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This seems unnecessarily dramatic, or at least outdated? Why not just do this: 1. Make a free account on Amazon 2. Buy the cheapest portable bidet, which (lo

This seems unnecessarily dramatic, or at least outdated? Why not just do this: 1. Make a free account on Amazon 2. Buy the cheapest portable bidet, which (looking just now) is $7 including shipping. Sure, that's 75% more than the standing weekly toilet paper budget, but surely one can find an extra 3 dollars in the couch cushions? 3. Once the bidet arrives, toilet paper usage will drop immediately. You could probably reduce that $4/week budget to, say, $1/week. 4. That means you'll already break even on the bidet in a little over 2 weeks,. After that you're effectively printing money. 5. After another 20 weeks of making it rain $3/week in pure profit over your previously massive and over-inflated toilet paper budget, you'll have $60, which is surely enough to head back to Amazon and buy all the toilet paper your heart desires, in bulk. 6. That'll likely bring the $1/week budget down even further to, say, $0.50/week. 7. That's a nearly 17% bump in your weekly recurring profit, from $3 to $3.50/week, which you can use to keep on pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. Heck, those numbers are basically good enough for a Series A pitch deck.

vsareto 4y ago
You're not wrong, but the answer to "why not just do this" is because those people probably don't know about bidets, because it's not very prevalent elsewhere in life (in the US especially). Lack of knowledge is a problem when you're poor too. If bidets were ubiquitous in the US such that just about everyone has used one, you'd not be seeing this issue.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
baremetal 4y ago
People with a mentality like this don't stay poor. Also taking a shower directly after using the restroom does wonders.
- iinnPP 4y ago
  It sure does. The sum of people who understand bidets is represented in the following formula: Population - Sum of people who panic purchased TP for Corona Virus = Definitely not just poor people
- anonymouskimmer 4y ago
  Unless they eventually get a great job they'll stay poor, they just won't stay paycheck to paycheck.
  - baremetal 4y ago
    There are plenty of people out there who have a great job and live paycheck to paycheck.
    - anonymouskimmer 4y ago
      Sure. I'm not saying otherwise. I'm just saying that good financial habits won't make a person with a very low paying job rich.
      - baremetal 4y ago
        Wouldn't that depend on their expenses? And how many people get rich from their job? Investing in real-estate and stocks are responsible for most of the wealth creation, even for people with good jobs.
bko 4y ago
Yes, this is the best way to get out of poverty. Just requires some planning and discipline. From my experience, the working poor often have a lot of ingenuity in some regards. For instance, as a group they have a lot of collective knowledge about navigating transfer payments (e.g. food stamp eligibility, subsidized housing, etc). But in other respects they fall short. For instance, they're the largest gamblers. > Nationwide, people who make less than $10,000 spend on average $597 on lottery tickets — about 6 percent of their income. > Those in the lowest fifth in terms of socioeconomic status (SES) had the “highest rate of lottery gambling (61%) and the highest mean level of days gambled in the past year (26.1 days).” Moreover, there were “very few observed differences in lottery gambling for those in the three upper SES groups — 42–43% gambled on the lottery and the three upper groups averaged about 10 days of gambling on the lottery in the past year.” [0] Gambling and lottery in particular is really bad for the poor. It's one thing for it to be legal, but do we really need to let states run phone apps to make playing lottery even easier? [0] https://www.vox.com/identities/2016/1/13/10763268/lottery-poor-prey https://www.vox.com/identities/2016/1/13/10763268/lottery-po... [1] https://journalistsresource.org/economics/research-review-lotteries-demographics/ https://journalistsresource.org/economics/research-review-lo...
- landemva 4y ago
  Great example for the benefits of 'no loss lottery'. Savings plan which provides prizes.
  - iinnPP 4y ago
    My wife and I do this using TV bingo sometimes and use freely printed bingo sheets with some old markers. It's a fun way to spend an hour and sometimes it means we go out for dinner or buy something fun.
  - turtleyacht 4y ago
    Great perspective on a savings account. Yes--why can't there be a lottery app that masquerades as a high-yield savings account? I mean, there can still be a payout, but it would be from a separate source like ad revenue or something passive.
waboremo 4y ago
Bidet usage doesn't actually dramatically reduce toilet paper usage (especially those portable ones). Not unless you were one of those people who spun yards for a wipe (which most poor people aren't doing). So your toilet paper costs are already at around $1/week. So in this hypothetical, the $7 bidet cost is coming out of nowhere. And no, a magical solution like finding it in your couch is not viable. This idea that poor people have plush cushions that cause them to lose a lot of pocket money in is hilarious - they have no pocket money.

vsareto 4y ago

You're not wrong, but the answer to "why not just do this" is because those people probably don't know about bidets, because it's not very prevalent elsewhere in life (in the US especially). Lack of knowledge is a problem when you're poor too. If bidets were ubiquitous in the US such that just about everyone has used one, you'd not be seeing this issue.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

baremetal 4y ago

People with a mentality like this don't stay poor. Also taking a shower directly after using the restroom does wonders.

iinnPP 4y ago
It sure does. The sum of people who understand bidets is represented in the following formula: Population - Sum of people who panic purchased TP for Corona Virus = Definitely not just poor people
anonymouskimmer 4y ago
Unless they eventually get a great job they'll stay poor, they just won't stay paycheck to paycheck.
- baremetal 4y ago
  There are plenty of people out there who have a great job and live paycheck to paycheck.
  - anonymouskimmer 4y ago
    Sure. I'm not saying otherwise. I'm just saying that good financial habits won't make a person with a very low paying job rich.
    - baremetal 4y ago
      Wouldn't that depend on their expenses? And how many people get rich from their job? Investing in real-estate and stocks are responsible for most of the wealth creation, even for people with good jobs.

bko 4y ago

Yes, this is the best way to get out of poverty. Just requires some planning and discipline. From my experience, the working poor often have a lot of ingenuity in some regards. For instance, as a group they have a lot of collective knowledge about navigating transfer payments (e.g. food stamp eligibility, subsidized housing, etc). But in other respects they fall short. For instance, they're the largest gamblers. > Nationwide, people who make less than $10,000 spend on average $597 on lottery tickets — about 6 percent of their income. > Those in the lowest fifth in terms of socioeconomic status (SES) had the “highest rate of lottery gambling (61%) and the highest mean level of days gambled in the past year (26.1 days).” Moreover, there were “very few observed differences in lottery gambling for those in the three upper SES groups — 42–43% gambled on the lottery and the three upper groups averaged about 10 days of gambling on the lottery in the past year.” [0] Gambling and lottery in particular is really bad for the poor. It's one thing for it to be legal, but do we really need to let states run phone apps to make playing lottery even easier? [0] https://www.vox.com/identities/2016/1/13/10763268/lottery-poor-prey https://www.vox.com/identities/2016/1/13/10763268/lottery-po... [1] https://journalistsresource.org/economics/research-review-lotteries-demographics/ https://journalistsresource.org/economics/research-review-lo...

landemva 4y ago
Great example for the benefits of 'no loss lottery'. Savings plan which provides prizes.
- iinnPP 4y ago
  My wife and I do this using TV bingo sometimes and use freely printed bingo sheets with some old markers. It's a fun way to spend an hour and sometimes it means we go out for dinner or buy something fun.
- turtleyacht 4y ago
  Great perspective on a savings account. Yes--why can't there be a lottery app that masquerades as a high-yield savings account? I mean, there can still be a payout, but it would be from a separate source like ad revenue or something passive.

waboremo 4y ago

Bidet usage doesn't actually dramatically reduce toilet paper usage (especially those portable ones). Not unless you were one of those people who spun yards for a wipe (which most poor people aren't doing). So your toilet paper costs are already at around $1/week. So in this hypothetical, the $7 bidet cost is coming out of nowhere. And no, a magical solution like finding it in your couch is not viable. This idea that poor people have plush cushions that cause them to lose a lot of pocket money in is hilarious - they have no pocket money.