a necessity. A TracFone, where you can make a $10 phone and $20 of minutes last three months if you're careful, is re

by Dove 15y ago

It's a question of magnitude. A phone is a necessity. A TracFone, where you can make a $10 phone and $20 of minutes last three months if you're careful, is reasonable if you think a mobile phone is a necessity. This person apparently had a $65/mo smartphone on a $1200/mo income. That's crazy talk. Ditto the car. If I had a beater I bought from my sister for a song, I'd have believed it. But it hit me up for a $325 car payment. That implies that I bought something decent new. That's a total WTF. A car might be a necessity, but a job that requires you to have that car might as well be on the moon. You need a job you can walk, bike, or bus to. Sell the toxic car yesterday. As for the dog . . . yeah, I know some people are attached to their dogs. And if you own your own place, and the only cost is its food and occasional vet bills, I don't see anything wrong with it. But when you're skipping food and medical care and best friend's weddings trying to make ends meet, and the dog is costing $100/mo in pet rent . . . it needed to be gone a long time ago. I think that kind of captures my overall response to the game, really. It's clearly written from the perspective of someone who doesn't have the intestinal fortitude to do what they have to in order to make ends meet. You need to prioritize and cut. It can be done. Not to brag, but I have in fact done it before. But it does require treating the situation as the emergency it is, and taking appropriately drastic measures to establish positive cash flow.

lotharbot 15y ago
To expand on this point a little bit: many of the things the game assumes a $15k/year worker has are more expensive than similar things we had when we were making 6 figures. Of course it's going to be hard to make ends meet if that's the lifestyle you're trying to maintain. Just the things mentioned above -- car payment, smartphone, and pet rent -- make up over 40% of the hypothetical person's monthly budget. If you're in that situation, make some cuts!
michaelchisari 15y ago
This person apparently had a $65/mo smartphone No, they just had a $65 bill. That doesn't imply a smartphone, that could easily be racked up in minutes or text messages. Pay-as-you-go phones are only cheap if you don't use them. But it hit me up for a $325 car payment. That doesn't imply you got a new car. That means you got a 24 month loan on a $5000 car with 20% interest. Like I said, shady as hell, but what are you gonna do. You need a car. it needed to be gone a long time ago. I think a lot of people would starve before they gave up their dog. It's a living being, it's not a netflix subscription. who doesn't have the intestinal fortitude I don't think you understand how expensive it is to be poor. It's much cheaper to be well off, because you have the option of making the right decisions, instead of being constantly put in no-win situations like these.
- lotharbot 15y ago
  > "I don't think you understand how expensive it is to be poor." So when Dove says "I've done it before", you're calling her a liar. Here, have a downvote. A high-interest loan on a $5000 car is not your only option; try buying a cheaper car. Spending $65 racking up minutes and text messages is not your only option; if you need to save money, hang up the phone. These are not "no-win" situations. They're just situations that are not going to go well if you make bad decisions.
  - michaelchisari 15y ago
    So when Dove says "I've done it before", you're calling her a liar. I think sometimes people think they've done it before, but by their statements, make it clear that they don't have the quite the perspective they're claiming. I regularly see people conflate early life independence (college, ramen, etc) with familial or generational poverty, which are not the same thing. try buying a cheaper car. This puzzles me. $5,000 is about the cheapest you're gonna get without having trouble within the first year. But assume you go cheaper, say, $2500. You still have to finance, because you don't have that kind of pocket change. Now, the price is so low, nobody wants to give you a 2+ year loan on something that's hardly gonna make it out of the parking lot. So you get one year financing through the shady dealership themselves, again at 20% or something ridiculous. That puts you at almost $250 a month for a car that's probably pushing 30 years old, with no guarantees. Did you really just save money? Spending $65 racking up minutes and text messages is not your only option; A one hour phone interview or discussion with your kids teacher can run $20 with a Tracfone. Imagine your brother was arrested, and you couldn't figure out where he was being held. This isn't a matter of chatting with your friends. You can downvote me, I can take it, but it's amazing to me that people think that these scenarios are out of the ordinary.
    - lotharbot 15y ago
      > "people think they've done it before, but ... conflate early life independence" That's not what's going on here. We've been married almost 10 years, have a kid, and presently live below the poverty line; we've also had very close friends in extremely dire financial situations. Please stop making assumptions about our experiences. > "$5,000 is about the cheapest you're gonna get without having trouble within the first year" How much trouble is $325/month worth? If you get an $800 car from the classified ads and it works for 3 months, you're already ahead; if it works for a year and only requires $500 in work you're way ahead. If you're as poor as the above scenario presumes, you shouldn't be spending $325/month on a car. Either get one you can pay for up front (yeah, it's going to be a POS; welcome to poverty), find a way to finance a solid car from a reputable source (a brand new economy car, at a crappy rate with nothing down because you have terrible credit, will run you less than $300/month; the 3-year-old model is less), or find a way to get a ride/take the bus/ride a bike and save some money. You can push and tweak and justify all you want, trying to explain why the spending in this scenario is realistic -- but when the spending is higher than what I spent when I was poor and also higher than when I was financially very well off, I just don't buy it. It goes back to the initial point -- if you're really that poor, what are you doing spending $500/month between your car, phone, and pet? If you're really poor enough that making it through the month with enough food is a struggle, those are unacceptable expenses (which most of the truly poor people I know would have already cut.) I'm not saying it's easy to be poor. I'm just saying, it's a lot harder to be poor when you make a bunch of crappy decisions.

by Dove 15y ago

lotharbot 15y ago

To expand on this point a little bit: many of the things the game assumes a $15k/year worker has are more expensive than similar things we had when we were making 6 figures. Of course it's going to be hard to make ends meet if that's the lifestyle you're trying to maintain. Just the things mentioned above -- car payment, smartphone, and pet rent -- make up over 40% of the hypothetical person's monthly budget. If you're in that situation, make some cuts!

michaelchisari 15y ago

This person apparently had a $65/mo smartphone No, they just had a $65 bill. That doesn't imply a smartphone, that could easily be racked up in minutes or text messages. Pay-as-you-go phones are only cheap if you don't use them. But it hit me up for a $325 car payment. That doesn't imply you got a new car. That means you got a 24 month loan on a $5000 car with 20% interest. Like I said, shady as hell, but what are you gonna do. You need a car. it needed to be gone a long time ago. I think a lot of people would starve before they gave up their dog. It's a living being, it's not a netflix subscription. who doesn't have the intestinal fortitude I don't think you understand how expensive it is to be poor. It's much cheaper to be well off, because you have the option of making the right decisions, instead of being constantly put in no-win situations like these.

lotharbot 15y ago
> "I don't think you understand how expensive it is to be poor." So when Dove says "I've done it before", you're calling her a liar. Here, have a downvote. A high-interest loan on a $5000 car is not your only option; try buying a cheaper car. Spending $65 racking up minutes and text messages is not your only option; if you need to save money, hang up the phone. These are not "no-win" situations. They're just situations that are not going to go well if you make bad decisions.
- michaelchisari 15y ago
  So when Dove says "I've done it before", you're calling her a liar. I think sometimes people think they've done it before, but by their statements, make it clear that they don't have the quite the perspective they're claiming. I regularly see people conflate early life independence (college, ramen, etc) with familial or generational poverty, which are not the same thing. try buying a cheaper car. This puzzles me. $5,000 is about the cheapest you're gonna get without having trouble within the first year. But assume you go cheaper, say, $2500. You still have to finance, because you don't have that kind of pocket change. Now, the price is so low, nobody wants to give you a 2+ year loan on something that's hardly gonna make it out of the parking lot. So you get one year financing through the shady dealership themselves, again at 20% or something ridiculous. That puts you at almost $250 a month for a car that's probably pushing 30 years old, with no guarantees. Did you really just save money? Spending $65 racking up minutes and text messages is not your only option; A one hour phone interview or discussion with your kids teacher can run $20 with a Tracfone. Imagine your brother was arrested, and you couldn't figure out where he was being held. This isn't a matter of chatting with your friends. You can downvote me, I can take it, but it's amazing to me that people think that these scenarios are out of the ordinary.
  - lotharbot 15y ago
    > "people think they've done it before, but ... conflate early life independence" That's not what's going on here. We've been married almost 10 years, have a kid, and presently live below the poverty line; we've also had very close friends in extremely dire financial situations. Please stop making assumptions about our experiences. > "$5,000 is about the cheapest you're gonna get without having trouble within the first year" How much trouble is $325/month worth? If you get an $800 car from the classified ads and it works for 3 months, you're already ahead; if it works for a year and only requires $500 in work you're way ahead. If you're as poor as the above scenario presumes, you shouldn't be spending $325/month on a car. Either get one you can pay for up front (yeah, it's going to be a POS; welcome to poverty), find a way to finance a solid car from a reputable source (a brand new economy car, at a crappy rate with nothing down because you have terrible credit, will run you less than $300/month; the 3-year-old model is less), or find a way to get a ride/take the bus/ride a bike and save some money. You can push and tweak and justify all you want, trying to explain why the spending in this scenario is realistic -- but when the spending is higher than what I spent when I was poor and also higher than when I was financially very well off, I just don't buy it. It goes back to the initial point -- if you're really that poor, what are you doing spending $500/month between your car, phone, and pet? If you're really poor enough that making it through the month with enough food is a struggle, those are unacceptable expenses (which most of the truly poor people I know would have already cut.) I'm not saying it's easy to be poor. I'm just saying, it's a lot harder to be poor when you make a bunch of crappy decisions.