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> Their decision to spring for a new sofa set was, if anything, a bet on the most optimistic arc for their family. Donald was getting regular work, sometimes ma

> Their decision to spring for a new sofa set was, if anything, a bet on the most optimistic arc for their family. Donald was getting regular work, sometimes making $500 in a week..The love seat and sofa retailed, together, for about $1,500. Why exactly is a family with a maximum of $25,000/year in (unreliable) income buying a new sofa that costs $1,500 upfront? I make more than 4x what they do in reliable income and have no dependents, yet I got my sofa $300 used on Craigslist. These people need to learn some basic personal finance.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
devindotcom 11y ago
Nobody wants to buy items for amounts two or three times what they’d cost at a retail store. But when Abbott did her shopping in February, she didn’t have the money to make even a small lump-sum payment for anything of decent quality, even on Craigslist. She couldn’t buy via a layaway plan; Wal-Mart offers that option only during the holiday season. Perhaps she could have saved up the money on her own, but whenever she has tried to do so, her stash has been wiped out to handle daily needs. “Rent-to-own was basically all we could do,” Abbott, 33, said. Yeah, I wouldn't do it either, but I'm not in their shoes and I don't need that $150 this week to make rent. Meanwhile an entire industry is built that preys on people for whom this seems a good option. They're poor and they're misinformed - that sucks. And people make bad decisions all the time. But let's save our derision for the company gleefully charging a poor family four grand for a couch.
- baddox 11y ago
  I still don't get it. If they're paying $150 a week to finance the nice couch, why not stick it out for two weeks without a couch and buy the $300 one on craigslist?
  - cbhl 11y ago
    My parents just took old couches in off the street, for the cost of dragging it down the street and up the stairs. But when you're poor, you're more self-conscious about these things. What happens when your six-year-old son/daughter brings over their friends to play? Will they get made fun of for the old couch? What if there are hair lice in it? What if the kid gets hurt from it collapsing, and you have to take them to the doctor (which will cost hundreds out of pocket)? There are all sorts of irrational fears praying on the people in this situation.
    - kubiiii 11y ago
      Spot on I think. But are those fears 100 % irrational? Weatlthy people can build their own furniture with old wood skids, their neighbours will never raise an eyebrow. Try doing that if you are poor. You'll get child protection in no time.
  - steve19 11y ago
    "So Abbott and her husband walked into Buddy’s this past winter, hoping to replace the old sofa in their trailer, six years old, its wiring poking through the bottom, cutting gashes into the living room floor." The easy and cheap option if you have springs poking into the floor is buy a sheet of MDF for $9.25[0] and a 20" hand saw for $20 (or less) [1] and the spring-destroying-the-floor problem is fixed for under $30. It breaks my heart that these folks are so financially illiterate that they dig themselves into such terrible debt. [0] http://www.homedepot.com/p/Unbranded-1-8-in-x-4-ft-x-8-ft-S2S-MDF-Tempered-Hardboard-127320/202820158?N=5yc1vZbtn1 http://www.homedepot.com/p/Unbranded-1-8-in-x-4-ft-x-8-ft-S2... [1] http://www.homedepot.com/p/Stanley-20-in-Saw-20-029L/100243233 http://www.homedepot.com/p/Stanley-20-in-Saw-20-029L/1002432...
- brandonbloom 11y ago
  These companies are despicable, for sure, but they couldn't exist without a long line of poor suckers. Both parties are clearly at fault in different ways, but we can fix the problem without ignoring the poor or inventing significant new and complex laws to clamp down on bad actors: We invest in education. When we have another sub-prime style meltdown we need to bail the economy out of, we're going to be wishing we invested in our schools and added basic life skills such as personal finance to the lesson plans. It's certainly cheaper to bailout schools than financial institutions. Anything else will fix a symptom, not cure the disease.
  - nsxwolf 11y ago
    How many times can someone make this mistake? It sounds like a good lesson the first time it happens. At some point, you learn to go on Craigslist and get a decent used couch (and fumigate it for bedbugs). Having classes to teach people this in public schools sounds really condescending. Poor people can't be so stupid that they can't even learn from their own mistakes.
    - brandonbloom 11y ago
      Many people do learn from their first mistake like this, but 1) there are always more fools and 2) for many, it's unrecoverable As for the condescension: let kids test out. We really ought to abolish this entire notion of a class moving between grades together at the same pace, it's arcane.
mc32 11y ago
Sometimes people get overexcited and only see the upside of things. I.e. I just got a job, hey, I got money, I can spend some. It's normal, albeit, shortsighted thinking. So, while I would scout for a used sofa, desk, etc... I'd splurge on a nice dinner with friends when I probably should have held back a bit. The other thing, is there is this psychological oppression where people feel obliged to act like others in society. So you think in relative terms rather than absolute. If Jane has a new computer, well, so should I --even if there is no reason the three year old system is insufficient. Keeping up appearances is a hell of a drug, to paraphrase.
acveilleux 11y ago
Because they can't do any cash payments for any kind of sofa. But they just about thought they might be able to afford 40$ a week on this: http://www.buddyrents.com/linebacker-power-sofa-reclining-love.html http://www.buddyrents.com/linebacker-power-sofa-reclining-lo... Of course, that's with a 100 week term for a total of 4000$. America values material possessions a lot and when you're actually poor, you can't afford any. Places like this dangle small "affordable" amounts to people who can't do the math. And a big part of why they might not do that math is shame.
leftnode 11y ago
They'll get right on that when they're barely getting by week by week. Between the mental exhaustion of crippling poverty combined with physical exhaustion from working incredibly demanding jobs, there's not a lot of time to learn personal finance. Not to mention, there's just not a lot of resources to do so for the poor. Wheres the disdain for predatory companies who prey on that susceptibility?
rosser 11y ago
These people... In my experience, pretty much anything anyone ever has ever said that starts with those two words can be dismissed out of hand. EDIT: It's called hyperbole. But when you couple a "these people" with some sweeping, judgmental pronouncement about how the people in question are doing something stupid, wrong, immoral, &c, it becomes radically less so, and quickly.
- baddox 11y ago
  It's two words of extremely basic English. How would you refer to a specific set of humans?
  - sliverstorm 11y ago
    In my experience, any statement that starts with "It's" can safely be ignored. ;)
  - rosser 11y ago
    Maybe with a little bit less obvious disdain for the people you're talking about?
- chair6 11y ago
  Somewhat relevant, also on the subject of "These People"... http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NBLUU42FW0E http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NBLUU42FW0E
- msie 11y ago
  I "love" how a guy making 4x with no children is giving advice to people making a lot less WITH children. Completely different worlds.
bliti 11y ago
My friend, I hope you never get dealt the same hand they got. It's not life, but merely surviving.
mikekchar 11y ago
> Normal families have sofas, she says, and you’ll do what it takes to feel normal. "Normal" families buy new things too. "Normal" families don't scrimp and save just so they can have chairs to sit on, and beds to sleep in. Interestingly, I neither have chairs in my apartment nor a bed. Nobody thinks I'm "abnormal" in this respect because I live in Japan. It is a bit strange that I work from home, program on an end table I borrowed from my mother-in-law and I sit on a stool that I bought for about $15 (admittedly new). But I started using that 6 months ago thinking I would upgrade when I needed to. Surprisingly I haven't needed to. The expectation of "normality" is what is killing the poor. This is based on your culture. You need a bed. You need a sofa. You need a kitchen table. You need an oven. You need a car. You need a sensible desk to work on. You need a special work chair. You need cable television. None of these things are actually needed in most cases. Possibly a person needs one or two of these things in specific cases, just like I need a computer to do my job. I don't have any of the things listed above and I'm not poor by any stretch of the imagination. My life seems perfectly "normal" to me. Without trying to sound superior (which is really difficult because probably I am unconsciously feeling that way), the skills you need to live happily on a very, very low income are probably the same skills you need to have to make (and keep) a lot of money.
- reagency 11y ago
  Your last sentence doesn't really make sense. Plenty of rich people buy plenty of frivolous things
  - mikekchar 11y ago
    I had to think about your 2 sentences for a long time before I decided that you are right. The top 10% of income earners make $113,799 per year in the USA. The number of people I've seen who can earn that amount of money and burn through it all is astounding. I personally even know people who can spend that kind of money and even need to look for food handouts at the end of the month. I suppose what I meant is that if you can live happily on $10K per year, then probably it will be very easy for you to get and maintain employment for a lot more. As well as meeting people who can burn through money at a ferocious rate, I've met (much fewer) people who can live happily in what most Americans would call poverty. Those people always seem to have much more money than they need. It takes rare skills to live like that. The end result is that the poor have very little chance of bootstrapping themselves out of poverty (because if they could, they already would).
Veratyr 11y ago
It gets worse: > They were perpetually behind with their Buddy’s installments and had taken to skipping one week and then catching up, with a $5 late fee rolled in. To make matters worse, those payment trips to Buddy’s put them eye to eye with more temptations. One week, they added a smartphone to their order. Another week, some Samsung speakers. And suddenly, the weekly payments to Buddy’s were $110. And more: > By midday that Thursday, $51 of the $230 had already vanished, used for gas and cigarettes They're already on the edge financially, to the point where even eating healthily is an issue yet they still buy cigarettes and add even more monthly payments for unnecessary technology. Basic life skills like budgeting, saving money, paying taxes and controlling your debt really need to be taught in schools. Maybe add it to math. Teaching math with practical lessons benefits everyone.
Aloha 11y ago
If you don't live in a major city, a 300 dollar craigslist sofa is nearly a nonexistent thing.
- redblacktree 11y ago
  Nonsense. If not craigslist, then a yard sale. If not that, a thrift store. You can certainly do better than buying new.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

devindotcom 11y ago

Nobody wants to buy items for amounts two or three times what they’d cost at a retail store. But when Abbott did her shopping in February, she didn’t have the money to make even a small lump-sum payment for anything of decent quality, even on Craigslist. She couldn’t buy via a layaway plan; Wal-Mart offers that option only during the holiday season. Perhaps she could have saved up the money on her own, but whenever she has tried to do so, her stash has been wiped out to handle daily needs. “Rent-to-own was basically all we could do,” Abbott, 33, said. Yeah, I wouldn't do it either, but I'm not in their shoes and I don't need that $150 this week to make rent. Meanwhile an entire industry is built that preys on people for whom this seems a good option. They're poor and they're misinformed - that sucks. And people make bad decisions all the time. But let's save our derision for the company gleefully charging a poor family four grand for a couch.

baddox 11y ago
I still don't get it. If they're paying $150 a week to finance the nice couch, why not stick it out for two weeks without a couch and buy the $300 one on craigslist?
- cbhl 11y ago
  My parents just took old couches in off the street, for the cost of dragging it down the street and up the stairs. But when you're poor, you're more self-conscious about these things. What happens when your six-year-old son/daughter brings over their friends to play? Will they get made fun of for the old couch? What if there are hair lice in it? What if the kid gets hurt from it collapsing, and you have to take them to the doctor (which will cost hundreds out of pocket)? There are all sorts of irrational fears praying on the people in this situation.
  - kubiiii 11y ago
    Spot on I think. But are those fears 100 % irrational? Weatlthy people can build their own furniture with old wood skids, their neighbours will never raise an eyebrow. Try doing that if you are poor. You'll get child protection in no time.
- steve19 11y ago
  "So Abbott and her husband walked into Buddy’s this past winter, hoping to replace the old sofa in their trailer, six years old, its wiring poking through the bottom, cutting gashes into the living room floor." The easy and cheap option if you have springs poking into the floor is buy a sheet of MDF for $9.25[0] and a 20" hand saw for $20 (or less) [1] and the spring-destroying-the-floor problem is fixed for under $30. It breaks my heart that these folks are so financially illiterate that they dig themselves into such terrible debt. [0] http://www.homedepot.com/p/Unbranded-1-8-in-x-4-ft-x-8-ft-S2S-MDF-Tempered-Hardboard-127320/202820158?N=5yc1vZbtn1 http://www.homedepot.com/p/Unbranded-1-8-in-x-4-ft-x-8-ft-S2... [1] http://www.homedepot.com/p/Stanley-20-in-Saw-20-029L/100243233 http://www.homedepot.com/p/Stanley-20-in-Saw-20-029L/1002432...
brandonbloom 11y ago
These companies are despicable, for sure, but they couldn't exist without a long line of poor suckers. Both parties are clearly at fault in different ways, but we can fix the problem without ignoring the poor or inventing significant new and complex laws to clamp down on bad actors: We invest in education. When we have another sub-prime style meltdown we need to bail the economy out of, we're going to be wishing we invested in our schools and added basic life skills such as personal finance to the lesson plans. It's certainly cheaper to bailout schools than financial institutions. Anything else will fix a symptom, not cure the disease.
- nsxwolf 11y ago
  How many times can someone make this mistake? It sounds like a good lesson the first time it happens. At some point, you learn to go on Craigslist and get a decent used couch (and fumigate it for bedbugs). Having classes to teach people this in public schools sounds really condescending. Poor people can't be so stupid that they can't even learn from their own mistakes.
  - brandonbloom 11y ago
    Many people do learn from their first mistake like this, but 1) there are always more fools and 2) for many, it's unrecoverable As for the condescension: let kids test out. We really ought to abolish this entire notion of a class moving between grades together at the same pace, it's arcane.

mc32 11y ago

Sometimes people get overexcited and only see the upside of things. I.e. I just got a job, hey, I got money, I can spend some. It's normal, albeit, shortsighted thinking. So, while I would scout for a used sofa, desk, etc... I'd splurge on a nice dinner with friends when I probably should have held back a bit. The other thing, is there is this psychological oppression where people feel obliged to act like others in society. So you think in relative terms rather than absolute. If Jane has a new computer, well, so should I --even if there is no reason the three year old system is insufficient. Keeping up appearances is a hell of a drug, to paraphrase.

acveilleux 11y ago

Because they can't do any cash payments for any kind of sofa. But they just about thought they might be able to afford 40$ a week on this: http://www.buddyrents.com/linebacker-power-sofa-reclining-love.html http://www.buddyrents.com/linebacker-power-sofa-reclining-lo... Of course, that's with a 100 week term for a total of 4000$. America values material possessions a lot and when you're actually poor, you can't afford any. Places like this dangle small "affordable" amounts to people who can't do the math. And a big part of why they might not do that math is shame.

leftnode 11y ago

They'll get right on that when they're barely getting by week by week. Between the mental exhaustion of crippling poverty combined with physical exhaustion from working incredibly demanding jobs, there's not a lot of time to learn personal finance. Not to mention, there's just not a lot of resources to do so for the poor. Wheres the disdain for predatory companies who prey on that susceptibility?

rosser 11y ago

These people... In my experience, pretty much anything anyone ever has ever said that starts with those two words can be dismissed out of hand. EDIT: It's called hyperbole. But when you couple a "these people" with some sweeping, judgmental pronouncement about how the people in question are doing something stupid, wrong, immoral, &c, it becomes radically less so, and quickly.

baddox 11y ago
It's two words of extremely basic English. How would you refer to a specific set of humans?
- sliverstorm 11y ago
  In my experience, any statement that starts with "It's" can safely be ignored. ;)
- rosser 11y ago
  Maybe with a little bit less obvious disdain for the people you're talking about?
chair6 11y ago
Somewhat relevant, also on the subject of "These People"... http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NBLUU42FW0E http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NBLUU42FW0E
msie 11y ago
I "love" how a guy making 4x with no children is giving advice to people making a lot less WITH children. Completely different worlds.

bliti 11y ago

My friend, I hope you never get dealt the same hand they got. It's not life, but merely surviving.

mikekchar 11y ago

> Normal families have sofas, she says, and you’ll do what it takes to feel normal. "Normal" families buy new things too. "Normal" families don't scrimp and save just so they can have chairs to sit on, and beds to sleep in. Interestingly, I neither have chairs in my apartment nor a bed. Nobody thinks I'm "abnormal" in this respect because I live in Japan. It is a bit strange that I work from home, program on an end table I borrowed from my mother-in-law and I sit on a stool that I bought for about $15 (admittedly new). But I started using that 6 months ago thinking I would upgrade when I needed to. Surprisingly I haven't needed to. The expectation of "normality" is what is killing the poor. This is based on your culture. You need a bed. You need a sofa. You need a kitchen table. You need an oven. You need a car. You need a sensible desk to work on. You need a special work chair. You need cable television. None of these things are actually needed in most cases. Possibly a person needs one or two of these things in specific cases, just like I need a computer to do my job. I don't have any of the things listed above and I'm not poor by any stretch of the imagination. My life seems perfectly "normal" to me. Without trying to sound superior (which is really difficult because probably I am unconsciously feeling that way), the skills you need to live happily on a very, very low income are probably the same skills you need to have to make (and keep) a lot of money.

reagency 11y ago
Your last sentence doesn't really make sense. Plenty of rich people buy plenty of frivolous things
- mikekchar 11y ago
  I had to think about your 2 sentences for a long time before I decided that you are right. The top 10% of income earners make $113,799 per year in the USA. The number of people I've seen who can earn that amount of money and burn through it all is astounding. I personally even know people who can spend that kind of money and even need to look for food handouts at the end of the month. I suppose what I meant is that if you can live happily on $10K per year, then probably it will be very easy for you to get and maintain employment for a lot more. As well as meeting people who can burn through money at a ferocious rate, I've met (much fewer) people who can live happily in what most Americans would call poverty. Those people always seem to have much more money than they need. It takes rare skills to live like that. The end result is that the poor have very little chance of bootstrapping themselves out of poverty (because if they could, they already would).

Veratyr 11y ago

It gets worse: > They were perpetually behind with their Buddy’s installments and had taken to skipping one week and then catching up, with a $5 late fee rolled in. To make matters worse, those payment trips to Buddy’s put them eye to eye with more temptations. One week, they added a smartphone to their order. Another week, some Samsung speakers. And suddenly, the weekly payments to Buddy’s were $110. And more: > By midday that Thursday, $51 of the $230 had already vanished, used for gas and cigarettes They're already on the edge financially, to the point where even eating healthily is an issue yet they still buy cigarettes and add even more monthly payments for unnecessary technology. Basic life skills like budgeting, saving money, paying taxes and controlling your debt really need to be taught in schools. Maybe add it to math. Teaching math with practical lessons benefits everyone.

Aloha 11y ago

If you don't live in a major city, a 300 dollar craigslist sofa is nearly a nonexistent thing.

redblacktree 11y ago
Nonsense. If not craigslist, then a yard sale. If not that, a thrift store. You can certainly do better than buying new.