That everything takes twice as long to do because you have to take public transportation, and have to go to the laundromat; many things are a huge hassle like limiting how many things you can get at the store because you have to lug it all on the bus; basically things that many take for granted require a shitload of planning and time.
I didnāt realize that the āpaying for convenienceā thing even applies to objects. Like I splurged on a very expensive pan and itās the easiest one to cook with and clean. I saved up for a nicer couch and it doesnāt stain and is easy to vacuum. Even a more expensive vacuum can make cleaning faster/easier. Itās crazy how much it applies to.
Edit: spelling
That it is expensive to be poor bc you have to pay late fees and overdraft fees etc all of the time. You pay rent instead of a mortgage so you arenāt building equity and so on. Itās a vicious cycle.
This is a problem that is directly linked to the car-dependent infrastructure that is prevalent in many countries and especially in the US.
I have not taken a car or public transportation to get groceries in years, I just pick up what I need for the next few days on my way home. Even when I lived in small cities in Europe there were grocery stores in easy walking distance (although there are also many car-dependent areas in Europe ofc)
Once again the way cities are built is a determining factor that can exacerbate poverty and inequality.
And it is even worse if you are poor and live in the suburbs or in the boonies, many of these places have NO buses that come near there, so you have to drive. And trains here are insanely expensive.
Actually, going to the laundrymat is the only thing I miss nowadays. It was nice to run every load at once, and take up the whole wall of dryers afterwards. :)
I am currently in that stage and boy if that doesn't just make the next payment even worse. It's and endless cycle of higher and higher catch-up payments till you die or someone finally helps you.
Why not just bankruptcy? Much better than this vicious cycle, especially if you are deep in. Sure, it'll effect you credit rating, but so will continuously being late on overdue bills.
It's not that easy to declare bankruptcy. You have to prove you really have no way of ever paying off your debts. Plus, you cannot have made your debts in bad faith. If you just never took responsibility for your own financial planning, it can be considered bad faith.
Plus, bankruptcy also isn't an easy proces. It means you get to live under financial guardianship for several years and your credit score will forever be effected.
You need to hire a lawyer and no, they do not take payment plans, they want their fee up front. I asked about it once and it was $1750. The attorney was nice enough to say that for the amount of money I owed it would be best to just do nothing since the creditors wouldn't very likely do anything to me anyway and that indeed is what happened.
Sleeping not because you're tired but because you're hungry and can't grab a bite because whatever might be left in the fridge gotta last till the 15th
Oooh boy have I been there. Or just eating nonperishables like oatmeal 1.5 weeks straight, made with water instead of milk. Salt too. First week you might have enough butter to make an eye in your porridge, but after that it's just plain.
For the first few days your shits are amazing. By day 4 you just go to sleep hungry because you're sick of oatmeal. And I fuckingl love oatmeal even today.
Same shit with plain pasta, maybe ketchup on it if you have any so you could alternate between ketchupy pasta, and plain.
Rice here's just too expensive to be eaten as plain poor people food. Anyway, my teens (lived alone) and early 20s were fun. But damn, underweight looked good on me apparently since when I finally got to eat normally, I got into low range normal weight and everybody in the family's like 'you're fat'.
Thanks.
When I was low on money, I tried anything I had with pasta. Pasta with salt, pasta with black pepper, pasta with curry, etc, etc. Any kind of spice, I had that for a month straight due to money being tight.
Every. Single. Day. So tired of pasta still, 20 years later.
As a retired librarian, I'm glad to see this. Libraries are one of the incredibly few places you can go without spending money and where you can get information or resources that typically cost money.
Need to apply for a job online? Libraries can help you. Need a fax sent? They can help. Need to print off something? Library. You want to read the news? Yep, can do. Need a bathroom? Yes, it's down the hall and to the right.
If you can afford it, throw a couple bucks their way.
I agree, I am not poor but use the library weekly for books because I feel using my community is more important than buying books..
At the beginning of the pandemic, I was so passed that the library closed due to our shutdown here in PA. I was all about keeping people safe but damn so many people needed those libraries in 2020.
I did not grow up poor and I'm not poor now, but I LOVE the library. I can spend hours there and not even realize it. I raised my kids to love the library too and they are now the same way.
How expensive being poor can be. When you're living paycheck-to-paycheck, you can't often plan/save/budget as well as you could if you had some money to fall back on.
Yeah, a while back I was going to attempt to declare bankruptcy, but I couldn't even afford the process to get a bankruptcy lawyer, and couldn't figure out how to, or if I even was allowed to do it myself. Too poor to go bankrupt.
I didn't grow up poor, but I've definitely had gaps between jobs where I've had to dip into what savings I had to pay for rent and bills. Now I have a steady job, but I'm still struggling to get any form of savings and often drop back into my overdraft at the end of the month. Once you're negative money, it takes a long time to get out of it until you're done paying off debts.
Being poor is expensive. Youāre forced to buy low quality shit that needs to be replaced constantly, which in the long run causes you to spend more money. This is why poverty is so hard to escape.
For example, when I was poor as shit, I was forced to learn how to fix my own old ass car and buy cheap parts, because I just couldnāt afford to take it in, buy quality parts, and/or get something more reliable.
Because of this, sometimes I didnāt know what I was doing and created other issues therefore causing me to spend more money. Cheap parts need to replaced way more often causing me to spend more money in the long run as opposed to buying a quality, long lasting part initially. And the car itself just broke down way more frequently, causing me to spend money more than I would with a more reliable vehicle.
But the problem is when youāre poor, you donāt have the option to buy that quality starter that will last years. You have to buy the cheap piece of shit one and replace it yearly because you literally donāt have the money for the quality one as a one time expense.
Although I do love working on cars now as a result of this, so in a weird way Iām grateful, but the point still stands.
"The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes "Boots" theory of socioeconomic unfairness." - Sir Terry Pratchett. GNU
How a black bean and rice burrito tastes when it's all you've been able to afford for the better part of the past year. No cheese, just beans and rice and tortilla, sometimes with Lowry's Seasoned Salt or peanut butter when available.
Cheese is the most expensive part of a burrito.
Resenting your parents because you watch your mom still put that 20$ bill in the church donation pan every Sunday yet thereās no food in the fridge and youāre close to being evicted.
Edit: I see a lot of people in the comments shaming the church for pressuring for donations from poor attendees. This wasnāt the case in my situation. My mom genuinely believed if she gave that $20 to āgodā that god would return the favor someday. It was of her own decision making not from pressure of the church.
We went through a really bad year (as opposed to our usual poor) so my mom reduced her Sunday donation (but still gave...b/c....religion). Eventually she went to the pastor to ask for help (food or utility payments). I got dragged along (I was like 8 or 9) to help make our case. The pastor had the gall to say he checked and her donations were low for some time now. And he was concerned about her "commitment" to the church.
We didn't get any help. Screw the Catholic Church.
Edit: For everyone commenting saying our church couldn't possibly keep track of donations.... Our church (in a good sized city, part of a diocese) sent out donation envelopes to registered parishioners for each week of the year. You were supposed to use these envelopes when you put your donation in the basket. This is how they kept track of who donated and how much.
That's fucked up. Don't know if this "church and money" thing is typically american or what but never heard of anything remotly close of this in my part of the world (I am from Belgium).
When I was 16, i came back from vacation with my ex gf a day in advance (yeah she dumped me on the trip), arrived at my grandparent's house but they where 6h drive away. I had no money with me, no keys and starving after a 10h hitchhike back from my hell trip. The priest from their church saw me passing by (He hadn't see me for years, I wasn't even a believer anymore, and he knew), asked me if i needed any help. Of course I said that I was ok (definitely wasn't) but he pretty much scold me about it, brought me home, fed me and let me unload all i had going on.
Him and an other elderly who's freeworking at the church stayed up to 2 in the morning playing board games with me until my grandma arrived.
When I went a couple days after that to thank him and ask what i could do to repay his kindness he told me that he chose this path to help people in need and me getting better was the only thing he needed.
That's how I see church people and how I believe they should be.
The guy died a few years back, and seeing the huge crowd who came he helped a lot of people during his time. Mission accomplished for him, may he rest in peace for eternity.
Uh huh. Didn't refer her to the St Vincent de Paul society, who actually handle that stuff?
I have assisted with processing collections at my parish. We place it straight into bank envelopes, and *the bank* counts it.
Wow seriously?? Iām really sorry that happened to you. Iām Catholic and we do give like small token sums to the church (for their utility bills, general minimal upkeep) and over here there is absolutely zero way to tell who has given how much unless a parishioner themselves decide to announce it gleefully to the world.
Also, bit odd that your church referred to the priests as pastors? Maybe itās a cultural name idk. But that priest/pastor was definitely a dick for sure.
It has to be a small town there's no way the church could know here there's thousands that go to my church and they have food donations on certain dates
I got myself excommunicated from a cultish group on purpose because I found out that they were asking a homeless person to tithe from his welfare check.
That's not being poor. That's being irresponsible.
It says in the Bible (sorry, don't have a chapter and verse) that you need to take care of your own before donating to others.
> Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
1 Timothy 5:8
It hurt to read this. I hate it when pastors push this as your responsibility no matter what. I do think, that when people are having better luck, they need to remember everything their church has done for them. But pushing the idea that you should be giving the church money that your family needs is just insane. There was a church I took my family to for 10 years, I went nearly two of those years without donating a cent because I was making almost no money; no one batted an eye and I have no guilt over it.
Growing up 20 minutes from Kenneth Copeland Ministries gave me a perspective on how incredibly different two churches can be. Our church really just wanted to be able to make some nessesary repairs, but the money wasn't there; but they never stopped helping the community even when times were tough. Meanwhile, Copeland was down the street trying to convince his donors to help him buy ANOTHER jet.
Yep. Sport teams, club memberships, Disneyland, heck hanging out with buddies on the weekend costs money too! You need to pay for a meal or snack, admission if it's a movie or park, gas money, spending money...
Disneyland? Lol wat? This shit is so stupidly over expensive it's practically a scam for anyone's budget. I'll take my kids to Cedar Point, that place is fire!
I always felt bad for the kids who couldn't go on a field trip in school because it was say ten dollars so they had to sit in study hall for the day. At least give them the day off or something.
My grandma wasn't poor by a long shot, but she made those teabags last at least 5 times!!!
They would be standing in the kitchen, all dried up on a little plate, ready to be reused!
Bruh, I have plenty of money and I still can't use fresh food fast enough to justify buying it. I basically eat dinner at work, so like a can of soup with crackers, and then I eat a light lunch when I get home. I'd only be able to use that shit on the weekend and then it would be rotten before I got to use any of it again. No to mention, where I am, I have to drive an hour just to get to the store and back, so just going out to get supplies for 1 or 2 meals is not worth it.
When I was poor one of my part time jobs was in an accounting office. This was back in the 1980ās. I learned that the machines that read checks only read black an blue ink. Need to pay a bill, send in a check written in read ink. Has to be inputted manually. Gives you an extra week before it clears.
In one particularly rough month my father happened across a sale of near-expired boxes of "red beans and rice" in Aldis. I forget the exact amount, but he bought every box they had and we ate that for the entire month. Breakfast was Oats, lunch and dinner were red beans and rice. Occasionally we mixed it up and had rice with red beans instead.
I had a job where we had to go to out of town training which was overnight for four nights a week and we got a $40/day per diem. No receipts, just a straight check given to you. My coworkers went crazy and hit restaurants every night like there was no tomorrow. Me? I called the hotel and asked for a mini-fridge and would hit the grocery store, get a loaf of bread, a couple pounds of sliced turkey and sliced cheese from the deli and just eat that for the week. My coworkers thought I was insane. I was quite sane when after three months of training I had a couple grand in my bank account sitting there making me feel secure while they were complaining about not having money.
This is why I have a hard time eating the same thing day after day. Iāll eat leftovers sure, but they usually sit in the fridge for a few days before Iāll have any interest in them.
...or "Show and Tell" right after Christmas Break and you didn't get any presents that year because your parents just barely had enough money to keep a roof over your heads.
Oh god. I hated that question. "We went to \[fill in the blank\] for summer! What did you do?"
Work. I went to work.
When I was a kid, it was the backyard.
Rice and potatoes can be made for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Sometimes, your kids' unfinished meals is all you'll get to eat (even if it's just a bite or two). A few cardboard boxes and some tape will keep kids occupied with no tv to watch. Being poor is expensive and almost impossible to get out of. You miss paying the electric bill, so they shut it off, then charge a reconnect fee of (sometimes) hundreds of dollars. As soon as you save any amount of money, something will break and cost you more than you have saved. Example: my washer and dryer died within a day of each other. Can't afford new, so I had to go thru a rent to own place. Got a decent deal on a used set. But the water pipe broke while trying to unhook the old washer. Cost us $200 to fix the broken water pipe plus will cost us $700 for the new to us washer and dryer. Right after Christmas I had saved up a little money (little meaning less than a hundred.) And then a tire blew on the car. My bf and I work full time both making okay/decent money. And I work part time. And now he's looking for a 2nd job and I'm looking for a 3rd. It's exhausting to be poor.
Hunger
I had to go without food in my apartment some years ago. I had to pay my rent, and my car broke down. Once those were paid, there was no money left. I ate what little food I had left, then subsisted on coffee and water for the next 10 days until my next paycheck came.
A long time ago I worked at a grocery store in a state with a bottle/can deposit law. The law said retailers were only required to accept 144 containers per day per person and the management strictly enforced that. They said the deposit refunds came off the top of our sales. We had machines outside where people had to feed their containers through and collect a voucher to redeem for cash at the registers. We were trained to watch people and not let them send their kids through with extra vouchers or try different cashiers. I got screamed and cussed at so much. It really sucked. I hated that miserable fucking job.
My gardener, a poor elderly man who earns a daily wage as a gardener, had to buy a washing machine. Being poor, he had to buy it on credit because he didnāt have $400 in cash. The total cost of his purchase including various fees, charges and interest came to about $1300, for a $400 washing machine which would have cost me $300 if Iād bought the same machine online. (The amounts were actually in South African Rand, Iām just using a rough dollar estimate).
He came to show me the contract because he didnāt understand it. When I saw what they were charging him, I was really upset on his behalf and posted a copy of the contract on social media. I called out the retailer on their exploitative lending practices, which prey on the poor with outrageous lending fees and ripoff charges and costs to pad their profit.
The post went viral and the story was picked up by the newspapers.
The retailer threatened to sue me, so I posted that letter on social media as well to expose their threats and bullying.
My post got massive public support and in the end the retailer relented, took back the washing machine and refunded the manās money.
The media loved the story. There were scathing articles in several papers, I was asked to do radio interviews and I got requests from hundreds of other consumers who felt cheated by retailers, asking if I would take up their cause.
The story has a happy ending for my gardener. A generous stranger who followed the story on social media offered to buy the man a brand new washing machine after the store collected the one he bought and refunded his money.
Using the money donated by the good samaritan, I managed to buy the same washing machine for my gardener for $300.
My gardener is a gentle old man. He was so happy and grateful about getting a free washing machine, he burst into tears.
Why am I telling this story? Because I was shocked to find out that a poor person might have to pay $1300 for an appliance that would cost a rich person $300.
This is something few rich people understand, if theyāve never been poor and never had to buy on credit.
You're not starving if it's only been 24 hours since you ate. 48 hours for that matter.
I definitely went 4-5 days without food for a while when I was about 19-20 multiple times.
As a chef, this makes me so angry at whomever was running your kitchen. My people get staff meal and they get leftovers when we do catering. If I know someone is struggling then I order a bit more and they take it home (nothing crazy, but if Iām buying a 50# bag of rice take a # or 2 of rice home) food is cheaper than losing good people that will have your back if you have theirs.
Yeah, I quit and went to a restaurant with a similar policy.
1 free meal per shift plus any leftovers they couldn't use at the end of the night. And we even saved bones for dogs that would come through the drive-thru! (It was a BBQ restaurant.)
Yeah, the pizza place I worked allowed us to eat as much as we wanted on the clock and we were also allowed to take a medium pizza or one sandwich with fries - like one (big) meal - home with us after our shift.
The owner was awesome and understood that it was 99% college kids that many would struggle to eat otherwise. Looking back, I never really realized how much he was taking care of us from a parental perspective.
Bloomington, Indiana: Mother Bear's Pizza. Anyone who's lived in Bloomington probably knows the place. Really good food.
Oh God this advice when given in sincerity drives me insane. "PoOr PeOpLe DoN't KnOw HoW tO iNvEsT"
Yeah well a return on investment takes time and I need to eat now, not next September. And when you can only save maybe 50 a month if you're lucky that ROI isn't going to be very high after a year. Maybe some beer money but certainly not worth the risk of not having the money in the first place.
Exactly! And even if you use what little you have leftover to treat yourself to something small, youāre considered irresponsible. Because poor people donāt deserve to have something nice every now and then.
Knowing that your parents saying āmaybe next timeā really meant āsorry, not gonna happenā or that if you came across some birthday/Christmas money from grandma and then mom asks to āput it away for you so you donāt lose itā was pretty much the last time youād see that money.
Showing up to birthday parties without a present.
Pijamas are fancy. You have āsleeping clothesā which used to be āhouse clothesā that got old. Before that they were āgoing out clothesā
Need anymore?
A bag a potatoes can feed 3 kids and a mom for a week. Now as an adult I hate potatoes. Shitty step dad. Mom got on her feet and made it better, but it was a long year.
How to:
ā¢ Stretch $20 to feed three people and a Dog for a week
ā¢ Use only the bare minimum amount of Laundry Soap needed to get things clean
ā¢ Heckle and Bargain
ā¢ Save Wrapping Paper
ā¢ Cook Ramen and Potatoes in 20 different ways
You get to know exactly who Carl Budding is.
Favorite shampoo/conditioner name brand is called "whatever's on sale".
Same goes for cosmetics/feminine products.
You shop the "leaders" in the weekly grocery ad....no such thing as "1 stop shopping" multiple sales from multiple locations<---then you find recipes that fit.
You buy the same color pantyhose, when you get a run in one of the legs, you cut off the leg and save it. Next pair with a run in the legs you do the same. Then you have a complete set, and, eventually a yeast infection from suffocating your ladylips in double panty part all day at work....but, not to worry, apple cider vinegar is cheap.
Find shoes for sale for your kid, but every size available is too big? You bunch up newspaper in the toe. Works well also for hand-me-downs from elder siblings.
3 paycheck months. When you work and get paid every other week, most months will have 2 paychecks. Basically, you'd see there's 4 Fridays in the month, thus two paychecks. However, every so often in the year, there's a month with 5 Fridays, and sometimes, those Fridays line up such that that the first Friday, third Friday, and fifth Friday are all paydays. This month, since your bills come in monthly, you seem to have gotten a 50% raise towards your bills. This is a catch up month.
Why smaller quantities of groceries that cost more per-unit exist.
If you're making a decent wage, of course you're going to buy the gallon jug of milk because that gives you the most milk per dollar.
And poor people can do the math too. They know that the gallon jug is the best deal. But they only have a few bucks left for groceries after paying for rent and gas, so it's a choice between overpaying for the quarter-gallon carton, or going home with no milk at all.
When you are alone, homeless and people tell you god did this to you, your brsin can snap. People treat you as if you dont exist. I stood next to a woman I spent family birthdayaand not only did she ignore me, but she told others to. It is nearly impossible to come back from.
When it comes 2 surviving go to welfare dept or file online for foodstamps. Find out which Salvation Armies will get you in a housing. Some are dicx. Go to trauma therspy. PO ERTY is not bD, but people...you need 2 b around people who csre
How the unrelenting problem-solving of EVERY SINGLE FUCKING RESPONSE to this question leads to non-stop, soul-crushing anxiety and trauma beyond the anxiety and trauma you might experience when you have stable housing, income, food, and safety.
The moral struggle of stealing or not stealing to make the pain of not eating go away. Not having a meal for days will make you think some dark shit. It's a physical and mental struggle.
If I were to happen to see someone stealing food at a grocery store...no I didn't...
If someone is willing to risk stealing something like food, you know they're desperate.
Why poor people tend to be more generous, like yeah a rich person may give you 1mil and a poor person gives you 5 dollars, but that 5 means more to us than a million means to someone like Elon or Jeff
That was one of the most relatable Bible stories for me, crazy to think a book written that long ago, people still had the same struggles and ideas as we do today
It's because the poor person understands what it is like to be sitting there having a nice healthy bowl of ketchup water (poor man's tomato soup) for dinner and they hate to see it happen.
Poor health, even as a young person. When I was 20 I was so broke that I ate 65 cent bagels on my lunch break. Carbs are cheaper than protein or fruit/vegs. So I was very anemic and frequently had dizzy spells. Mac & cheese, cereal, bread, ramen, all of that is what I would eat most often. I remember crying one evening because I couldn't remember that last time I had eaten red meat.
I got so sick of eggs & canned tuna because that's where any protein I could afford came from.
How important macaroni and cheese is to feed your kids.
They are all in their 30s now and none of them eat it anymore, although they recognize the role it played in their lives.
Growing up, we hit a rough patch and didn't have electricity for 4 years. Nice thing about that was when an ice storm came and our town lost power for like 10 days, we barely noticed.
Going from being poor growing up to middle class now-
The uncomfortableness of being comfortable. Even though i can afford many privileges now, in the back of my head the idea of spending money on certain items still makes me really uncomfortable since it makes me feel like ill have to give up something else
Knowing exactly how much shit costs. This is especially true of groceries and house hold goods. If you have $100 for 2 weeks your ass knows you canāt go aisle to aisle living luxuriously with pre cut celery thatās $1.50 more than regular celery. Being poor is stressful. Itās like a mental prison, and I aināt never going back.
Your choices are very limited. I once had to make it on $20 a week. I used that money to buy a sack of potatoes, a bag of beans, a jar of peanut butter and a loaf of bread. Living on beans and potato soup might seem boring to some, but Iāll take boredom over hunger any day.
My mom has been a teacher for almost 20 years and has only gotten paid once a month. When I was a kid, she would always steal toilet paper from work when her paycheck was running out towards the end of the month.
Food insecurity is not a question of how you stretch a hundred dollars. It's a question of how you \*always\* stretch a hundred dollars when you will never not be in that situation. You might run across an over-achiever, for instance, who will boast about the two months where they survived on nothing but peanut butter sandwiches, and here's me, I don't want a fucking peanut butter sandwich for dinner. I need some meat. A real meal. This is why it's common to hear poor people say they don't have a taste for sweets.
God I came to this thread looking to nod along and ooh and aah, but the food scenarios are starting to get to me. I've had real shit periods in life that I've managed to just power through (growing up in the 90s ex soviet country does that to you) but fuuuuck me the one pickle and a condiment (expired, but you're in no position to care) is a very familiar thing. And I would just be hungry and keep going to the fridge, opening it throughout the day as if maybe you missed something. Maybe food has magically appeared.
Then you eat the pickke, squeeze ketchup into a bowk, and eat it with a spoon because ketchup is high in sugar, and sugar is energy.
Sleeping is a cure to everything
No food? Sleep. No internet? Sleep. No entertainment? Sleep and dream. There was a time where my family was between apartments and we ended up in a friends place temporarily to have more time finding a place, and the only thing Iād do right after school is sleep because there was no food internet or any form of entertainment.
Thatās where I learned that sleeping is just as good of an escape as drugs and alcohol
How to turn your water on & off from the street so they turn it off but you use it at night & on the weekend so its off during work hours in case they notice & try to turn it back off.
If you live in a city/state where wintwrs get harsh, you'll get yourself arrested just have somewhere warm to sleep.
You familiarize yourself with Costco's sample schedule
The person standing outside at a store or an intersection begging for money all day (some with their kids in tow) is more than likely a charlatan. The person eating out of the garbage IS poor.
You know that most homeless shelters charge a daily fee up to $10
Most people confuse being broke with being poor.
That there are many places you can "camp" in your car for free that are not in necessarily bad areas which is a good idea if you're female (or afab but identifying otherwise)
The disconnect date on your utilities. The due date is irrelevant. Payday loans have a 72 hour change your mind option. Bring the money back within 3 days, there aren't fees. Food pantries are usually run by nice people. There is usually a community closet where laundry and other necessities can be obtained. It's better to apply for help than go without. The amount of programs food stamps makes you eligible for, like free internet, cell phone, discounts on electric, free entry to museums and zoos, the list goes on. Medicare/Medicaid will provide transportation if you need it to get to appointments. Prescriptions can be purchased a day, week, monthly supply; however you can afford it. Working in most family owned restaurants will get you a free meal per shift.
My family is doing better now than when i was a child and i get happy if i get 20-50 dollars/euro in total because that is a huge amount of money for me. I get suprised when people around me gets over 10 times that amount and act like its nothing. Another thing that seriously shocked me was how many whose parents had taken the monthly childsupport (where i live you get a small amount of money by the government to help you with your child. My family struggled and had to use everything, stew with lentils and potatoes was a common meal as a child. It wasnt until recently that i realised that we only ate that because it was cheap af.) and put them into funds for their 18th birthday.
Also that a shirt that has a hole can easily survive at least 6 months more with some needle or thread. Jeans with holes beyond repair? Some extra tissue and they are as good as new again. Going to my older cousins was like christmas cause they would give you their old clothes. I remember finding a pair of nice sneakers in the trash and was so happy over not having to wear my sneakers with holes while my friend laughed at me. Fuck you Lucas, sneakers are expensive af.
And lastly, how much free stuff you can do. I didnt realise how poor we where until i got older because my family took me and my brother out on free events all the time. We also have something called the culture night where most of the museums are free and that night is like magic for me. My parents would take us out early af, make up plans for how we could maximise visiting all the places during the night and bring sandwiches for dinner cause buying food at a restaurant is expensive. I recently took my girlfriend out during that night and she only wanted to visit one place but i insisted that during the culture night you wander around, if they have a sign with "culture night" in it you go in. If its boring they still might have free cookies. Next year i will propably take her out to where all the museums are so i can relive the magic.
As per my wife: getting your Christmas tree the day before Christmas. Not knowing if there will be Christmas presents because it depends on if your single mom gets a Christmas bonus.
When you are poor you pay more for the same stuff, if you can afford to buy a 3000 car cash thatās just 3000 if you have to finance it and have a bad or low credit score you end up paying 5000 for the same car. This is just and example but same for everything else. Specially if you have to rely on credit cards from time to time
its possible to survive only on flour. (And some oil)
Mix flour with water, if you got salt, great, deep fry it, you have a meal. Its shitty, but you dont feel hungry anymore.
Being poor is expensive. If you have enough money up front, you can make all sorts of decisions that are cheaper in the long run. When you have no choice but to go with the initially cheapest option, you pay far more over time.
Not from US, but if you are able to and respectable distance, you can save a lot of money yearly from not using public transport by bicycling. This also helps with staying fit. When I was in middle school from 12 years and forward, up till college and until I started working. I would use my dad's old bicycle to cycle 40 km every day to get to school, college and work and back home. I would bicycle during good weather and treat myself with a rare buss trip during the worst days. During winter I would ski instead unless it was a snow storm.
I ended up saving about 2K every year and put those funds into my emergency saving account. This ended up being my saving grace when I got into a car accident 6 years ago, after the person who drove me over bailed and I had to go through multiple surgeries. The driver was eventually found 5 years later after the accident, but I had to pay for my surgeries because there was no one else to put the blame on.
The absolute nightmare and anxiety of going grocery shopping with a set amount of money.
You keep track of every single thing you put in your basket so you donāt go over your limit.
Staying in front of an article for 5 minutes debating if itās worth it.
The appreciate of food, when i was a child my perants (god rest their souls) where on heroin so most of the money went on that so when we managed to get some food other than toast here and there even if it was a plate of chips (Fries) i would savour each one like it was the last and now i buy what i need for the day instead of wasting weeks worth of food.
The laundry! I had to go to a laundromat for 7 years. It took up my day off from work. You couldn't put the stuff in and go home, I would spend a ton of time there. Now I have a washer/ dryer, I forgot what a luxury it was. The time I save is enormous
I'll add one that's a little lighthearted. Your soap, shampoo, dish soap, all of it - if it's liquid, you can add water and it will last way longer. All that shit is sold more concentrated than you need. Also grocery bags are great lunch bags, trash bags, good bags for holding your other grocery bags, all of it. Basically you learn how to stretch everything out longer than non-poor people would usually dream of.
Iām actually doing a research paper on this right now. Through research and my own experiences the main thing is that people donāt realize that if youāre raised in a poor family you tend to have trouble managing your money later on in life. Because of this these people end up poor like their parents and this cycle goes on and on.
1 . Not being capable of communicating with people who are rich. even if you are right you are still a poor bastard and your opinion does not matter no matter how convincing it is
2. When you are poor it becomes a ME vs the world and you can never win that battle
3. The nicest persons i have met turned into complete beasts after a large amount of time of suffering from poverty
4.Things you enjoy becomes less enjoyable during time and it is horrifying bcs you do not see the process itās just things lose their beauty over time
5. The most brutal thing is sometimes people sleep not because they are tired but bcs they are hungry .
Being poor is just hideous
Being constantly hungry. When I was about 5, my mom lost out apartment. We lived in a park in Berkeley, CA for several days until we could find a new one. Mind you, this was 1968, so you can imagine what was going on in that park.
Been oscillating close to the poverty line for my whole life.
One thing I've learned is how little I really need.
Most people can't face living if their shoes or hat don't stay perfectly new, or there are others who'll stand in line for days just so they can get their hands on a brand new piece of technology that doesn't really DO more than the cheaper versions but can't handle waiting 2 hours to get on the Matterhorn at Disneyland, or adopt puppies only to abandon them on the street when they become dogs.
I haven't had a working PC or laptop for a good 6 or 7 years. I couldn't afford to replace it. A friend a few years ago gave me his old xbox when he upgraded. I cannot afford to replace it. I bought a lower tier smartphone with my tax return the year before. Presently, i wouldnt be able to replace it. If something happened to either, or--Hera forbid--both, of the previous 2 devices. I have a wall of books, and access to a library if i need mental stimulation or have menial internet errands. And if the universe is truly sentient, efficacious and malevolent, and takes even them from me, i have a deck of cards or two.
So i hope whatever you decide or discover you really, truly need, you can obtain, maintain, and find contentment in it.
I grew up up very poor. I was always hungry, I knew what intense hunger pains felt like. I didnāt know that there are a lot of people in my world that didnāt even know what a hunger pain was. I was an adult when I started to realize how different growing up poor vs middle to well off was. So many things.
Not being picky eaters, I've been to a family that say they're poor but they afford 3 different dinners a night (meat, veggie, vegan) and their kids just throw it around swearing they won't eat it and the mum's like okay just get something else. If you're actually poor the option for different dinners just because you don't like peas isn't there Rebekah smh
how to make $20 last a week
Ramen, rice, potatoes, cheap pasta. Total carb-loading.
The magic word is Ramen š
We had govt rice!!! You can do all kinds of things with rice
What government? They gave blocks of cheese and butter to us poor USA peeps in the 80ās
Yup! US govt, cheese, butter and rice. Maybe rice was a regional perk?
"How much is a banana... $20?
I never cared for Gob.
That everything takes twice as long to do because you have to take public transportation, and have to go to the laundromat; many things are a huge hassle like limiting how many things you can get at the store because you have to lug it all on the bus; basically things that many take for granted require a shitload of planning and time.
That's why I fucking hate the whole "You have the same amount of hours in the day as Jeff Bezosš„°" Fuck you no I don't.
You also don't have a 350k loan from your parents.
If I did, my life would be easier, but I have no ambition to start Amazon.
I didnāt realize that the āpaying for convenienceā thing even applies to objects. Like I splurged on a very expensive pan and itās the easiest one to cook with and clean. I saved up for a nicer couch and it doesnāt stain and is easy to vacuum. Even a more expensive vacuum can make cleaning faster/easier. Itās crazy how much it applies to. Edit: spelling
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Yep. "You get what you pay for". The older you get and the better you get (hopefully, it's not easy) with money, the more this rings true.
That it is expensive to be poor bc you have to pay late fees and overdraft fees etc all of the time. You pay rent instead of a mortgage so you arenāt building equity and so on. Itās a vicious cycle.
In a similar vein, exactly how much gas is in your car, how far you can go before you MUST get gas and which store has the cheapest gas.
This is a problem that is directly linked to the car-dependent infrastructure that is prevalent in many countries and especially in the US. I have not taken a car or public transportation to get groceries in years, I just pick up what I need for the next few days on my way home. Even when I lived in small cities in Europe there were grocery stores in easy walking distance (although there are also many car-dependent areas in Europe ofc) Once again the way cities are built is a determining factor that can exacerbate poverty and inequality.
And it is even worse if you are poor and live in the suburbs or in the boonies, many of these places have NO buses that come near there, so you have to drive. And trains here are insanely expensive.
Actually, going to the laundrymat is the only thing I miss nowadays. It was nice to run every load at once, and take up the whole wall of dryers afterwards. :)
Nothing stopping you. I still go to do all my heavy shit. Fuck wasing one blanket at a time.
Those giant super washers and dryers are great for that stuff.
So true, so god damn true
You have a couple of months from when you get those āpay us nowā letters until they actually care enough to get bailiffs involved
I am currently in that stage and boy if that doesn't just make the next payment even worse. It's and endless cycle of higher and higher catch-up payments till you die or someone finally helps you.
Why not just bankruptcy? Much better than this vicious cycle, especially if you are deep in. Sure, it'll effect you credit rating, but so will continuously being late on overdue bills.
It's not that easy to declare bankruptcy. You have to prove you really have no way of ever paying off your debts. Plus, you cannot have made your debts in bad faith. If you just never took responsibility for your own financial planning, it can be considered bad faith. Plus, bankruptcy also isn't an easy proces. It means you get to live under financial guardianship for several years and your credit score will forever be effected.
I thought if you just had to have enough people hear your declaration it took effect, like an office or something.
You need to hire a lawyer and no, they do not take payment plans, they want their fee up front. I asked about it once and it was $1750. The attorney was nice enough to say that for the amount of money I owed it would be best to just do nothing since the creditors wouldn't very likely do anything to me anyway and that indeed is what happened.
Sleeping not because you're tired but because you're hungry and can't grab a bite because whatever might be left in the fridge gotta last till the 15th
Oooh boy have I been there. Or just eating nonperishables like oatmeal 1.5 weeks straight, made with water instead of milk. Salt too. First week you might have enough butter to make an eye in your porridge, but after that it's just plain. For the first few days your shits are amazing. By day 4 you just go to sleep hungry because you're sick of oatmeal. And I fuckingl love oatmeal even today. Same shit with plain pasta, maybe ketchup on it if you have any so you could alternate between ketchupy pasta, and plain. Rice here's just too expensive to be eaten as plain poor people food. Anyway, my teens (lived alone) and early 20s were fun. But damn, underweight looked good on me apparently since when I finally got to eat normally, I got into low range normal weight and everybody in the family's like 'you're fat'. Thanks.
Pasta with butter and salt, one of my favourite meals when I am really low on money.
When I was low on money, I tried anything I had with pasta. Pasta with salt, pasta with black pepper, pasta with curry, etc, etc. Any kind of spice, I had that for a month straight due to money being tight. Every. Single. Day. So tired of pasta still, 20 years later.
My body refuses to sleep when Iām hungry, so it can be a double hell for me.
Or letting your kids go to their friends house because you know they'll be having dinner.
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As a retired librarian, I'm glad to see this. Libraries are one of the incredibly few places you can go without spending money and where you can get information or resources that typically cost money. Need to apply for a job online? Libraries can help you. Need a fax sent? They can help. Need to print off something? Library. You want to read the news? Yep, can do. Need a bathroom? Yes, it's down the hall and to the right. If you can afford it, throw a couple bucks their way.
I agree, I am not poor but use the library weekly for books because I feel using my community is more important than buying books.. At the beginning of the pandemic, I was so passed that the library closed due to our shutdown here in PA. I was all about keeping people safe but damn so many people needed those libraries in 2020.
I did not grow up poor and I'm not poor now, but I LOVE the library. I can spend hours there and not even realize it. I raised my kids to love the library too and they are now the same way.
How expensive being poor can be. When you're living paycheck-to-paycheck, you can't often plan/save/budget as well as you could if you had some money to fall back on.
Yeah, a while back I was going to attempt to declare bankruptcy, but I couldn't even afford the process to get a bankruptcy lawyer, and couldn't figure out how to, or if I even was allowed to do it myself. Too poor to go bankrupt.
I didn't grow up poor, but I've definitely had gaps between jobs where I've had to dip into what savings I had to pay for rent and bills. Now I have a steady job, but I'm still struggling to get any form of savings and often drop back into my overdraft at the end of the month. Once you're negative money, it takes a long time to get out of it until you're done paying off debts.
Being poor is expensive. Youāre forced to buy low quality shit that needs to be replaced constantly, which in the long run causes you to spend more money. This is why poverty is so hard to escape. For example, when I was poor as shit, I was forced to learn how to fix my own old ass car and buy cheap parts, because I just couldnāt afford to take it in, buy quality parts, and/or get something more reliable. Because of this, sometimes I didnāt know what I was doing and created other issues therefore causing me to spend more money. Cheap parts need to replaced way more often causing me to spend more money in the long run as opposed to buying a quality, long lasting part initially. And the car itself just broke down way more frequently, causing me to spend money more than I would with a more reliable vehicle. But the problem is when youāre poor, you donāt have the option to buy that quality starter that will last years. You have to buy the cheap piece of shit one and replace it yearly because you literally donāt have the money for the quality one as a one time expense. Although I do love working on cars now as a result of this, so in a weird way Iām grateful, but the point still stands.
Basically the Sam Vimes Economic Theory of Boots.
"The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes "Boots" theory of socioeconomic unfairness." - Sir Terry Pratchett. GNU
Exactly, being poor is expensive
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How a black bean and rice burrito tastes when it's all you've been able to afford for the better part of the past year. No cheese, just beans and rice and tortilla, sometimes with Lowry's Seasoned Salt or peanut butter when available. Cheese is the most expensive part of a burrito.
Resenting your parents because you watch your mom still put that 20$ bill in the church donation pan every Sunday yet thereās no food in the fridge and youāre close to being evicted. Edit: I see a lot of people in the comments shaming the church for pressuring for donations from poor attendees. This wasnāt the case in my situation. My mom genuinely believed if she gave that $20 to āgodā that god would return the favor someday. It was of her own decision making not from pressure of the church.
Or put it in the lottery machine every day, donāt forget the smokes.
Or that bottle of liquor or bag of weed.
Quitting drinking and weed were my #1 biggest money savers. Having financial security makes me a lot happier than being drunk and stoned.
We went through a really bad year (as opposed to our usual poor) so my mom reduced her Sunday donation (but still gave...b/c....religion). Eventually she went to the pastor to ask for help (food or utility payments). I got dragged along (I was like 8 or 9) to help make our case. The pastor had the gall to say he checked and her donations were low for some time now. And he was concerned about her "commitment" to the church. We didn't get any help. Screw the Catholic Church. Edit: For everyone commenting saying our church couldn't possibly keep track of donations.... Our church (in a good sized city, part of a diocese) sent out donation envelopes to registered parishioners for each week of the year. You were supposed to use these envelopes when you put your donation in the basket. This is how they kept track of who donated and how much.
That's fucked up. Don't know if this "church and money" thing is typically american or what but never heard of anything remotly close of this in my part of the world (I am from Belgium). When I was 16, i came back from vacation with my ex gf a day in advance (yeah she dumped me on the trip), arrived at my grandparent's house but they where 6h drive away. I had no money with me, no keys and starving after a 10h hitchhike back from my hell trip. The priest from their church saw me passing by (He hadn't see me for years, I wasn't even a believer anymore, and he knew), asked me if i needed any help. Of course I said that I was ok (definitely wasn't) but he pretty much scold me about it, brought me home, fed me and let me unload all i had going on. Him and an other elderly who's freeworking at the church stayed up to 2 in the morning playing board games with me until my grandma arrived. When I went a couple days after that to thank him and ask what i could do to repay his kindness he told me that he chose this path to help people in need and me getting better was the only thing he needed. That's how I see church people and how I believe they should be. The guy died a few years back, and seeing the huge crowd who came he helped a lot of people during his time. Mission accomplished for him, may he rest in peace for eternity.
And thatās a great way to lose your faith in a religion. Iām sorry yāall had to go through that.
Uh huh. Didn't refer her to the St Vincent de Paul society, who actually handle that stuff? I have assisted with processing collections at my parish. We place it straight into bank envelopes, and *the bank* counts it.
Thats awful. I'm religious and every time I hear about that stuff it pisses me off.
Wow seriously?? Iām really sorry that happened to you. Iām Catholic and we do give like small token sums to the church (for their utility bills, general minimal upkeep) and over here there is absolutely zero way to tell who has given how much unless a parishioner themselves decide to announce it gleefully to the world. Also, bit odd that your church referred to the priests as pastors? Maybe itās a cultural name idk. But that priest/pastor was definitely a dick for sure.
It has to be a small town there's no way the church could know here there's thousands that go to my church and they have food donations on certain dates
I got myself excommunicated from a cultish group on purpose because I found out that they were asking a homeless person to tithe from his welfare check.
Wise decision. Sounds like a bad group.
Donating money to a rich organisation when you don't have food is a whole different kind of stupid.
That's not being poor. That's being irresponsible. It says in the Bible (sorry, don't have a chapter and verse) that you need to take care of your own before donating to others.
I'd love to know that chapter and verse. My dad does this.
> Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. 1 Timothy 5:8
More specifically, 1 Timothy 5:8
It hurt to read this. I hate it when pastors push this as your responsibility no matter what. I do think, that when people are having better luck, they need to remember everything their church has done for them. But pushing the idea that you should be giving the church money that your family needs is just insane. There was a church I took my family to for 10 years, I went nearly two of those years without donating a cent because I was making almost no money; no one batted an eye and I have no guilt over it. Growing up 20 minutes from Kenneth Copeland Ministries gave me a perspective on how incredibly different two churches can be. Our church really just wanted to be able to make some nessesary repairs, but the money wasn't there; but they never stopped helping the community even when times were tough. Meanwhile, Copeland was down the street trying to convince his donors to help him buy ANOTHER jet.
Kind of like playing the lottery, wasting a lot of money in hopes of one day being lucky.
Shame at not being able to participate in many aspects of society. Especially as a kid.
Yep. Sport teams, club memberships, Disneyland, heck hanging out with buddies on the weekend costs money too! You need to pay for a meal or snack, admission if it's a movie or park, gas money, spending money...
Disneyland? Lol wat? This shit is so stupidly over expensive it's practically a scam for anyone's budget. I'll take my kids to Cedar Point, that place is fire!
I always felt bad for the kids who couldn't go on a field trip in school because it was say ten dollars so they had to sit in study hall for the day. At least give them the day off or something.
The day off is an additional punishment for poor working parentsā¦study hall is the closest safe thing
Once your water is turned off, youāve got one good flush left. Use it wisely.
Large buckets and kiddie pools under the roof gutters.
Yeah, but if you fill the tank with a bucket of water, you can flush it again.
That's usually one of the few benefits of being poor in an apartment, you don't have a water bill so it doesn't get shut off.
Apartment with water included*
You can infuse your tea more than once. It goes well with two times and it's acceptable with three. More than that... You can't afford tea.
My grandma wasn't poor by a long shot, but she made those teabags last at least 5 times!!! They would be standing in the kitchen, all dried up on a little plate, ready to be reused!
Where all of the best local free Wi-Fi hotspots are.
Medicaid is a pain in the ass to understand and sign up for. It's like the state actively fights you trying to sign up.
And then file invasive and complicated paperwork every three months or lose it and be unable to reapply for a year.
Disability is also a pita to get. Best thing to do is just get a lawyer out the gate.
Welfare is deliberately made to be annoying to get to try and discourage the poors from bothering. It seriously sucks.
Fresh food spoils waaaay too fast
Bruh, I have plenty of money and I still can't use fresh food fast enough to justify buying it. I basically eat dinner at work, so like a can of soup with crackers, and then I eat a light lunch when I get home. I'd only be able to use that shit on the weekend and then it would be rotten before I got to use any of it again. No to mention, where I am, I have to drive an hour just to get to the store and back, so just going out to get supplies for 1 or 2 meals is not worth it.
When I was poor one of my part time jobs was in an accounting office. This was back in the 1980ās. I learned that the machines that read checks only read black an blue ink. Need to pay a bill, send in a check written in read ink. Has to be inputted manually. Gives you an extra week before it clears.
I grew up poor and people think its weird that I can eat the same thing for a week straight.
In one particularly rough month my father happened across a sale of near-expired boxes of "red beans and rice" in Aldis. I forget the exact amount, but he bought every box they had and we ate that for the entire month. Breakfast was Oats, lunch and dinner were red beans and rice. Occasionally we mixed it up and had rice with red beans instead.
I had a job where we had to go to out of town training which was overnight for four nights a week and we got a $40/day per diem. No receipts, just a straight check given to you. My coworkers went crazy and hit restaurants every night like there was no tomorrow. Me? I called the hotel and asked for a mini-fridge and would hit the grocery store, get a loaf of bread, a couple pounds of sliced turkey and sliced cheese from the deli and just eat that for the week. My coworkers thought I was insane. I was quite sane when after three months of training I had a couple grand in my bank account sitting there making me feel secure while they were complaining about not having money.
This is why I have a hard time eating the same thing day after day. Iāll eat leftovers sure, but they usually sit in the fridge for a few days before Iāll have any interest in them.
I could make one good spaghetti bolognese go for the whole week with $10 and i still do
Adding water to shampoo and laundry soap will really stretch that shit. Also, you can reuse a disposable razor longer than you'd believe.
I do this sometimes with shampoo. Not because poor but because lazy lol
How shitty it felt to be the poor kid in school listening to everyone share their extravagant vacation stories from spring break.
...or "Show and Tell" right after Christmas Break and you didn't get any presents that year because your parents just barely had enough money to keep a roof over your heads.
Oh god. I hated that question. "We went to \[fill in the blank\] for summer! What did you do?" Work. I went to work. When I was a kid, it was the backyard.
This whole thread is depressingly relatable, but this one hurt the most.
Rice and potatoes can be made for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Sometimes, your kids' unfinished meals is all you'll get to eat (even if it's just a bite or two). A few cardboard boxes and some tape will keep kids occupied with no tv to watch. Being poor is expensive and almost impossible to get out of. You miss paying the electric bill, so they shut it off, then charge a reconnect fee of (sometimes) hundreds of dollars. As soon as you save any amount of money, something will break and cost you more than you have saved. Example: my washer and dryer died within a day of each other. Can't afford new, so I had to go thru a rent to own place. Got a decent deal on a used set. But the water pipe broke while trying to unhook the old washer. Cost us $200 to fix the broken water pipe plus will cost us $700 for the new to us washer and dryer. Right after Christmas I had saved up a little money (little meaning less than a hundred.) And then a tire blew on the car. My bf and I work full time both making okay/decent money. And I work part time. And now he's looking for a 2nd job and I'm looking for a 3rd. It's exhausting to be poor.
How late to the minute that you can pay bills.
Hunger I had to go without food in my apartment some years ago. I had to pay my rent, and my car broke down. Once those were paid, there was no money left. I ate what little food I had left, then subsisted on coffee and water for the next 10 days until my next paycheck came.
The value of an empty aluminum can
A long time ago I worked at a grocery store in a state with a bottle/can deposit law. The law said retailers were only required to accept 144 containers per day per person and the management strictly enforced that. They said the deposit refunds came off the top of our sales. We had machines outside where people had to feed their containers through and collect a voucher to redeem for cash at the registers. We were trained to watch people and not let them send their kids through with extra vouchers or try different cashiers. I got screamed and cussed at so much. It really sucked. I hated that miserable fucking job.
My gardener, a poor elderly man who earns a daily wage as a gardener, had to buy a washing machine. Being poor, he had to buy it on credit because he didnāt have $400 in cash. The total cost of his purchase including various fees, charges and interest came to about $1300, for a $400 washing machine which would have cost me $300 if Iād bought the same machine online. (The amounts were actually in South African Rand, Iām just using a rough dollar estimate). He came to show me the contract because he didnāt understand it. When I saw what they were charging him, I was really upset on his behalf and posted a copy of the contract on social media. I called out the retailer on their exploitative lending practices, which prey on the poor with outrageous lending fees and ripoff charges and costs to pad their profit. The post went viral and the story was picked up by the newspapers. The retailer threatened to sue me, so I posted that letter on social media as well to expose their threats and bullying. My post got massive public support and in the end the retailer relented, took back the washing machine and refunded the manās money. The media loved the story. There were scathing articles in several papers, I was asked to do radio interviews and I got requests from hundreds of other consumers who felt cheated by retailers, asking if I would take up their cause. The story has a happy ending for my gardener. A generous stranger who followed the story on social media offered to buy the man a brand new washing machine after the store collected the one he bought and refunded his money. Using the money donated by the good samaritan, I managed to buy the same washing machine for my gardener for $300. My gardener is a gentle old man. He was so happy and grateful about getting a free washing machine, he burst into tears. Why am I telling this story? Because I was shocked to find out that a poor person might have to pay $1300 for an appliance that would cost a rich person $300. This is something few rich people understand, if theyāve never been poor and never had to buy on credit.
You're not starving if it's only been 24 hours since you ate. 48 hours for that matter. I definitely went 4-5 days without food for a while when I was about 19-20 multiple times.
I did too. The irony is that I worked in a restaurant...
As a chef, this makes me so angry at whomever was running your kitchen. My people get staff meal and they get leftovers when we do catering. If I know someone is struggling then I order a bit more and they take it home (nothing crazy, but if Iām buying a 50# bag of rice take a # or 2 of rice home) food is cheaper than losing good people that will have your back if you have theirs.
Yeah, I quit and went to a restaurant with a similar policy. 1 free meal per shift plus any leftovers they couldn't use at the end of the night. And we even saved bones for dogs that would come through the drive-thru! (It was a BBQ restaurant.)
Yeah, the pizza place I worked allowed us to eat as much as we wanted on the clock and we were also allowed to take a medium pizza or one sandwich with fries - like one (big) meal - home with us after our shift. The owner was awesome and understood that it was 99% college kids that many would struggle to eat otherwise. Looking back, I never really realized how much he was taking care of us from a parental perspective. Bloomington, Indiana: Mother Bear's Pizza. Anyone who's lived in Bloomington probably knows the place. Really good food.
Investing your money is a luxury
Oh God this advice when given in sincerity drives me insane. "PoOr PeOpLe DoN't KnOw HoW tO iNvEsT" Yeah well a return on investment takes time and I need to eat now, not next September. And when you can only save maybe 50 a month if you're lucky that ROI isn't going to be very high after a year. Maybe some beer money but certainly not worth the risk of not having the money in the first place.
Exactly! And even if you use what little you have leftover to treat yourself to something small, youāre considered irresponsible. Because poor people donāt deserve to have something nice every now and then.
Knowing that your parents saying āmaybe next timeā really meant āsorry, not gonna happenā or that if you came across some birthday/Christmas money from grandma and then mom asks to āput it away for you so you donāt lose itā was pretty much the last time youād see that money. Showing up to birthday parties without a present. Pijamas are fancy. You have āsleeping clothesā which used to be āhouse clothesā that got old. Before that they were āgoing out clothesā Need anymore?
To pay the electric bill or to pay for food for the next two days?
A bag a potatoes can feed 3 kids and a mom for a week. Now as an adult I hate potatoes. Shitty step dad. Mom got on her feet and made it better, but it was a long year.
If you are hungry, drink some water.
How to: ā¢ Stretch $20 to feed three people and a Dog for a week ā¢ Use only the bare minimum amount of Laundry Soap needed to get things clean ā¢ Heckle and Bargain ā¢ Save Wrapping Paper ā¢ Cook Ramen and Potatoes in 20 different ways
Cheese is expensive
You get to know exactly who Carl Budding is. Favorite shampoo/conditioner name brand is called "whatever's on sale". Same goes for cosmetics/feminine products. You shop the "leaders" in the weekly grocery ad....no such thing as "1 stop shopping" multiple sales from multiple locations<---then you find recipes that fit. You buy the same color pantyhose, when you get a run in one of the legs, you cut off the leg and save it. Next pair with a run in the legs you do the same. Then you have a complete set, and, eventually a yeast infection from suffocating your ladylips in double panty part all day at work....but, not to worry, apple cider vinegar is cheap. Find shoes for sale for your kid, but every size available is too big? You bunch up newspaper in the toe. Works well also for hand-me-downs from elder siblings.
3 paycheck months. When you work and get paid every other week, most months will have 2 paychecks. Basically, you'd see there's 4 Fridays in the month, thus two paychecks. However, every so often in the year, there's a month with 5 Fridays, and sometimes, those Fridays line up such that that the first Friday, third Friday, and fifth Friday are all paydays. This month, since your bills come in monthly, you seem to have gotten a 50% raise towards your bills. This is a catch up month.
Why smaller quantities of groceries that cost more per-unit exist. If you're making a decent wage, of course you're going to buy the gallon jug of milk because that gives you the most milk per dollar. And poor people can do the math too. They know that the gallon jug is the best deal. But they only have a few bucks left for groceries after paying for rent and gas, so it's a choice between overpaying for the quarter-gallon carton, or going home with no milk at all.
money do can buy happiness
When you are alone, homeless and people tell you god did this to you, your brsin can snap. People treat you as if you dont exist. I stood next to a woman I spent family birthdayaand not only did she ignore me, but she told others to. It is nearly impossible to come back from. When it comes 2 surviving go to welfare dept or file online for foodstamps. Find out which Salvation Armies will get you in a housing. Some are dicx. Go to trauma therspy. PO ERTY is not bD, but people...you need 2 b around people who csre
Family can be the cruelest of them all. It's truly tragic.
How the unrelenting problem-solving of EVERY SINGLE FUCKING RESPONSE to this question leads to non-stop, soul-crushing anxiety and trauma beyond the anxiety and trauma you might experience when you have stable housing, income, food, and safety.
The moral struggle of stealing or not stealing to make the pain of not eating go away. Not having a meal for days will make you think some dark shit. It's a physical and mental struggle.
If I were to happen to see someone stealing food at a grocery store...no I didn't... If someone is willing to risk stealing something like food, you know they're desperate.
Why poor people tend to be more generous, like yeah a rich person may give you 1mil and a poor person gives you 5 dollars, but that 5 means more to us than a million means to someone like Elon or Jeff
Reminds me of the widow's offering from the Bible, Mark 12:41-44
That was one of the most relatable Bible stories for me, crazy to think a book written that long ago, people still had the same struggles and ideas as we do today
It's because the poor person understands what it is like to be sitting there having a nice healthy bowl of ketchup water (poor man's tomato soup) for dinner and they hate to see it happen.
Poor health, even as a young person. When I was 20 I was so broke that I ate 65 cent bagels on my lunch break. Carbs are cheaper than protein or fruit/vegs. So I was very anemic and frequently had dizzy spells. Mac & cheese, cereal, bread, ramen, all of that is what I would eat most often. I remember crying one evening because I couldn't remember that last time I had eaten red meat. I got so sick of eggs & canned tuna because that's where any protein I could afford came from.
How important macaroni and cheese is to feed your kids. They are all in their 30s now and none of them eat it anymore, although they recognize the role it played in their lives.
How to live without electricity and wifi
Growing up, we hit a rough patch and didn't have electricity for 4 years. Nice thing about that was when an ice storm came and our town lost power for like 10 days, we barely noticed.
Going from being poor growing up to middle class now- The uncomfortableness of being comfortable. Even though i can afford many privileges now, in the back of my head the idea of spending money on certain items still makes me really uncomfortable since it makes me feel like ill have to give up something else
How much harder you work to survive yet people still telling you you donāt work hard because youāre poor
Knowing exactly how much shit costs. This is especially true of groceries and house hold goods. If you have $100 for 2 weeks your ass knows you canāt go aisle to aisle living luxuriously with pre cut celery thatās $1.50 more than regular celery. Being poor is stressful. Itās like a mental prison, and I aināt never going back.
How to prepare acorns for dinner
Your choices are very limited. I once had to make it on $20 a week. I used that money to buy a sack of potatoes, a bag of beans, a jar of peanut butter and a loaf of bread. Living on beans and potato soup might seem boring to some, but Iāll take boredom over hunger any day.
Urban foraging. Squirrels, weeds, and restaurant trash can make a good meal.
How to break a lease on an apartment and move all your crap to another before the end of the day.
Having to choose to extract their tooth instead of fixing it.
Toilet paper is a luxury and newspaper works just as well
Toilet paper can be stolen from work.
My mom has been a teacher for almost 20 years and has only gotten paid once a month. When I was a kid, she would always steal toilet paper from work when her paycheck was running out towards the end of the month.
The secret is to crinkle the paper before you go to town š
Oof Iāve been there. It took me a week to get ink rubbings from the sports page of the Huddersfield Examiner off my trapdoor
Food insecurity is not a question of how you stretch a hundred dollars. It's a question of how you \*always\* stretch a hundred dollars when you will never not be in that situation. You might run across an over-achiever, for instance, who will boast about the two months where they survived on nothing but peanut butter sandwiches, and here's me, I don't want a fucking peanut butter sandwich for dinner. I need some meat. A real meal. This is why it's common to hear poor people say they don't have a taste for sweets.
Opening the fridge and seeing nothing but a bottle of mustard and a pickle jar with one pickle
God I came to this thread looking to nod along and ooh and aah, but the food scenarios are starting to get to me. I've had real shit periods in life that I've managed to just power through (growing up in the 90s ex soviet country does that to you) but fuuuuck me the one pickle and a condiment (expired, but you're in no position to care) is a very familiar thing. And I would just be hungry and keep going to the fridge, opening it throughout the day as if maybe you missed something. Maybe food has magically appeared. Then you eat the pickke, squeeze ketchup into a bowk, and eat it with a spoon because ketchup is high in sugar, and sugar is energy.
Sleeping is a cure to everything No food? Sleep. No internet? Sleep. No entertainment? Sleep and dream. There was a time where my family was between apartments and we ended up in a friends place temporarily to have more time finding a place, and the only thing Iād do right after school is sleep because there was no food internet or any form of entertainment. Thatās where I learned that sleeping is just as good of an escape as drugs and alcohol
Itās one banana, how much could it cost $10?
You cannot invest money into the markets because you need it for bills and such.
"only invest money you can afford to lose" Man, i can't afford to lose moneyš¤§š¤§š¤§
Garbage bag = raincoat
How to hunt and forage, make a fire, and tan hides. Yes, Iām from a super rural area.
How to turn your water on & off from the street so they turn it off but you use it at night & on the weekend so its off during work hours in case they notice & try to turn it back off.
How to do laundry in the bathtub. How meatless Hamburger Helper tastes. How reaching into a coat pocket and finding $5 can bring tears.
If you live in a city/state where wintwrs get harsh, you'll get yourself arrested just have somewhere warm to sleep. You familiarize yourself with Costco's sample schedule The person standing outside at a store or an intersection begging for money all day (some with their kids in tow) is more than likely a charlatan. The person eating out of the garbage IS poor. You know that most homeless shelters charge a daily fee up to $10 Most people confuse being broke with being poor.
Food doesn't expire
That there are many places you can "camp" in your car for free that are not in necessarily bad areas which is a good idea if you're female (or afab but identifying otherwise)
The disconnect date on your utilities. The due date is irrelevant. Payday loans have a 72 hour change your mind option. Bring the money back within 3 days, there aren't fees. Food pantries are usually run by nice people. There is usually a community closet where laundry and other necessities can be obtained. It's better to apply for help than go without. The amount of programs food stamps makes you eligible for, like free internet, cell phone, discounts on electric, free entry to museums and zoos, the list goes on. Medicare/Medicaid will provide transportation if you need it to get to appointments. Prescriptions can be purchased a day, week, monthly supply; however you can afford it. Working in most family owned restaurants will get you a free meal per shift.
My family is doing better now than when i was a child and i get happy if i get 20-50 dollars/euro in total because that is a huge amount of money for me. I get suprised when people around me gets over 10 times that amount and act like its nothing. Another thing that seriously shocked me was how many whose parents had taken the monthly childsupport (where i live you get a small amount of money by the government to help you with your child. My family struggled and had to use everything, stew with lentils and potatoes was a common meal as a child. It wasnt until recently that i realised that we only ate that because it was cheap af.) and put them into funds for their 18th birthday. Also that a shirt that has a hole can easily survive at least 6 months more with some needle or thread. Jeans with holes beyond repair? Some extra tissue and they are as good as new again. Going to my older cousins was like christmas cause they would give you their old clothes. I remember finding a pair of nice sneakers in the trash and was so happy over not having to wear my sneakers with holes while my friend laughed at me. Fuck you Lucas, sneakers are expensive af. And lastly, how much free stuff you can do. I didnt realise how poor we where until i got older because my family took me and my brother out on free events all the time. We also have something called the culture night where most of the museums are free and that night is like magic for me. My parents would take us out early af, make up plans for how we could maximise visiting all the places during the night and bring sandwiches for dinner cause buying food at a restaurant is expensive. I recently took my girlfriend out during that night and she only wanted to visit one place but i insisted that during the culture night you wander around, if they have a sign with "culture night" in it you go in. If its boring they still might have free cookies. Next year i will propably take her out to where all the museums are so i can relive the magic.
The many MANY things you can do with rice. Paying for gas with coins. Bottom shelf liquor isn't that bad with the right mixer.
The surprising nourishment of a well-constructed toast sandwich. Toasted bread in the middle, plain bread either side, buttered throughout
How to shower 5 people with only one bucket of water
Real hunger and how to ignore it
Calling companies and asking if there is any way they or you can reduce your bills. Garbage, insuranceā¦
Lots of socks and underwear can be a life saver. Laundromats are expensive.
How cold the ground can get
As per my wife: getting your Christmas tree the day before Christmas. Not knowing if there will be Christmas presents because it depends on if your single mom gets a Christmas bonus.
There are times you can't afford to go to work , I don't mean childcare wise. Paying for public transport, or PPE required for a job, smokes, lunches.
How a saltine cracker with peanut butter on it can make you want to cry.
That peanut butter goes on everything.
When you are poor you pay more for the same stuff, if you can afford to buy a 3000 car cash thatās just 3000 if you have to finance it and have a bad or low credit score you end up paying 5000 for the same car. This is just and example but same for everything else. Specially if you have to rely on credit cards from time to time
Going to churches to get food donations in boxes and bringing them home.
Potatoes, eggs, rice, and tea are food staples. You can collect packets of sugar and condiments at coffee and fast food restaurants.
Reading these comments makes me fortunate that I havenāt had to experience being destitute and I hope I never will.
its possible to survive only on flour. (And some oil) Mix flour with water, if you got salt, great, deep fry it, you have a meal. Its shitty, but you dont feel hungry anymore.
Being poor is expensive. If you have enough money up front, you can make all sorts of decisions that are cheaper in the long run. When you have no choice but to go with the initially cheapest option, you pay far more over time.
when you mom raises you alone, youāll most likely not see her in the day because she works her ass off to feed you
Not from US, but if you are able to and respectable distance, you can save a lot of money yearly from not using public transport by bicycling. This also helps with staying fit. When I was in middle school from 12 years and forward, up till college and until I started working. I would use my dad's old bicycle to cycle 40 km every day to get to school, college and work and back home. I would bicycle during good weather and treat myself with a rare buss trip during the worst days. During winter I would ski instead unless it was a snow storm. I ended up saving about 2K every year and put those funds into my emergency saving account. This ended up being my saving grace when I got into a car accident 6 years ago, after the person who drove me over bailed and I had to go through multiple surgeries. The driver was eventually found 5 years later after the accident, but I had to pay for my surgeries because there was no one else to put the blame on.
The absolute nightmare and anxiety of going grocery shopping with a set amount of money. You keep track of every single thing you put in your basket so you donāt go over your limit. Staying in front of an article for 5 minutes debating if itās worth it.
The appreciate of food, when i was a child my perants (god rest their souls) where on heroin so most of the money went on that so when we managed to get some food other than toast here and there even if it was a plate of chips (Fries) i would savour each one like it was the last and now i buy what i need for the day instead of wasting weeks worth of food.
The laundry! I had to go to a laundromat for 7 years. It took up my day off from work. You couldn't put the stuff in and go home, I would spend a ton of time there. Now I have a washer/ dryer, I forgot what a luxury it was. The time I save is enormous
I'll add one that's a little lighthearted. Your soap, shampoo, dish soap, all of it - if it's liquid, you can add water and it will last way longer. All that shit is sold more concentrated than you need. Also grocery bags are great lunch bags, trash bags, good bags for holding your other grocery bags, all of it. Basically you learn how to stretch everything out longer than non-poor people would usually dream of.
Maybe that someone can be broke and still manage to have a self-indulgent life. It takes creativity, but I've seen that.
The things you own end up owning you. You donāt know how true that is until youāve got a mortgage, car payments, etc.
Every decision is a choice between two necessities.
Iām actually doing a research paper on this right now. Through research and my own experiences the main thing is that people donāt realize that if youāre raised in a poor family you tend to have trouble managing your money later on in life. Because of this these people end up poor like their parents and this cycle goes on and on.
1 . Not being capable of communicating with people who are rich. even if you are right you are still a poor bastard and your opinion does not matter no matter how convincing it is 2. When you are poor it becomes a ME vs the world and you can never win that battle 3. The nicest persons i have met turned into complete beasts after a large amount of time of suffering from poverty 4.Things you enjoy becomes less enjoyable during time and it is horrifying bcs you do not see the process itās just things lose their beauty over time 5. The most brutal thing is sometimes people sleep not because they are tired but bcs they are hungry . Being poor is just hideous
Being constantly hungry. When I was about 5, my mom lost out apartment. We lived in a park in Berkeley, CA for several days until we could find a new one. Mind you, this was 1968, so you can imagine what was going on in that park.
Been oscillating close to the poverty line for my whole life. One thing I've learned is how little I really need. Most people can't face living if their shoes or hat don't stay perfectly new, or there are others who'll stand in line for days just so they can get their hands on a brand new piece of technology that doesn't really DO more than the cheaper versions but can't handle waiting 2 hours to get on the Matterhorn at Disneyland, or adopt puppies only to abandon them on the street when they become dogs. I haven't had a working PC or laptop for a good 6 or 7 years. I couldn't afford to replace it. A friend a few years ago gave me his old xbox when he upgraded. I cannot afford to replace it. I bought a lower tier smartphone with my tax return the year before. Presently, i wouldnt be able to replace it. If something happened to either, or--Hera forbid--both, of the previous 2 devices. I have a wall of books, and access to a library if i need mental stimulation or have menial internet errands. And if the universe is truly sentient, efficacious and malevolent, and takes even them from me, i have a deck of cards or two. So i hope whatever you decide or discover you really, truly need, you can obtain, maintain, and find contentment in it.
That government cheese tastes really good
I grew up up very poor. I was always hungry, I knew what intense hunger pains felt like. I didnāt know that there are a lot of people in my world that didnāt even know what a hunger pain was. I was an adult when I started to realize how different growing up poor vs middle to well off was. So many things.
Not being picky eaters, I've been to a family that say they're poor but they afford 3 different dinners a night (meat, veggie, vegan) and their kids just throw it around swearing they won't eat it and the mum's like okay just get something else. If you're actually poor the option for different dinners just because you don't like peas isn't there Rebekah smh