8 ms·

When you are poor you spend the majority of your brain cycles dealing with your situation. What can I afford to eat today? How am I gonna pay the electricity b

When you are poor you spend the majority of your brain cycles dealing with your situation. What can I afford to eat today? How am I gonna pay the electricity bill? How am I gonna fix my broken 20yo car? Which grocery has the cheapest diapers? Should I switch on the heating today or are there colder days coming this month? If you are well off none of the above is even a thing.

MikeTheGreat 3y ago
Between your comment and your username I immediately thought of this: https://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/ https://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/ It's worth a read. And a re-read, come to think of it - I'll go do that now.
- 2four2 3y ago
  That was really impactful. I grew up pretty okay, but lots of my friends were very poor. I remember experiencing several of these things but I know for a fact they experienced many of them. They were good people who otherwise didn't deserve that struggle.
- zero_k 3y ago
  I read that many (10? 15?) years ago and it changed me. It literally, changed me. That blog post, and its comments (including one by the sister of the author... really difficult stuff) is incredibly hard and important to read.
- nelsonfigueroa 3y ago
  Wow, what a read. Thanks for sharing.
Turing_Machine 3y ago
Really poor people don't have electricity, cars, central heating, and have probably never seen a disposable diaper. Source: grew up in that situation.
- spidersenses 3y ago
  Of course, there will always be someone who has it way worse or lives inside an underdeveloped region but this isn't some kind of competition. To observe the lifelong negative effects of growing up poor one doesn't have to grow up in absolute squalor. Living in a large German city, I also never owned a car and didn't feel poor for the fact.
  - MichaelZuo 3y ago
    I think the parent is pointing out that this description is of someone literally above average. In no other circumstances would it be referred to in this way. e.g. it’s like saying someone with above average work ethic is ‘lazy’, someone with above average intelligence is ‘stupid’, etc…
    - amanaplanacanal 3y ago
      Well sure. Poor depends on where you are too. Poor in an American city can still be rich compared to poor in a very poor country. I don’t think that negates the point though.
      - MichaelZuo 3y ago
        Does ‘lazy’ and ‘stupid’ also depend on location? i.e. at a conference of neurosurgeons perhaps the vast majority of the HN userbase, including perhaps everyone commenting here, would be considered ‘lazy’ and ‘stupid’. If it’s fine to refer to people in this manner, depending on their physical location, then I think it would have some pretty big implications.
  - Rinzler89 3y ago
    >Living in a large German city, I also never owned a car and didn't feel poor for the fact. Lacking a car doesn't make one poor, and if you're growing up in one of Germany's largest cities (where one does not need a car to survive), you're already in an incredibly fortunate position in terms of lottery of birth compared to the rest of the people on the planet.
bequanna 3y ago
It depends. “Poor people” cannot be lumped into a single group. Some respond to their problems like you mention: they dwell on the scarcity and try to problem solve. I’m not convinced that group is the majority of poor (at least in developed countries). There are many low income people who do not really worry or think about those things at all. They are incredibly reactive vs proactive and do not plan well. They don’t really worry about whether or not they can pay the electric bill—either they will pay it or they won’t.
xyzelement 3y ago
I think this under-sells the situation. I grew up in a poor, half-immigrant neighborhood in the 90s in Brooklyn. Despite the limitations you describe some people also asked themselves questions like "how do I make sure my kid takes the hardest math class in the school?" and "how do I get my kid to sign up for the magnet school exam" etc. Those things didn't cost more money (nobody had any) but they reflected the focus on getting their kids out of that situation. The kids whose parents thought this way in my hood are mainly in the 1% now. The kids whose parents didn't think this way have a by-and-large the same life their parents did.
- tsunamifury 3y ago
  What is your point. Also all our statistics counter your point on class mobility
  - xyzelement 3y ago
    Is my point that hard to grasp? The person I am replying to is painting the picture of inevitable stuck-ness. But in that example he omits the free thoughts that other poor people have thought that had enabled them to get un-stuck. The stats are really not that relevant IMHO because you don't know which way the people are thinking, that make up those stats. I bet stats show a vast difference in upward mobility between Asian immigrants and others, for example, because Asians think about how to get unstuck...
    - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
      No, your point is perfectly clear. Some people have taken to replying "What is your point" as if it were a Jedi mind trick, as if by saying that they could make everyone else not see your point. Sometimes someone really didn't have a point, or stated it badly enough that it's not very clear. But more often, "What's your point?" is being used as a cheap rhetorical trick, to try to make everyone else not see the point that is being made, because the one who says "What's your point?" very much doesn't want anyone to see the point, or to acknowledge it as an actual point with any validity. Take comfort when you get asked that. You've made a point that they have no real response to, so all they can do is ineffectively try to get everyone else to ignore it. Now in this case, they did go one step further. They said that statistics disprove your anecdata. That's at least a bit of a rebuttal. But they didn't actually cite any statistics, so it's just this unsupported claim.
ramesh31 3y ago
>When you are poor you spend the majority of your brain cycles dealing with your situation. I call it "Poor Brain/Rich Brain", and neither requires you to be rich or poor, although they are heavily correlated. A Poor Brain person will always take the immediate reward, even if it's not crucial to their survival. They fail the marshmallow test [0]. Rich Brain people will weigh the immediate reward against future opportunities, even if the immediate reward would significantly enhance their life, and the future opportunity is vague and undefined. It's about understanding that how you are perceived in certain situations can far outweigh your own ability to change your circumstances. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experimen...
- cycomanic 3y ago
  Nice for you to make stuff up. The reality is that most statistics show that poor people tend to be much better with money than rich people. The myth that that poor people are poor because of poor management skills is just a stereotype that rich people tell themselves to feel good. Poor people are poor because they lack money. It's been shown over again the best way to get people out of poverty is to give them money. That's why microloan systems were so successful. Moreover financial training has essentially zero effect on lifting people out of poverty.
  - geraldhh 3y ago
    > financial training has essentially zero effect on lifting people out of poverty "Free Advice is seldom cheap"
  - alach11 3y ago
    Microloan programs have largely been a disaster.
  - Brusco_RF 3y ago
    >poor people tend to be much better with money than rich people. This does not pass the sniff test. Lets see your statistics?
- 3y ago
zero_k 3y ago
Indeed. If you wanna understand this more in-depth, I suggest the book "Can't Catch a Break: Gender, Jail, Drugs, and the Limits of Personal Responsibility". It does exactly what it says on the lid, an amazing book.
antiquark 3y ago
The actual poor people I know spend more time worrying about how to afford cigarettes, rather than thinking of the electric bill (which is paid for by the government).
- kjkjadksj 3y ago
  The cigarette seller at one of the major train station downtown is this economic issue in a singular nutshell. He sells cigarettes for a dollar each. No pack costs $24 even with all the taxes but this man gets enough work his way to be there every day. He’s pretty well dressed and personable too not like he is disheveled and desperate. I guess he’s probably clearing well north of minimum wage after his expenses bothering with this.
cedws 3y ago
This is why "billionaire works 80 hours a week so you should too" is idiotic. Assuming, say, Elon Musk really does work 80 hours a week (being an edgy shitlord on Twitter is not work), do you really think he has all of the same duties you do? Does he drive his kids to school? Does he get stuck in traffic on his commute to work? Does he cook dinner and help his kids with homework? It's easy to work 80 hours a week when you have people taking care of all of your other needs.
- EnigmaFlare 3y ago
  It's not easy. I know people who have nannies, cleaners, gardeners, etc. but they still don't work 80 hours a week. Somebody with a fairly normal job could, in principle (assuming employer allows it, opportunities exist, etc.), work 80 hours a week and spend their entire extra income on a full-time assistant for their daily chores. The more your hourly income is higher than the assistant's, the more economical that becomes. A FAANG level programmer could absolutely do that, but they typically don't, probably because it's not easy! You don't even need an assistant if you have no kids, live walking distance from work, and get all your meals by eating out/delivery. You won't have much housework because you won't spend much time there.
ericmcer 3y ago
I think it also has a weird effect on how you save money. I have been broke before and worked for < $15/hr from the ages of 16-25, but I came from a middle class family and always had the mindset that I would someday have money. I think being raised poor imbues you with the opposite mentality, that you will inevitably end up being broke. This has played out a few times in front of my eyes when friends from poor families come into a windfall and burn through it within a few months. It was like they subconsciously knew they would wind up broke again so why not?
- kjkjadksj 3y ago
  There is something to be said at least of the philosophy of spending money when you have good health and free time, than being on the opposite spectrum of some joyless miser who might die one day never taking advantage of what they worked to save for themselves. You might die before 50 you never know.
- sameoldtune 3y ago
  I see this play out with my partner. I was raised in middle class paradise (small town Midwest) whereas my partner grew up in poverty in the mountains. Now they have a better job than me but they tend to spend lots of money on silly things and can’t save like I can. The mindset that money is for the future is something that is slowly sinking in for them (a shared account for future bills helped a lot!). On the other hand, I think I’ve become less of a miser. To me an extra $100 is that much closer to a safe retirement. For them it’s 4 candles. Compromising on 2 candles has worked well for us.
GuB-42 3y ago
In many cases, the poor have created that situation themselves. In fact that's the reason they are poor: the income may actually be decent, but spending is uncontrolled. Many well-off people care about these things. They cook for themselves to save money, they monitor their electricity usage, buy reliable second hand cars, look at the diaper prices and wear warm clothes instead of overheating the space. Some of them do it even if they don't have to, making it a waste of their valuable time, but for those with low middle-class income, it is the difference between a rather good standard of living and poverty. In fact, if you are really good at "dealing with your situation", chances are that you won't stay poor for long. Not only you will make the best of whatever income you have, but it is also a highly sought after skill, and you may up with a well paying job or a profitable business. But it is usually a learned skill, and other poor people are unlikely to teach you, because they failed at it themselves, it is a vicious circle.
- metalforever 3y ago
  This comment is extremely ignorant . A lot of the poor and working class are intelligent, clever, and hardworking. Poverty traps are a thing.
lc9er 3y ago
And that's just the problems you can control. If you are poor and live in a bad neighborhood, you're probably worried about getting to/from work without getting jumped. Everything is filthy. There's trash everywhere. You probably live near environmental hazards like an airport, factory, or some public works. My neighborhood growing up was ringed with an airport, sewage treatment plant, junk yards, and the remnants of manufacturing industry. The air was gross and it was always loud. These kinds of things just absolutely wear you down.
mancerayder 3y ago
Why is it that outcomes are not the same? Most poor folks remain such, and live their lives pro-creating young, etc. A minority of them overcome the situation given the circumstances presented: if it is a country in dire straits, they immigrate out. If it is the U.S. or another rich country, they make it work. In places like LA and NYC and Chicago, there are immigrants who made it, poor who made it and poor who didn't.
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago
I would say, when I was poor, I was less busy dealing with the situation. No need to choose between all of those Michelin starred restaurants, just eat the bread and wash down with tea. No need to think where to invest - in stocks or in bonds - as there was nothing to invest. No need to wash the car - just hop on the bus or walk. And every girl loved me and not my money for sure!
agumonkey 3y ago
There's an exponential inverse law. Being too far below poverty makes everything 10 times harder. Being far above makes everything safer, simpler, less costly (you have time, resources to take risks, and you have people willing to give you hints to ensure better odds).
sershe 3y ago
Frankly I wonder what influences what weird hangups being poor/relatively poor gives people. Like, when I was growing up I remember my mom and grandmother discussing exactly this - oh, this store has chicken on discount, and the market at blah neighborhood has the cheapest tomatoes, I'll be in the neighborhood and can pick up some for you. However, I got all the useful hangups from it and none of the poverty trap ones, as far as I'm aware. A big one, I generally have disdain for status goods, probably because I couldn't have them as a kid so I convinced myself they don't matter. This one I'm not planning to fix :) Or, I mechanically buy things I need on discount and optimize minor things like that without much mental effort. I have to train myself now to notice when I do make effort, so I don't waste time saving 5 bucks anymore. Or a weird one, I am averse to buying anything that I cannot afford /very/ easily, I remember the first time I saved enough money from odd jobs and gifts to upgrade my computer (early aughts), I was deathly afraid to do it - cause if something happened to my years-old shitty computer I could use the money to buy a new one 3 times over, but if I spent the money now on the new one and something happened to it I'd be SOL, better stick with the old shitty computer. When having money, it translated into e.g. buying a house I could afford very easily ("the cheapest house on the best street", sorta) instead of maxing out like most people I know and buying as much house as practical... However in smaller things, I have to really force myself to spend money, e.g. to not buy crappy air tickets just cause they are a bit cheaper, and such. Why cannot everyone get the good hangups from poverty? :)

MikeTheGreat 3y ago

Between your comment and your username I immediately thought of this: https://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/ https://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/ It's worth a read. And a re-read, come to think of it - I'll go do that now.

2four2 3y ago
That was really impactful. I grew up pretty okay, but lots of my friends were very poor. I remember experiencing several of these things but I know for a fact they experienced many of them. They were good people who otherwise didn't deserve that struggle.
zero_k 3y ago
I read that many (10? 15?) years ago and it changed me. It literally, changed me. That blog post, and its comments (including one by the sister of the author... really difficult stuff) is incredibly hard and important to read.
nelsonfigueroa 3y ago
Wow, what a read. Thanks for sharing.

Turing_Machine 3y ago

Really poor people don't have electricity, cars, central heating, and have probably never seen a disposable diaper. Source: grew up in that situation.

spidersenses 3y ago
Of course, there will always be someone who has it way worse or lives inside an underdeveloped region but this isn't some kind of competition. To observe the lifelong negative effects of growing up poor one doesn't have to grow up in absolute squalor. Living in a large German city, I also never owned a car and didn't feel poor for the fact.
- MichaelZuo 3y ago
  I think the parent is pointing out that this description is of someone literally above average. In no other circumstances would it be referred to in this way. e.g. it’s like saying someone with above average work ethic is ‘lazy’, someone with above average intelligence is ‘stupid’, etc…
  - amanaplanacanal 3y ago
    Well sure. Poor depends on where you are too. Poor in an American city can still be rich compared to poor in a very poor country. I don’t think that negates the point though.
    - MichaelZuo 3y ago
      Does ‘lazy’ and ‘stupid’ also depend on location? i.e. at a conference of neurosurgeons perhaps the vast majority of the HN userbase, including perhaps everyone commenting here, would be considered ‘lazy’ and ‘stupid’. If it’s fine to refer to people in this manner, depending on their physical location, then I think it would have some pretty big implications.
- Rinzler89 3y ago
  >Living in a large German city, I also never owned a car and didn't feel poor for the fact. Lacking a car doesn't make one poor, and if you're growing up in one of Germany's largest cities (where one does not need a car to survive), you're already in an incredibly fortunate position in terms of lottery of birth compared to the rest of the people on the planet.

bequanna 3y ago

It depends. “Poor people” cannot be lumped into a single group. Some respond to their problems like you mention: they dwell on the scarcity and try to problem solve. I’m not convinced that group is the majority of poor (at least in developed countries). There are many low income people who do not really worry or think about those things at all. They are incredibly reactive vs proactive and do not plan well. They don’t really worry about whether or not they can pay the electric bill—either they will pay it or they won’t.

xyzelement 3y ago

I think this under-sells the situation. I grew up in a poor, half-immigrant neighborhood in the 90s in Brooklyn. Despite the limitations you describe some people also asked themselves questions like "how do I make sure my kid takes the hardest math class in the school?" and "how do I get my kid to sign up for the magnet school exam" etc. Those things didn't cost more money (nobody had any) but they reflected the focus on getting their kids out of that situation. The kids whose parents thought this way in my hood are mainly in the 1% now. The kids whose parents didn't think this way have a by-and-large the same life their parents did.

tsunamifury 3y ago
What is your point. Also all our statistics counter your point on class mobility
- xyzelement 3y ago
  Is my point that hard to grasp? The person I am replying to is painting the picture of inevitable stuck-ness. But in that example he omits the free thoughts that other poor people have thought that had enabled them to get un-stuck. The stats are really not that relevant IMHO because you don't know which way the people are thinking, that make up those stats. I bet stats show a vast difference in upward mobility between Asian immigrants and others, for example, because Asians think about how to get unstuck...
  - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
    No, your point is perfectly clear. Some people have taken to replying "What is your point" as if it were a Jedi mind trick, as if by saying that they could make everyone else not see your point. Sometimes someone really didn't have a point, or stated it badly enough that it's not very clear. But more often, "What's your point?" is being used as a cheap rhetorical trick, to try to make everyone else not see the point that is being made, because the one who says "What's your point?" very much doesn't want anyone to see the point, or to acknowledge it as an actual point with any validity. Take comfort when you get asked that. You've made a point that they have no real response to, so all they can do is ineffectively try to get everyone else to ignore it. Now in this case, they did go one step further. They said that statistics disprove your anecdata. That's at least a bit of a rebuttal. But they didn't actually cite any statistics, so it's just this unsupported claim.

ramesh31 3y ago

>When you are poor you spend the majority of your brain cycles dealing with your situation. I call it "Poor Brain/Rich Brain", and neither requires you to be rich or poor, although they are heavily correlated. A Poor Brain person will always take the immediate reward, even if it's not crucial to their survival. They fail the marshmallow test [0]. Rich Brain people will weigh the immediate reward against future opportunities, even if the immediate reward would significantly enhance their life, and the future opportunity is vague and undefined. It's about understanding that how you are perceived in certain situations can far outweigh your own ability to change your circumstances. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experimen...

cycomanic 3y ago
Nice for you to make stuff up. The reality is that most statistics show that poor people tend to be much better with money than rich people. The myth that that poor people are poor because of poor management skills is just a stereotype that rich people tell themselves to feel good. Poor people are poor because they lack money. It's been shown over again the best way to get people out of poverty is to give them money. That's why microloan systems were so successful. Moreover financial training has essentially zero effect on lifting people out of poverty.
- geraldhh 3y ago
  > financial training has essentially zero effect on lifting people out of poverty "Free Advice is seldom cheap"
- alach11 3y ago
  Microloan programs have largely been a disaster.
- Brusco_RF 3y ago
  >poor people tend to be much better with money than rich people. This does not pass the sniff test. Lets see your statistics?
3y ago

zero_k 3y ago

Indeed. If you wanna understand this more in-depth, I suggest the book "Can't Catch a Break: Gender, Jail, Drugs, and the Limits of Personal Responsibility". It does exactly what it says on the lid, an amazing book.

antiquark 3y ago

The actual poor people I know spend more time worrying about how to afford cigarettes, rather than thinking of the electric bill (which is paid for by the government).

kjkjadksj 3y ago
The cigarette seller at one of the major train station downtown is this economic issue in a singular nutshell. He sells cigarettes for a dollar each. No pack costs $24 even with all the taxes but this man gets enough work his way to be there every day. He’s pretty well dressed and personable too not like he is disheveled and desperate. I guess he’s probably clearing well north of minimum wage after his expenses bothering with this.

cedws 3y ago

This is why "billionaire works 80 hours a week so you should too" is idiotic. Assuming, say, Elon Musk really does work 80 hours a week (being an edgy shitlord on Twitter is not work), do you really think he has all of the same duties you do? Does he drive his kids to school? Does he get stuck in traffic on his commute to work? Does he cook dinner and help his kids with homework? It's easy to work 80 hours a week when you have people taking care of all of your other needs.

EnigmaFlare 3y ago
It's not easy. I know people who have nannies, cleaners, gardeners, etc. but they still don't work 80 hours a week. Somebody with a fairly normal job could, in principle (assuming employer allows it, opportunities exist, etc.), work 80 hours a week and spend their entire extra income on a full-time assistant for their daily chores. The more your hourly income is higher than the assistant's, the more economical that becomes. A FAANG level programmer could absolutely do that, but they typically don't, probably because it's not easy! You don't even need an assistant if you have no kids, live walking distance from work, and get all your meals by eating out/delivery. You won't have much housework because you won't spend much time there.

ericmcer 3y ago

I think it also has a weird effect on how you save money. I have been broke before and worked for < $15/hr from the ages of 16-25, but I came from a middle class family and always had the mindset that I would someday have money. I think being raised poor imbues you with the opposite mentality, that you will inevitably end up being broke. This has played out a few times in front of my eyes when friends from poor families come into a windfall and burn through it within a few months. It was like they subconsciously knew they would wind up broke again so why not?

kjkjadksj 3y ago
There is something to be said at least of the philosophy of spending money when you have good health and free time, than being on the opposite spectrum of some joyless miser who might die one day never taking advantage of what they worked to save for themselves. You might die before 50 you never know.
sameoldtune 3y ago
I see this play out with my partner. I was raised in middle class paradise (small town Midwest) whereas my partner grew up in poverty in the mountains. Now they have a better job than me but they tend to spend lots of money on silly things and can’t save like I can. The mindset that money is for the future is something that is slowly sinking in for them (a shared account for future bills helped a lot!). On the other hand, I think I’ve become less of a miser. To me an extra $100 is that much closer to a safe retirement. For them it’s 4 candles. Compromising on 2 candles has worked well for us.

GuB-42 3y ago

In many cases, the poor have created that situation themselves. In fact that's the reason they are poor: the income may actually be decent, but spending is uncontrolled. Many well-off people care about these things. They cook for themselves to save money, they monitor their electricity usage, buy reliable second hand cars, look at the diaper prices and wear warm clothes instead of overheating the space. Some of them do it even if they don't have to, making it a waste of their valuable time, but for those with low middle-class income, it is the difference between a rather good standard of living and poverty. In fact, if you are really good at "dealing with your situation", chances are that you won't stay poor for long. Not only you will make the best of whatever income you have, but it is also a highly sought after skill, and you may up with a well paying job or a profitable business. But it is usually a learned skill, and other poor people are unlikely to teach you, because they failed at it themselves, it is a vicious circle.

metalforever 3y ago
This comment is extremely ignorant . A lot of the poor and working class are intelligent, clever, and hardworking. Poverty traps are a thing.

lc9er 3y ago

And that's just the problems you can control. If you are poor and live in a bad neighborhood, you're probably worried about getting to/from work without getting jumped. Everything is filthy. There's trash everywhere. You probably live near environmental hazards like an airport, factory, or some public works. My neighborhood growing up was ringed with an airport, sewage treatment plant, junk yards, and the remnants of manufacturing industry. The air was gross and it was always loud. These kinds of things just absolutely wear you down.

mancerayder 3y ago

Why is it that outcomes are not the same? Most poor folks remain such, and live their lives pro-creating young, etc. A minority of them overcome the situation given the circumstances presented: if it is a country in dire straits, they immigrate out. If it is the U.S. or another rich country, they make it work. In places like LA and NYC and Chicago, there are immigrants who made it, poor who made it and poor who didn't.

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago

I would say, when I was poor, I was less busy dealing with the situation. No need to choose between all of those Michelin starred restaurants, just eat the bread and wash down with tea. No need to think where to invest - in stocks or in bonds - as there was nothing to invest. No need to wash the car - just hop on the bus or walk. And every girl loved me and not my money for sure!

agumonkey 3y ago

There's an exponential inverse law. Being too far below poverty makes everything 10 times harder. Being far above makes everything safer, simpler, less costly (you have time, resources to take risks, and you have people willing to give you hints to ensure better odds).

sershe 3y ago

Frankly I wonder what influences what weird hangups being poor/relatively poor gives people. Like, when I was growing up I remember my mom and grandmother discussing exactly this - oh, this store has chicken on discount, and the market at blah neighborhood has the cheapest tomatoes, I'll be in the neighborhood and can pick up some for you. However, I got all the useful hangups from it and none of the poverty trap ones, as far as I'm aware. A big one, I generally have disdain for status goods, probably because I couldn't have them as a kid so I convinced myself they don't matter. This one I'm not planning to fix :) Or, I mechanically buy things I need on discount and optimize minor things like that without much mental effort. I have to train myself now to notice when I do make effort, so I don't waste time saving 5 bucks anymore. Or a weird one, I am averse to buying anything that I cannot afford /very/ easily, I remember the first time I saved enough money from odd jobs and gifts to upgrade my computer (early aughts), I was deathly afraid to do it - cause if something happened to my years-old shitty computer I could use the money to buy a new one 3 times over, but if I spent the money now on the new one and something happened to it I'd be SOL, better stick with the old shitty computer. When having money, it translated into e.g. buying a house I could afford very easily ("the cheapest house on the best street", sorta) instead of maxing out like most people I know and buying as much house as practical... However in smaller things, I have to really force myself to spend money, e.g. to not buy crappy air tickets just cause they are a bit cheaper, and such. Why cannot everyone get the good hangups from poverty? :)