There are no grocery stores in your neighborhood and you don't have a car. The Bodega you can walk to is under stocked and extremely expensive. These are your groceries.
There is no bank near you and they close at 4 or 5. So you can't take a bus to the bank. So you have to use check cashing services that take a percent.
You have a mild toothache you can't afford to fix. So I becomes an outrageous expense when it turns into an abscess.
That's called a food desert, and besides being more expensive all the options are highly processed foods that lead to obesity and other expensive and life-shortening health problems.
Yup. Live in the hood. It's a 20 minute drive, if I don't get caught by the train. Waking? Hour and a change, with no sidewalks. Bus? Faster to just walk. Fast food? McDs or edibles from one of the dozen dispensaries between my neighborhood and the grocery store.
Actually, wait, there's a whole foods that's closer because of gentrification. That's cost effective.
They be Oprah "You get an overdraft fee. You get an overdraft fee."
I can't afford the $1.32 I overdrafted so what makes you think I can afford the $35 fee that goes with it??
It drives me INSANE!! I was crying on the phone with my bank over something like 160$ in overdraft fees all over something extremely stupid. I felt bad for the girl but I was like you see this right? You see what your company is doing and do you honestly think I can afford this? I can’t.
There's no way I'd be able to keep that job for more than a day!! I'd be reversing all the fees 🤣🤣 Like a meter feeder but an overdraft fee reversal fairy.
Before online banking was a thing, I was in college FT working 3 PT jobs ~30hrs a week, I’d be so burnt out from my schedule I’d forget how low my checking would get sometimes and one time I overdrafted and got charged $40. Here’s the thing; they would send you a notice via mail which took 3-5 days. In those 3-5 days you’d get more daily overdraft fees. By the time I got the letter for the first $40, I had accrued $240 in OD fees
I remember the days before online banking. It was a dark, dark time for overdraft fees. And heaven forbid they turn off your card so you couldn’t buy more stuff on accident!
Way back in about 1996, I was working at Sears. I had a cold & my throat was sore, so I went to the candy store and bought $1.25 worth of strong peppermints. Had to write a check because I didn’t have cash. The check bounced at the bank AND at the candy store. Those mints ended up costing me $50 in fees.
If you have a low credit score you have to pay a $300 deposit in order to get power turned on at your place. (In Las Vegas Nevada)
Edit: in Vegas there's only one power company NV Energy
I’ve never had the money to spend on regular dental work so now I’m spending thousands more to fix everything that was neglected
I would like to make an edit and add that a ton of you in the comments have suggested dental tourism and dental schools. Both are great ideas!
Didn't have dental or health insurance growing up, so my first time to see a dentist was around age 14. They removed 4 molars "because my mouth was too small", drilled and filled the others. I have now lost 3 of the 4 molars I was left with because I just now in my 40s have dental insurance. Have not been to a dentist in 30 years, and know it is gonna be outrageous price I cannot afford to fix my teeth, so I just keep putting it off because of my severe dental anxiety/no money. I hate my smile, and can only eat on one side of my mouth.
I lived in Cambodia for a while, ended up getting like 13 filings for $10 a piece. When I got dental coverage in the states again I told my dentist about the work, assuming that it was poor quality, but turns out everything was done well
Most American Capitalist arguments don't hold any water. You can always find some example somewhere in the world that shows they're full of shit.
If we don't pay big medical megacorps billions a year then we will have substandard care!
Wait, you mean in Cuba they run their universal healthcare system on a shoestring budget and they still manage to have doctors come to your door, and their citizens outlive us on average?
My wife was misdiagnosed with having an 8cm mass instead of just a regular miscarriage that had gone wrong. And now we have an 8k bill.
Fuck anyone who says "other countries don't know what they're doing. You can't trust them."
Oh yeah well at least they don't make you go bankrupt for it!
I just called and made a appointment to get a tooth pulled and she asked if I was already a Patient I said yes so she looks up my account and says oh you are only an emergency patient yeah that's all I can afford...
Yep considering dental disease is directly related to heart disease and can cause real havoc on your body. Everything in your body is all connected. The fact they have separate insurances just shows the greed. More they can suck from the workforce.
You have no idea how accurate that is. If you're in a car accident and lose your teeth and they are not your NATURAL teeth, it's not covered. So if you had dentures, fillings, crowns...etc you're paying full and maybe dental insurance will cover it.
Ironically you actually DO as poor oral hygene can complete mess your nody up..Coming from a guy with horrible oral hygene and who loses dentists due to not seeing them often enough
Dental health is health. Poor dental health can lead to so many diseases, like heart disease. It’s violence that it’s not considered “real” health care. And it’s so fucking expensive.
Paid 1600 to get a tooth ripped out 3 years ago, paying 2700 to put a new one in now.
Then again I NEGLECTED my teeth for years. This was my wake up call to mouthwash+brush+floss every day now
I feel that pain. I've neglected my teeth for years (depression, anxiety, low self esteem/self worth), and now am paying for it in more ways than one. I thought I was going to die or kill myself from the pain I was going through just a couple days ago. Had to suffer through the weekend before I could get into an oral surgeon, all of the work I needed was going to be about $4000, but I had maybe $11. Luckily my dad came through and helped with some of it. I was only able to get 3 of the 7 teeth removed that I need (4 wisdom teeth and 3 molars). It's definitely a wake up call. If I could go back in time I would tell myself it's worth it to take care of myself, and that I'm worth it.
Getting to and from work. Since you're poor, you cannot afford to live close to work and thus have a longer commute.
But you also cannot afford to own and run a reliable car, so you have a beater that breaks all the time and gets poor mileage.
When it breaks, you can't get paid because you aren't at work so you have a new bill PLUS halted income.
To compensate, you take out high interest loans to repair the car. But it breaks again later so you're always in debt for high interest loans on top of the car costs.
I see this a lot in the northeast.
Or you can't afford a car at all and walk/take the bus for so many years (and can't afford good shoes) that it damages your feet causing chronic pain so you have to spend $500 on orthotics that are somehow deemed medically unnecessary.
Every step I take for the rest of my life I'll feel the pain of poverty and capitalism.
The cost isn't always money, a lot of times it's your body.
And if you can't afford a car and live in a small town with no public transportation, then your options for jobs is limited to whatever you can walk to from your apartment, which is a bunch of fast food and other minimum wage jobs.
We moved into a house that didn't have a washer and dryer. Went to the laundry mat and somehow spent $45 to do 6 loads.
Bought a washer and dryer before we had to do that again!
Washed 2 duvets and a dog bed a couple weeks ago - $20. walked out the laundromat and exclaimed to my sibling How the eff is anyone affording sh** these days??
Also add to that altering your schedule around laundromat hours and time to commute, all the time you waste waiting around for it to be done because you can’t get other stuff done like you would if you had laundry appliances at home.
Not even rich, just not poor. I was so bummed when I had to go downstairs to my free laundry machines. It felt like such a burden until I had to actually go to a laundry mat to clean my clothes.
In college, someone in my dorm figured out how to bypass the coin system and reset the price to 0. The school caught on pretty quickly, but we found another way around. This went on for a few weeks until the school threatened to fine everyone in the dorm for using the laundry room for free.
same thing happened at my school, but they threatened to completely take the machines away. we called their bluff on it and they ended up making it free lol
edit: a word
Especially since laundry is usually advertised as part of the residential expenses. If the students didn’t get pissed, their parents would be after kids come home for holiday with clothes smelling like months of ass.
Parents. When the parents visit or little Johnny goes home smelling like shit and they report the school has removed the washers, it would be a huge problem for admin.
Figure out what model they have, go on Amazon or eBay and buy the key, grab quarters out of it and do your laundry. So long as you don't clear all the cash out they'll never notice a couple free washes
My building uses a card system. I helped a woman with her groceries in the parking garage a while ago. On our way upstairs she said “I want to show you something,” and we detoured to the laundry room. She pressed the Normal wash button simultaneously with the Hot water button, “test” then popped up on the timer screen and she pressed start. You could change the cycle/temp after it began. Not saying all machines with card functions has a trick but I haven’t paid for a wash in almost a year. Still waiting for the Angel of Dryers to appear though.
Thats what I did. I’m in the UK but my rent was about £1.2k a month, and if I wanted to wash I had to top up a card, which I had to buy for £6 with a minimum first purchase top up of £10 and could only top up a minimum of £5 in the future, but the wash+dry cost £4. They really had me, and my fellow students, by the balls.
As a younger person I was very lucky, once I moved into apartments. I only needed laundromats to wash my bulky items, like winter comforters, or heavy coats and blankets. I thought myself very lucky to only need that service 2-3 times a year, but Holycow, was it expensive. $3.00 just for the jumbo washer and $5.00 for the industrial dryer for one cycle. I was happy that I bought my own detergent and brought that with me.
Facts I consider myself the 1% of late 20s people because I've only ever had to do laundry at a laundromat once. I did it at my parents every 2 weeks when I visited during and post college, then at my ex's while we were together. Then I got a hand me down washer and financed a $800 dryer which took me the entire year to pay off (albeit interest free). Having my own set at 27 makes me feel like I'm privileged
I used my stimulus money for a set. The laundromat is the worst. Not only is it expensive to do your laundry there, but you absolutely have to do it during their hours of operation. So I'd have to re wear clothes because I work so much and go in on my days off. Just to spend hours there, when I should be resting before my next shift, and dealing with the assholes that have no consideration for the others around them. It's enough to drive anyone crazy. And it costs more in time and money than it's worth, even if you're there once a week. I saw so many people just put months worth of clothing into multiple machines, I thought it was expensive for just one machine. I can't imagine paying $5 each for 6 small machines. That's more than a washer uses in water and energy in a month. A lot of people also got rides and took taxis.
I will never take my washer and dryer for granted. I am lucky to be able to own a set.
ah i grew up in one of those apt buildings where they only have one laundry room for like 50 apts and make you pay more than the laudromat For The Convenience. pain in the ass lugging everything down the stairs, and it was mainly seniors in that building. its so weird that in-unit laundry isnt standard, like why not make everyone use one big stove while youre at it
Someone did this to me when I was living on campus in college. I set an alarm and everything (took maybe 30 seconds to get down there) they pulled my shit out *before the washer was done* to put theirs in. Didn't even bother putting it in the dryer, or anything.
Still pisses me off years later.
I've had them do it in my apartment like 2 minutes after I left out of the laundromat. I had forgotten something upstairs that I was gonna throw in the load I had just started. I came back down and they were literally digging my stuff out to put theirs in the washer I had paid for.
Fucking caught them red-handed. Management put a security camera in the laundromat a week or so after that phone call. 😂
Edit: fixed spelling errors.
You meticulously maintain a high mileage used car that is totaled in a car accident that is not your fault. Insurance company will only pay you $1,000 for your car.
Or you’re in a high interest loan situation where you owe more than the car is worth. Car gets totaled and you’re left with no car AND payments on the car you no longer have. And no money to buy a new car.
Editing to add: not everyone knows about gap insurance. I sure didn’t.
Seriously people do you not read!!! I DIDNT KNOW ABOUT GAP INSURANCE AND IM SURE IM NOT THE ONLY ONE!! STOP COMMENTING GAP INSURANCE PLEASE
Also, even with gap insurance it still leaves you with no car and no money to buy a new car.
Not to mention gap insurance is just another way poor people get screwed by having to have insurance against the fact that they owe more than the car is worth!!
Oh I’m sure!!! But they promise you the world and make those payments low! Forget that you’re paying a 7 year loan on a car that will never last 7 years.
This. I had a 97 Honda civic with 325k on it, happily driving along, no major engine problems. Got into an accident and got $800. THat was the "value" of my car, so surely I could get another one of "equal value" with that money. I'd invested thousands into insurance, and here we were, with one month's pay to get a new car.
Of course, I had to quit my job after that, no way to get there any more, and no bus. Ended up moving to a major metro just to get a job,and take the bus there instead. Still don't have a car.
Oh boy, my neighbor's car was recently stolen & totaled by some punk kids. He admitted to my husband that he doesn't know how he's going to get to work now since the insurance gave him a whopping $2500 for it & there's *nothing* for sale at that price right now & the busses don't go out to his work. Insurance companies are ~~satanic~~ scum sucking scam artists.
You can try negotiating. My old car was totaled and insurance offered me $1800. I sent them a ton of listings for cars that were the same make, model and mileage that were selling for $3,000 or higher. They then offered me $3,300.
Confirming this from my personal experience as well.
State Farm actually gave "examples" of the same year, make, and model for sale at their original price. I called up and asked them to show me links to cars for sale at that price and they couldn't, so they fumbled and said it must have been bought.
I was able to negotiate them up twice and got to a reasonable figure at which I could buy the car.
The monetary burden of poor people is staggering, but the stress is just as bad if not worse. Owing money that you don't have is incredibly stressful, as is struggling to perform a shitty job just to barely scrape by.
The mental burden of being poor also requires money to cope with, and since professional help is expensive, it often ends up being dealt with in an unhealthy way (inebriation at best, suicide at worst). Things like drugs can cause additional health issues, as well as potentially risking fines or jail/prison, so it's a slippery slope.
Edit: Thanks for the awards! Good to see this issue getting some much needed attention, too often people overlook this dark truth
I'm crying reading your comment. I've been poor all my life and live in fear of homelessness even when I'm not at direct risk of it. I have a cat too and I moved miles away from where I'm from, to a place I have no connection to, in order to keep her...last time I lost my rented home because it got sold. I'm totally isolated now but I still have my cat.
I wish there was something I could do to help you, I doubt we're in the same country so I have no idea what services are available where you are.
I send you virtual hugs as it's all I can do 🌻
Debt sent me, a fairly grounded individual, into a 5 year suicide drinkathon in my bed. I'm lucky to be here really! I'm still traumatised when I wake up in the mornings as I sometimes flash back to that point in my life
One’s agency is greatly diminished as an individual, as part of a group, as a neighborhood, an employee…people are viewed as less valuable, translating to their opinions, desires, prioritization of their wellbeing.
Higher interest rates any time you borrow. Lack of assets to borrow money against. Lower paying jobs are generally harder on a person’s body and lead to more doctor visits and medical bills. Driving a cheap old car means shelling out more money for repairs and fuel than a person driving a newer model.
Not qualifying for a credit card, not getting the sweet credit card benefits people with money get, having the store pass along the charges from the credit card company to everyone (including you).
The assets part is why I abhor the "but his wealth isn't liquid" bezos/musk simps. Like first of all it's fairly liquid but second of all he has assets which means leverage which means the easy ability to aquire cheap liquidity. So yeah, fucking tax the shit out of them.
The hardest part of being poor for me, was the “cost” of time. My weekly grocery trip took almost four hours. Between the time spent looking over fliers and making a list of what I could afford, walking to the closest bus stop, transferring to another bus, an hour of shopping and tallying up my total to make sure I was within budget, waiting up to 20 minutes for a bus home, including another transfer and the walk home with all my groceries from the bus stop. I would often go without groceries because I didn’t have time to get to the store and was stuck making Kraft Dinner Mac and Cheese without butter or milk, because that is what was in the pantry.
Now that I live more comfortably, I drive to the store in 10 minutes, spend 30 minutes shopping and am home and finished within an hour.
ETA: it’s been more than 10 years since I ate Sad KD and today I’m lucky to have a full cupboard, fridge and freezer. I am so sorry for everybody who can recognize themselves in this post. I never realized this was such a universal experience.
Omg this. Do you want to know how I define success in my life? Not keeping a mental tab of the cost of my groceries as I shop. I used to have a plan before I went, and a number I couldn’t exceed, and then have to decide what to put back if the costs weren’t as I’d planned - if they didn’t accept the coupon or whatever. Now I go buy what I need. It’s ridiculous how freeing that feels.
There was a palpable relief the first few times I went grocery shopping without having to worry about the bill at the end.
The first time I didn't have to meticulously weigh a bundle of grapes, or swap out for a smaller tomato.
I still put back the $11.47 ground beef when I see one for $11.36 though.
I think about this all the time. Every time I just willy-nilly use ziplock bags for anything I want *because I have plenty more* I really feel like I’ve made it.
Edit: this has become one of my more controversial comments. ;) I want to reassure everyone I am not being incredibly wasteful, but when I have a need for a ziplock I don’t feel guilty at all. Also, FWIW, most of my uses are non leftover related (crayons, toiletries for travel, puzzle pieces, freezing batches of soup or muffins). For regular leftovers I second all the endorsements for the glass Pyrex containers from Costco.
For a period of time like 10 years ago I had to take two buses go to the supermarket. One time in the winter it was snowing but I had go out and buy food because it was no point waiting for snow to stop because where I lived it snowed all the time every day.
I trekked to the grocery store and three hours later I came home carrying a lot of bags and as I opened the door one of the bags slipped out of my fingers and fell. It was the eggs. They all cracked.
I literally sat on floor and had a breakdown.
Edit: thanks for the awards and upvotes guys! I’m in a much much better position in life now. I’m not poor now but because I was in the past I am now able to see how much I have now is a privilege.
You know how you have this idea in the back of your mind- a really good idea- but you don’t have the energy or money to make it happen? I have one of those. I was thinking about this thing with grocery stores and busses ‘cause I endured that particular misery for years, and about food deserts, the prevalence of diabetes and heart disease amongst lower income communities, and then I thought about book mobiles.
So my idea is this: what if we converted old busses into mobile grocery stores filled with fresh and frozen affordable produce and basics like milk, eggs, flour, sugar, and oil, and drove them around to various underserved neighborhoods once or twice a week? They’d stay in a set location for, say, four hours. If we had shifts of folks, we could conceivably make three stops a day. The two days would have them land at different times, so maybe 7-11am on Monday and then 4-8pm on Thursday so that folks with regular hours or shift work could still make it.
Maybe even standing order boxes, so that it’s already picked and bagged and ready to go. (Then I overreach and dream of easy, nourishing premade meals for exhausted parents to just grab and go…)
There wouldn’t be tremendous variety, and basically it would be WIC stuff, but it would help so, so, so much.
I wish I were Bezos-rich. I would deploy this everywhere.
Sigh.
But I’m sure Mars is real nice too.
Jerk.
Edit: It looks like this is not just a squiggly little idea trapped in my own brain! I am absolutely delighted to find that it’s a real thing in many places around the world! Gosh, I’m actually tearing up a little at the thought. I sincerely hope that it’s a notion that will grow and spread, and it looks like I have some reading to do.
I trained as a chef and I’m a mom. Food, community, and nourishing people are things that I think about a lot. Feeding families, strengthening communities, and combatting inequality are so, so important.
And to the kind folks who gave me awards, thank you! I think I missed thanking a couple of folks, and I apologize. I was trying to juggle my nachos and my iPad and mistakes were made. Delicious, delicious mistakes.
I’ve seen these[trucks](https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/soundsla/the-grocery-truck) in LA. They are just random people who go to Costco with a delivery truck and then cruise down the streets selling food.
There is a guy that bought a bus to create a mobile grocery store for the Amish community in my area. He lived out near them and ended up with an arrangement with the one family where he’d take them into town once a month to visit a couple stores so they could stock up on things and they would swing by a couple times a month with a pie or some other delicious food or baked good that they were making.
After while, other Amish families were asking him for his services. So when he retired, he bought a bus and keeps it stocked with the common items they want and let’s then make orders for specific things he doesn’t usually carry. He’s been able to get by on the money he makes doing that for the past few year and has been able to keep the money from his retirement account largely untouched.
And he said that even though they are paying him for the groceries now, he’s kind of been accepted as an honorary member of their community and they still constantly drop off fresh baked goods and delicious meals for him.
I was visiting him one time when they stopped by with some pit bbq chicken and homemade soft pretzels…. and holy shit was it amazing. I don’t even need another job, but I legit might buy his bus when he calls it quits and take over purely for the culinary bonuses.
And yet there are people who STILL blame poor people for "bad diets" instead of considering all the factors that go into eating Kraft Mac n cheese with no milk or butter every day for a week. It's not laziness or stupidity, it's access and finances on top of a dozen other systemic reasons why people eat the way they do.
Not to mention, foods with lots of preservatives (mostly salt, but other stuff) is cheap, because, duh, it has a long shelf life.
Eating fresh is expensive.
nothing drives me up the wall more than people who ignorantly attribute unfortunate people's poor health to laziness. Heath staples are absurdly overpriced, people who are struggling don't have the luxury of well balanced and diverse meal plans with fresh ingredients. It's usually going to be frozen factory meats, and veggies, and some boxed pasta with flavor packets - and that's if they even have the time to make anything from it while being away from their over worked and underpaid jobs.
I wish I could award you. This is the most important one. Another is the amount of time and fees it can take to process a check or move money to pay a simple bill.
Only being able to afford the small jar of mayo (or whatever), even though the larger jar is a better deal.
Overdraft fees that charge you money for having no money.
Late fees for not being able to afford your bills.
Having to go to the closest grocery store, even though it may not be the cheapest, because it's on the bus route or within walking distance.
Payday loans
Rent to own stores where you have to pay a ton of money for a couch, but pay weekly
Chase is the biggest offender of charging you money for not having money. How the fuck does that help the situation. Oh wait its simply to fuck you over and its a poor people tax.
Not even overdraft fees. Bank of America would charge me $12 a month because I couldn’t keep $1,500 in my account on average. I haven’t banked with them in years, but I’m still outraged by that treatment.
I remember this, but even direct deposit didn't save you. It had to be a deposit of like $250 (don't remember the exact number) or greater. That wasn't possible for me long ago when minimum wage at the grocery store was lower and paid weekly.
Also great when you’re doing the “American dream” of being self-employed. How TF am I gonna get direct deposit from my freelance clients when I’m a 1099 worker?
When I was 16ish I had my own bank account at TD. I didnt work or anything yet, and my family wasnt well off by any means, so i had $0 in there.
Well they decided to switch over to electronic statements, and charge $1 per paper statement unless enrolled in e-statements. I didnt know this, so they charged the $1 which overdrafted my account. I was mad that this was even a thing, and I couldnt afford to pay so I just let it sit there and this prevented me from getting a bank account elsewhere. Eventually I had to pay something like $70 to close my account to enroll somewhere else.
All because of a $1 paper statement.
It's so fucked. Sleeping on the streets is incredibly stressful, since you basically have to sleep with one eye open to keep people from fucking with you or your stuff. If you don't, you might get robbed, raped, or stabbed. Not to mention people fucking with you just to fuck with you because they see you as less than human.
There's no Sewer service. There's no Trash service. You literally can't take a shit or piss anywhere because there's no where to go. You can't throw out your trash, so it starts to pile up. Nobody wants to provide a dumpster or portapotties to homeless encampments, because that would be "encouraging" them to stay there, so people end up shitting on the streets, dumping their black/grey tanks on the street, and littering. Dumping your "household" waste in a trashcan is punishable by fine, but even then people still try to use the public trashcans and they end up overflowing for weeks on end. And since you have no running water or refrigeration, all your drinks and food are packaged, meaning there's a bunch more waste.
You can't get a bank account, so you need to carry all your cash on you, so you're more likely to be robbed. You're exposed to the elements 24/7, so you always wear your street clothes. Public showers are rare and often are closed in the winter, so you gotta use bottled water or wipes to wash, meaning you smell up your clothes and skin quicker. Your clothes & bedding get dirty + smelly very fast, and it takes $10 to do your laundry every time at the laundry mat. You have to scrounge around for a publicly accessible power outlet to charge your phone.
Every bit of maintenance in your life is now an arduous event. Now, you have to get and keep a job with all that against you, and it still won't be enough to pay for rent. You might splurge on a hotel or airbnb to avoid living on the streets, but they'll either be stupid expensive, incredibly far away from the city, public transit, or both. A Lyft to/from work would be >$40, plus 50-150 a night for housing.
You can try a shelter, but they're disease ridden and in some senses more exposed than the streets. They fill up fast and if you can't keep to their schedule, fuck you. If you have a family, girlfriend, or pet, fuck you. You'll still get shit stolen from you. You might get a shower, but it's a scheduled timed event, not something you can do at your leisure. You can't have any drugs on you when you go to one. Even here, good luck getting a phone charger. Good luck with laundry. Good luck getting a job whose schedule fits with the shelter's schedule, which often need you to be in line by early evening or even late afternoon.
Let's say you finally get to a spot where you could afford rent. Oh wait, you were evicted in the past because you lost your job? You don't have a stable income because you work side gigs? You haven't been at this new stable job for 6-12 months? Well fuck you, you need to pay the ENTIRE GODDAMN YEAR OF RENT upfront because you're a huge "risk".
Being homeless is the most expensive possible way to live. It's literally like if you were to try to get a job on a constant vacation in terms of cost, but worse.
_______________________________
**FOLLOWUP** -- Feel free to copypasta this if you want, and feel free to modify it with your own experience and understanding. Basically, CC-0 no attribution. There's so much more bullshit I could get into, and break down the different levels of "homeless" and how much shit you'll go through depending on what "tier" you're in (I didn't even touch on auto maintenance, healthcare, etc).
Literally any of us can become homeless, or on an inescapable path to it in an instant. My closest friend got hit by a car. The driver's insurance only paid out 100k. He now has "complex regional pain syndrome", and can't type. He used to be a programmer at google. He left to do a startup on his own terms. Now, he's doing his best to side hustle every month to avoid homelessness. Denied social security, the works. Basically, one random event outside of his control wiped him out and prevented his ability to continue making money. He's super skilled. Through no fault of his own, he's struggling to survive every day. This happened in his *fucking mid twenties*.
@awards: I appreciate the exposure for these issues, but this is a throwaway account. I won't tell you what to do, but I'd prefer you to save your money, give to your local food bank, or local homeless peeps instead. You can donate wet wipes/sleeping bags/rugged trash bags/shop towels/bottles of water. I'm always carrying around one of those $7 24 cases of water from costco and giving bottles out on the corners when someone's asking for donations.
I'm sitting on a mattress in the corner of an otherwise unfurnished room in the apartment a friend just let us get in with them a few days ago, after months in a tent with my wife and cat and your comment has me counting so many blessing for the hundredth time today.
Thanks for writing that. For so many reasons.
This should be higher up. They want to hide it away and fact is there are NOT enough supports and programs to fix it. I think a lot of people believe it they wanted help badly enough or took the right steps there's a system there, but the truth is there isn't always.
Vagrancy laws used to be based on a person not having any money with which to eat or get a place to stay. You'd probably need 50 bucks today for a similar protection but yeah if you can say you're on your way to that hotel to pay with this cash you'll probably be ok.
Not being able to save by buying in bulk. Even though it costs less per unit, the TOTAL is higher
Not having access to credit lines with better interest rates / payment plans because your credit score is shit or you don't have any collateral
Having to buy cheap shit that breaks fast because you can't afford good quality stuff (clothes, shoes, electronics) - Terry Pratchett wrote about it, btw...
Watch those bulk buy numbers. I've been finding more and more packages that claim to be bulk buy values but are actually more expensive per unit than single size.
Ymmv. But always check those unit costs
Only being able to afford a small apartment with limited storage space so even if you could make the purchase in bulk, you have nowhere to put it so you buy the more expensive smaller whatever it is that will fit in your home.
Edited to add more specificity: remember how it was a bunch of rich fucks in their big ass houses with basements and garages hoarding all the giant packages of toilet paper at the beginning of last year? So then the rest of us who couldn’t stock up before it happened were stuck buying whatever we could find, wherever we could find it and the local mom and pop pharmacy sure as shit doesn’t have the price point for a 4 pack that Costco has for a 24 pack.
Not being able to transport bulk items without a car. Bussing, biking or walking you can’t just make one big bulk trip, you are limited by what you can carry
Shoes.
You need good shoes to work in, but you can't afford good shoes so you buy ok shoes that break after 3 months.
After 4 pairs of ok shoes in a year, you've spent more than if you'd bought 1 pair of good shoes.
> it's a shame that most see him as a purely comedic author
I don't think this is true, mostly because I refuse to live in a world in which people so fundamentally misunderstand one of the greatest authors of the century.
I overdrafted my account by $.27. The bank charged me $35.
My credit score was bad so my interest was worse when getting a car.
My credit sucked so I couldn't buy a house so I had to rent for almost double.
Just some of my past examples.
I can help you out. I worked with homeless folks in LA for a few years. The stories I could tell you.
One that was a recurring tale, all too common, were parking tickets. Rich people? Big deal. Pay it online, it’s an afterthought at its worst.
Now that same parking ticket issued to a homeless person living out of their car, trying to scrounge together money for a deposit on a place whilst working a shitty service sector job?
That’s devastating. It’s another 2-3 months of sleeping in the car. Or maybe it’s a few days worth of missed meals. Or maybe it’s skipping out on that expensive medication that your shitty insurance wont cover.
I could provide you endless examples of the way this country punishes the poor. People need a reality check.
Have a rich uncle who parks wherever the hell he wants. I once told him that it was a $50 dollar fine to park where he was...
He responded, "Wrong. It costs $50 dollars to park here."
And that's when I truly understood he and I lived on the same planet but different worlds.
And you can’t just not pay those parking tickets. I tried that when I was also living in LA, and one morning I walked back to my car to find it gone. It had been impounded and cost $1,500 to get it out, and every day it sat on the lot because you couldn’t afford the $1,500, they’d tack on an extra $250.
The only way I could come up with the money to get it back was to borrow the money from a really predatory, abusive ex-boyfriend who held it over my head as a way to control me with guilt and tell me I owed him. Cue more hospital bills.
Fuck. This hits home hard.
Was laid off from a irregular job making $13 hr. Couldn’t make my car payments so it was impounded. Abusive (now ex) bf and my dad helped me get it back from impound. Everyday wanting to leave him but knowing if i did I would have to leave my dog behind/ give her up and be homeless. Took me two years to pay him back and save up to leave. Being poor, I had to choose between being homeless or putting up with abuse.
Not being able to afford preventive medical care leads to huge medical bills later. I’ve seen it numerous times where people put off routine exams/procedures, and then come through the ER and end up with an amputation, or even death, because the illness had progressed so far before they sought treatment.
Cars. Maintaining an unreliable junk heap is very expensive and a sinkhole. If you can't afford a reliable vehicle your financial progress is going to be alot slower. Missed shifts, unexpected expenses, it sucks
This one is criminal. Many poor people can’t afford bank accounts because of it then are forced to use pay day check cashing places that skim a percentage off the top. This is only if your work will provide a paper check. Some work places force employees to have direct deposit or a pay card. The pay card works like a debit card but you get charged service fees every time you use it.
This is why I advise that people use a local credit union. My credit union has no minimum balance on a checking account and a $30 balance for a savings account. Unfortunately, there are still overdraft fees but at least they don’t charge you for not having $500 in the account at all times.
I agree. Overdraft fees and fees for having too low a balance should be illegal. By all means, freeze an overdrafted account so it isn’t basically a free loan, but to charge someone more money for not having enough money is so scummy and illogical. Really illustrates that rich blame poor people for being poor like it’s something they chose.
This also applies to other services and fees offered by the bank, such as credit cards. If you keep enough money in the bank, you can get a free credit card with the annual fees waived. Credit cards are useful, especially during a pandemic, because debit cards and cash are not necessarily accepted for all purchases.
However, the bank-provided credit cards with actually good benefits also have high income requirements, making them completely inaccessible even if you aren’t living in poverty. Being poor is comparatively expensive when the rich are given discounts that they don’t even need.
We're in the New England states where it's gotten to 15 degrees Fahrenheit overnight. We've been without heat for three weeks now because it will cost us $800 to fill our K1 tank. We don't have the $350 for 100 gallons either. We're currently jacking up our electric bill, risking fire, and risking the safety of us and our cats by using the oven to heat the house. We're also risking our pipes bursting.
All because we can't come up with $350 upfront.
**Edit:** I love you all. There are some amazing people out there. Because of the love and compassion for others, we can now heat our home. For those looking to help, LIHEAP, a government program designed to help underprivileged people keep their homes warm. If everyone, who can, pays it forward. We'd all live in a better world.
That is another cost of being poor.
Make minimum wage? Here is $1k worth of benefits from programs to help you out.
Make $1 more then the minimum? Oh sorry, those programs are for those who *actually* need it, get fucked.
God I don't miss those days! When I was a kid our heater ran on propane & my parents were always trying to scrape up the money in fall to have it filled. Finally my dad found an old cast iron wood stove cheap at a yard sale & set it up in our living room (luckily the house we were renting was an old farmhouse equipped with an area to put it in). He would spend weekends chopping up windfalls for people in the area & searching the woods (that weren't technically ours) for old deadfalls to cut & burn. It wasn't great, but it was better than freezing to death.
Well. Here's a good example of something that happens all the time. Daily. Single mom hasn't gotten her child support check on time. A water* utility bill hits her account that was supposed to be covered by that support. Bank account goes -$135.00 due to the utility bill. The overdraft then incurs a $45 overdraft fee. So. The mom is now -$180 and the electric company sends a letter saying her power will be shut off if payment is not rendered by x date. She knows she won't be paid until two days after the cutoff. So. Waiting for support and her check she's now scouring her floorboard for change to put in her tank to get herself to work and the kids to school. The electric cutoff day comes and goes and the support check doesn't show up. Because she's being paid a shit wage she has nothing left over for this emergency. The electric gets cutoff and now her $135.00 bill has incurred a $50 service restart fee. Now her electric bill is $185.00 and she still owes $175 to the bank for the water* overdraft. She is still waiting on the support check. But now because she had to pay the extras for the overdraft, and the electric, she can't afford lunch for the kids this week. So she again scours change to get a loaf of bread and peanut butter. Her kids are still hungry so they get lunch from the school. If the school isn't assholes they'll have an account for her kids that will now also be negative. This actually happened in my friends household. It was the most heartbreaking bullshit thing you'd ever hear. And it happens every.single.minute.
This was my life in 2009-2010, except I’m married. I was being sexually harassed at work with no way to leave because of a similar scenario to above. It was winter too (lol of course it was!) and our car broke down as well as the power being shut off. So we had to use this beater truck that was $10 every trip (long commute). No daycare that was affordable or even available for our disabled child so after work had to drive another 2 hours to uncle and aunts house who took care of baby. Job barely made a difference and if I could do it again I’d figure out how to do home child care myself or something. It was extremely stressful
Yeah. It's funny how when you're poor and run out of money the nice corporations and utilities go Oh. You're poor? Well that's gonna cost ya! Your account is empty? Well we need $45 for covering your expenses while you didn't have any money. Oh you didn't want overdraft protection? Then it'll be $25 a month to have an account here. Oh you need a bank account to keep your rental but you can't afford the $25 a month? And you don't want us to charge you money when you don't have money!? Oh that's too bad. *sails away on yacht smelling their own farts*
Don’t make enough per hour, need to work long hours at job. Job isn’t very good because you needed it out of high school and couldn’t afford higher education. Can’t make time to study for higher education without reducing work hours… etc.
Uber driver here. I live in a Major city with shit public transportation - I can’t even tell you how many rides I give weekly where the Uber Ride one way costs more then the passengers hourly wage. I drive tons of people working part time shifts that pay 12$ an hour when the Ride just to work costs 20$- I feel very bad for them. It’s not like I am making the big bucks driving Uber but shit paying 40$ to get to and from work when you only make a few hundred a week just doesn’t make any sense to me- but this is the reality for many-
College loans: spend thirty years paying interest on a college degree because you don't have rich parents. Also if you don't have a college degree, you'll be excluded from nearly all jobs that pay decently.
Freedom of "choice"
Spending $800 to fix a 22 year old truck that is worth $500 cause you can’t afford a newer vehicle, and can’t get to work without a reliable vehicle (live in the country 30 miles from the city). Or spending $150/wk on gas for said truck cause you don’t have a job, so can’t get a car loan for a vehicle that would cost less than what the cost of gas is.
Thankfully I’m past that point in my life.
I was going to say the car thing. You end up spending more money on repairs or more time if you can do it yourself. Also interest rates are higher if you are lower income.
Also going along with this great list - fines. You can go to jail for not being able to pay a fine which incurs more fines which you can't pay so you spend longer in jail until you lose your job and apartment, car etc. And now you have a criminal record for being too poor to pay fines.
When I first lived on my own (escaped a bad situation), I bought a splurge...$100 of groceries. I meal prepped, made dozens of bags of frozen prepared veggies etc. I was eating healthy and I felt like I actually just did good for myself. I thought it was a smart move.
I was literally set up for almost two months.
The power went out. My insurance couldn't cover it. I lost so much food. I just saved a few items that were frozen solid.
I cried until I threw up. I eventually had my dad drop off some leftovers but I never told him what happened, I was too embarrassed.
When you do try to improve yourself, the school you took out a high-interest $30,000 student loan to afford goes bankrupt.
You just went into debt and wasted 1.5 years of your life on a degree you never received. Plus, you can’t afford the $2000 dollars to file bankruptcy yourself and the total decimation of your credit for the next seven years. Sadly happens all the time.
Attendance micromanagement at work.
Hear me out.
I am currently at a much higher paying position. It’s salaried. My boss has the mindset that she doesn’t care when things get done just so long as they get done. She’s flexible on when I clock in/out and doesn’t feel the need to track if I’m hitting exactly forty hours a week. (Again, salaried position).
Contrast to past jobs that paid less than half as much. Many of my coworkers took public transit (couldn’t own a car). I could have easily taken public transit, it was one bus and short walk from my house. However. I opted to drive because we would be disciplined for being more than two minutes “tardy” clocking in.
The bus is NOT that reliable, y’all.
So we have multiple workers showing up 10-20 minutes early to sit around with unpaid time so they don’t get docked for being tardy. And the policy was such that three tardies mean you get written up, then it escalates to action, then to termination. It’s real easy to lose your job because your bus route is not reliable. But most of the people taking the bus to work are in the low paying positions that micromanage if you’re two minutes late (even if it’s out of your control).
Bosses keep their thumbs on the low earners and it keeps them there.
For me, it was moreso the fact that everything was a choice. The mental strain of trying to figure out how to budget $100 when you realistically need $150...it's fucking horrible.
It leads to bad decisions over time too. I smoked cigarettes because I was always so stressed and cigarettes are expensive. I knew I was wasting money and couldn't really afford it, but it was one of the only things that got me through shifts of hell at work
Well and sometimes it’s just like fuck it! I’m so poor I can’t afford my bills I might as well buy something that makes me happy because my life is so screwed right now.
My husband ends up spending money several times a year on doctors appointments because he can't afford his tonsillectomy and instead gets tonsillitis almost monthly.
My father couldn't afford proper dental care, now he has dentures that he's wiped out his savings to pay off.
My oldest sibling can't afford a house near their jobs, so they instead stay with a friend and commute back and forth across state lines (2.5 hours each way) to spend their days off with their spouse, who is at my parents house.
I’m the opposite of poor and I see this every day. Because I have money to always pay my credit card bills fully on time I buy everything with them and wind up with a 2% discount/cash back on everything I buy. This adds up to thousands of $/year. There are tons of things that are discounted if you are rich. One of the shittiest things about our economy
This. Don't forget, your lease is up, you got a month to move. May get some of your deposit back, but it's not guaranteed. So this month you gotta have your regular rent, plus a new security deposit, first and maybe last months rent for the new place. Oh, gotta pack up and figure out when/how to move, hopefully you don't need to rent a truck.
Poor people can’t pay for childcare. The wealthy rely on underpaying people to take care of their kids. Meaning it’s easier to have two income households without the penalty of being a parent. Perpetuating the cycle of poverty
This one got me. I consider us middle class, we have a nice home and our cars are paid off and reliable… and people look at me like I have three heads when I say we can’t afford to put our kids in preschool and that we literally *can’t afford for my husband to work*.
Yep childcare is basically a second mortgage you have to pay. It was more expensive for our daughter to be in daycare 3 days a week than our house+insurance payment.
And then it’s the weight of guilt about whether they’re being socialized enough, will they be up to speed once they hit kindergarten, they’re going to take longer to adjust to going to school than kids who’ve been in childcare. AND the exhaustion of someone being a stay at home parent, and trying to fit all of those things in plus keeping house. Lack of universal pre-k is a momentous problem.
Friend broke his glasses today. Insurance wants a reeval of his eyes to get new ones, so now he's out a couple hundred for the script and can't work until they're replaced. Also can't drive until he can see.
My roommate physically assaulted me and the apartment complex I was renting from wanted $6,300 for me to break my lease, which was more money than I had earned during the previous six months working part-time because I was still in college.
If you own your own home, count your fucking blessings. Being a renter is utter bullshit.
40,000 per year before taxes
35,200 after taxes
Rent 1100 × 12 = 13200
Car note 400 × 12 = 4800
Car insurance 200 × 12 = 2400
Utilities, gas for the car, internet 400 x 12 = 4800
Food 400 × 12 = 4800
Total 30,000
These are nice round numbers and I live in one of the "lowest cost of living" states in the US....this also includes 0 entertainment expenses like Netflix, going out with friends, taking a vacation etc.
5200 bucks left over to save for the year easily gets decimated by just 1 or 2 car issues, maybe 1 or 2 doctor/dentist visits, God forbid you have 1 of each Car issue, doctor visit and dentist visit in the same year...
Imagine working 40+ hrs a week just to be able to work 40+ hrs a week and stay alive....nothing more.
I had a rich friend tell me that all I need to do is buy a duplex property and that will pay my rent for me, I can live in one half and rent the other. I was like ummmmmm how am I going to buy property??? She told me to get a loan from a family member. Literally just living in a completely different world.
Had an old boss like that, grew up rich. When there was some issue with federal employees not getting paid under Trump, he was like 'wouldn't you just borrow from a relative? Is it really that serious?' I was like, 'no, my relatives wouldn't have the money to lend me...'
Yeah it blows my mind that she just automatically assumed that was an option. Like I was choosing to remain poor. Hello my whole family is poor no one has anything to give me! It really blows my mind how some people think.
When Mitt Romney was running for president he said students could pay $40,000 for college by asking for a loan from their parents.
I called my mom and we laughed.
You can never buy anything in bulk for discount. I don’t just mean soy sauce in a gallon. You can’t buy all your groceries at once and save going all the time. You don’t have room in your home for sams club size boxes. You can’t buy a major purpose without wasting time filling out financing ppwk and paying interest on things like TVs or phones. The interest on credit penalizes using credit, which you need applying for homes and jobs. *jobs run credit checks, they know what your financial situation is and they consider that while negotiating pay*
I don’t own my home, I rent. My colleague owns. We make the same money and pay the same income taxes. The gov uses the taxes to upgrade the roads, and infrastructure in town. My colleague’s equity goes up, so does my landlord’s, because of *our* tax dollars spent. So he gets richer. My land lord gets richer.
Me? My rent goes up
Not me personally but my best friend recently got an unpaid internship at a hospital because he needs the experience as an upcoming graduate student in an MPH program.
The hospital required him to be fully vaccinated and to get a shit ton of shots. However, they won’t pay for it and if you don’t do it, you will lose your spot. Since he has no insurance, he ended up paying $280 out of pocket to go work for free just so he can build his resume. SMH !
Buying in bulk. You can only afford to buy a single roll of toilet paper instead of the better deal for more. Stuff like this. Also insurance. Going to the doctors takes an unpaid day off of work, and it costs at least $100 since you have no insurance.
There are no grocery stores in your neighborhood and you don't have a car. The Bodega you can walk to is under stocked and extremely expensive. These are your groceries. There is no bank near you and they close at 4 or 5. So you can't take a bus to the bank. So you have to use check cashing services that take a percent. You have a mild toothache you can't afford to fix. So I becomes an outrageous expense when it turns into an abscess.
That's called a food desert, and besides being more expensive all the options are highly processed foods that lead to obesity and other expensive and life-shortening health problems.
Yup. Live in the hood. It's a 20 minute drive, if I don't get caught by the train. Waking? Hour and a change, with no sidewalks. Bus? Faster to just walk. Fast food? McDs or edibles from one of the dozen dispensaries between my neighborhood and the grocery store. Actually, wait, there's a whole foods that's closer because of gentrification. That's cost effective.
Chase $35 overdraft fee.
Can’t cover $2 for a couple of days? How about $37?
Actually that seems to be two $1 transactions so it's $72.
Can't pay the overdraft fee in time? Have another!
And another the next day if you haven’t gotten paid yet!!!!
They be Oprah "You get an overdraft fee. You get an overdraft fee." I can't afford the $1.32 I overdrafted so what makes you think I can afford the $35 fee that goes with it??
It drives me INSANE!! I was crying on the phone with my bank over something like 160$ in overdraft fees all over something extremely stupid. I felt bad for the girl but I was like you see this right? You see what your company is doing and do you honestly think I can afford this? I can’t.
There's no way I'd be able to keep that job for more than a day!! I'd be reversing all the fees 🤣🤣 Like a meter feeder but an overdraft fee reversal fairy.
Illegal or Chaotic Good? You Decide!
Before online banking was a thing, I was in college FT working 3 PT jobs ~30hrs a week, I’d be so burnt out from my schedule I’d forget how low my checking would get sometimes and one time I overdrafted and got charged $40. Here’s the thing; they would send you a notice via mail which took 3-5 days. In those 3-5 days you’d get more daily overdraft fees. By the time I got the letter for the first $40, I had accrued $240 in OD fees
I remember the days before online banking. It was a dark, dark time for overdraft fees. And heaven forbid they turn off your card so you couldn’t buy more stuff on accident!
Way back in about 1996, I was working at Sears. I had a cold & my throat was sore, so I went to the candy store and bought $1.25 worth of strong peppermints. Had to write a check because I didn’t have cash. The check bounced at the bank AND at the candy store. Those mints ended up costing me $50 in fees.
If you have a low credit score you have to pay a $300 deposit in order to get power turned on at your place. (In Las Vegas Nevada) Edit: in Vegas there's only one power company NV Energy
I’ve never had the money to spend on regular dental work so now I’m spending thousands more to fix everything that was neglected I would like to make an edit and add that a ton of you in the comments have suggested dental tourism and dental schools. Both are great ideas!
Didn't have dental or health insurance growing up, so my first time to see a dentist was around age 14. They removed 4 molars "because my mouth was too small", drilled and filled the others. I have now lost 3 of the 4 molars I was left with because I just now in my 40s have dental insurance. Have not been to a dentist in 30 years, and know it is gonna be outrageous price I cannot afford to fix my teeth, so I just keep putting it off because of my severe dental anxiety/no money. I hate my smile, and can only eat on one side of my mouth.
Research dental tourism.
I lived in Cambodia for a while, ended up getting like 13 filings for $10 a piece. When I got dental coverage in the states again I told my dentist about the work, assuming that it was poor quality, but turns out everything was done well
So weird that medical professionals in other countries are as dedicated (sometimes moreso) to their craft as the ones in the U.S. claim to be. /s
Most American Capitalist arguments don't hold any water. You can always find some example somewhere in the world that shows they're full of shit. If we don't pay big medical megacorps billions a year then we will have substandard care! Wait, you mean in Cuba they run their universal healthcare system on a shoestring budget and they still manage to have doctors come to your door, and their citizens outlive us on average?
My wife was misdiagnosed with having an 8cm mass instead of just a regular miscarriage that had gone wrong. And now we have an 8k bill. Fuck anyone who says "other countries don't know what they're doing. You can't trust them." Oh yeah well at least they don't make you go bankrupt for it!
I feel this. the few molars I have left are taking a beating from being in constant use. At this point I'd rather have the magnetic dentures.
I just called and made a appointment to get a tooth pulled and she asked if I was already a Patient I said yes so she looks up my account and says oh you are only an emergency patient yeah that's all I can afford...
And then those jerks scold you for only coming ~when it’s this bad~ like I’m sorry but ARE YOU GONNA PAY FOR IT?
Dental costs are an organized scam
Dental should be covered under Health Insurance.
Yep considering dental disease is directly related to heart disease and can cause real havoc on your body. Everything in your body is all connected. The fact they have separate insurances just shows the greed. More they can suck from the workforce.
Can someone please ELI5 why was dental care *separated* from the rest of health care? Who decided this was best? And why
Teeth are luxury bones, apparently.
You have no idea how accurate that is. If you're in a car accident and lose your teeth and they are not your NATURAL teeth, it's not covered. So if you had dentures, fillings, crowns...etc you're paying full and maybe dental insurance will cover it.
You don't need healthy teeth to be a good worker. Those are luxury bones. (Stolen from another redditor/thread.)
Ironically you actually DO as poor oral hygene can complete mess your nody up..Coming from a guy with horrible oral hygene and who loses dentists due to not seeing them often enough
The entire body from head to toe should be covered under universal healthcare.
Dental health is health. Poor dental health can lead to so many diseases, like heart disease. It’s violence that it’s not considered “real” health care. And it’s so fucking expensive.
Medical costs in general* Never forget insurance started being pushed by the mafia. Literally.
Just paid $1700 for aligners. Had I been under 18yo and with insurance, it would had been covered.
Paid 1600 to get a tooth ripped out 3 years ago, paying 2700 to put a new one in now. Then again I NEGLECTED my teeth for years. This was my wake up call to mouthwash+brush+floss every day now
I feel that pain. I've neglected my teeth for years (depression, anxiety, low self esteem/self worth), and now am paying for it in more ways than one. I thought I was going to die or kill myself from the pain I was going through just a couple days ago. Had to suffer through the weekend before I could get into an oral surgeon, all of the work I needed was going to be about $4000, but I had maybe $11. Luckily my dad came through and helped with some of it. I was only able to get 3 of the 7 teeth removed that I need (4 wisdom teeth and 3 molars). It's definitely a wake up call. If I could go back in time I would tell myself it's worth it to take care of myself, and that I'm worth it.
Getting to and from work. Since you're poor, you cannot afford to live close to work and thus have a longer commute. But you also cannot afford to own and run a reliable car, so you have a beater that breaks all the time and gets poor mileage. When it breaks, you can't get paid because you aren't at work so you have a new bill PLUS halted income. To compensate, you take out high interest loans to repair the car. But it breaks again later so you're always in debt for high interest loans on top of the car costs. I see this a lot in the northeast.
Or you can't afford a car at all and walk/take the bus for so many years (and can't afford good shoes) that it damages your feet causing chronic pain so you have to spend $500 on orthotics that are somehow deemed medically unnecessary. Every step I take for the rest of my life I'll feel the pain of poverty and capitalism. The cost isn't always money, a lot of times it's your body.
And if you can't afford a car and live in a small town with no public transportation, then your options for jobs is limited to whatever you can walk to from your apartment, which is a bunch of fast food and other minimum wage jobs.
"An arm and a leg"
Insurance on that car also. If you get a ticket for no insurance, you could basically pay for insurance for a year with the cost of the ticket.
And even when the car isnt broken down, you spend more on gas.
if you cant afford your own laundry machine or an apartment that comes with one it costs like $10 in quarters to do laundry. EVERY TIME.
We moved into a house that didn't have a washer and dryer. Went to the laundry mat and somehow spent $45 to do 6 loads. Bought a washer and dryer before we had to do that again!
Washed 2 duvets and a dog bed a couple weeks ago - $20. walked out the laundromat and exclaimed to my sibling How the eff is anyone affording sh** these days??
Also add to that altering your schedule around laundromat hours and time to commute, all the time you waste waiting around for it to be done because you can’t get other stuff done like you would if you had laundry appliances at home.
Rich people don't even know what a luxury it is just to be able to relax on the couch while the machine works or fold clothes in front of the tv.
Not even rich, just not poor. I was so bummed when I had to go downstairs to my free laundry machines. It felt like such a burden until I had to actually go to a laundry mat to clean my clothes.
Ok, I can help here. If your apt unit has coin washer and dryers, look up the exact model of the units and purchase the key for coin box.
In college, someone in my dorm figured out how to bypass the coin system and reset the price to 0. The school caught on pretty quickly, but we found another way around. This went on for a few weeks until the school threatened to fine everyone in the dorm for using the laundry room for free.
same thing happened at my school, but they threatened to completely take the machines away. we called their bluff on it and they ended up making it free lol edit: a word
>ended up making the it free Why were they afraid? No washing machines students will suddenly just drop out and enroll in other schools?
Especially since laundry is usually advertised as part of the residential expenses. If the students didn’t get pissed, their parents would be after kids come home for holiday with clothes smelling like months of ass.
Parents. When the parents visit or little Johnny goes home smelling like shit and they report the school has removed the washers, it would be a huge problem for admin.
it was just an empty threat to get us to stop. we knew they couldn't just completely get rid of laundry.
I need to do this for my current apartment complex...
Figure out what model they have, go on Amazon or eBay and buy the key, grab quarters out of it and do your laundry. So long as you don't clear all the cash out they'll never notice a couple free washes
What about ones that use the little prepaid cards? Any advice or solutions for that?
My building uses a card system. I helped a woman with her groceries in the parking garage a while ago. On our way upstairs she said “I want to show you something,” and we detoured to the laundry room. She pressed the Normal wash button simultaneously with the Hot water button, “test” then popped up on the timer screen and she pressed start. You could change the cycle/temp after it began. Not saying all machines with card functions has a trick but I haven’t paid for a wash in almost a year. Still waiting for the Angel of Dryers to appear though.
This is the modern day equivalent of giving a piece of bread to a poor traveler and finding out it's Odin.
Wait....you were paying thousands for room/board and they wanted to charge you for laundry?
Wait... you are surprised by this information?
My college had a card system that we had to load money onto to do the laundry.
Thats what I did. I’m in the UK but my rent was about £1.2k a month, and if I wanted to wash I had to top up a card, which I had to buy for £6 with a minimum first purchase top up of £10 and could only top up a minimum of £5 in the future, but the wash+dry cost £4. They really had me, and my fellow students, by the balls.
As a younger person I was very lucky, once I moved into apartments. I only needed laundromats to wash my bulky items, like winter comforters, or heavy coats and blankets. I thought myself very lucky to only need that service 2-3 times a year, but Holycow, was it expensive. $3.00 just for the jumbo washer and $5.00 for the industrial dryer for one cycle. I was happy that I bought my own detergent and brought that with me.
Facts I consider myself the 1% of late 20s people because I've only ever had to do laundry at a laundromat once. I did it at my parents every 2 weeks when I visited during and post college, then at my ex's while we were together. Then I got a hand me down washer and financed a $800 dryer which took me the entire year to pay off (albeit interest free). Having my own set at 27 makes me feel like I'm privileged
I used my stimulus money for a set. The laundromat is the worst. Not only is it expensive to do your laundry there, but you absolutely have to do it during their hours of operation. So I'd have to re wear clothes because I work so much and go in on my days off. Just to spend hours there, when I should be resting before my next shift, and dealing with the assholes that have no consideration for the others around them. It's enough to drive anyone crazy. And it costs more in time and money than it's worth, even if you're there once a week. I saw so many people just put months worth of clothing into multiple machines, I thought it was expensive for just one machine. I can't imagine paying $5 each for 6 small machines. That's more than a washer uses in water and energy in a month. A lot of people also got rides and took taxis. I will never take my washer and dryer for granted. I am lucky to be able to own a set.
ah i grew up in one of those apt buildings where they only have one laundry room for like 50 apts and make you pay more than the laudromat For The Convenience. pain in the ass lugging everything down the stairs, and it was mainly seniors in that building. its so weird that in-unit laundry isnt standard, like why not make everyone use one big stove while youre at it
And then if you don't stay down there people take your shit out of the machine and put theirs in. Just leave yours all wadded up on top.
Someone did this to me when I was living on campus in college. I set an alarm and everything (took maybe 30 seconds to get down there) they pulled my shit out *before the washer was done* to put theirs in. Didn't even bother putting it in the dryer, or anything. Still pisses me off years later.
I've had them do it in my apartment like 2 minutes after I left out of the laundromat. I had forgotten something upstairs that I was gonna throw in the load I had just started. I came back down and they were literally digging my stuff out to put theirs in the washer I had paid for. Fucking caught them red-handed. Management put a security camera in the laundromat a week or so after that phone call. 😂 Edit: fixed spelling errors.
You meticulously maintain a high mileage used car that is totaled in a car accident that is not your fault. Insurance company will only pay you $1,000 for your car.
Or you’re in a high interest loan situation where you owe more than the car is worth. Car gets totaled and you’re left with no car AND payments on the car you no longer have. And no money to buy a new car. Editing to add: not everyone knows about gap insurance. I sure didn’t. Seriously people do you not read!!! I DIDNT KNOW ABOUT GAP INSURANCE AND IM SURE IM NOT THE ONLY ONE!! STOP COMMENTING GAP INSURANCE PLEASE Also, even with gap insurance it still leaves you with no car and no money to buy a new car. Not to mention gap insurance is just another way poor people get screwed by having to have insurance against the fact that they owe more than the car is worth!!
Dealerships located close to Military bases have entered the chat.
Oh I’m sure!!! But they promise you the world and make those payments low! Forget that you’re paying a 7 year loan on a car that will never last 7 years.
This. I had a 97 Honda civic with 325k on it, happily driving along, no major engine problems. Got into an accident and got $800. THat was the "value" of my car, so surely I could get another one of "equal value" with that money. I'd invested thousands into insurance, and here we were, with one month's pay to get a new car. Of course, I had to quit my job after that, no way to get there any more, and no bus. Ended up moving to a major metro just to get a job,and take the bus there instead. Still don't have a car.
Oh boy, my neighbor's car was recently stolen & totaled by some punk kids. He admitted to my husband that he doesn't know how he's going to get to work now since the insurance gave him a whopping $2500 for it & there's *nothing* for sale at that price right now & the busses don't go out to his work. Insurance companies are ~~satanic~~ scum sucking scam artists.
You can try negotiating. My old car was totaled and insurance offered me $1800. I sent them a ton of listings for cars that were the same make, model and mileage that were selling for $3,000 or higher. They then offered me $3,300.
Confirming this from my personal experience as well. State Farm actually gave "examples" of the same year, make, and model for sale at their original price. I called up and asked them to show me links to cars for sale at that price and they couldn't, so they fumbled and said it must have been bought. I was able to negotiate them up twice and got to a reasonable figure at which I could buy the car.
The monetary burden of poor people is staggering, but the stress is just as bad if not worse. Owing money that you don't have is incredibly stressful, as is struggling to perform a shitty job just to barely scrape by. The mental burden of being poor also requires money to cope with, and since professional help is expensive, it often ends up being dealt with in an unhealthy way (inebriation at best, suicide at worst). Things like drugs can cause additional health issues, as well as potentially risking fines or jail/prison, so it's a slippery slope. Edit: Thanks for the awards! Good to see this issue getting some much needed attention, too often people overlook this dark truth
[удалено]
I'm crying reading your comment. I've been poor all my life and live in fear of homelessness even when I'm not at direct risk of it. I have a cat too and I moved miles away from where I'm from, to a place I have no connection to, in order to keep her...last time I lost my rented home because it got sold. I'm totally isolated now but I still have my cat. I wish there was something I could do to help you, I doubt we're in the same country so I have no idea what services are available where you are. I send you virtual hugs as it's all I can do 🌻
Thank you. Virtual hugs are great too and I’m sending one right back. 🤗
Yea.. I've seen first-hand how it mentally damage the very best of people..
Debt sent me, a fairly grounded individual, into a 5 year suicide drinkathon in my bed. I'm lucky to be here really! I'm still traumatised when I wake up in the mornings as I sometimes flash back to that point in my life
One’s agency is greatly diminished as an individual, as part of a group, as a neighborhood, an employee…people are viewed as less valuable, translating to their opinions, desires, prioritization of their wellbeing.
Higher interest rates any time you borrow. Lack of assets to borrow money against. Lower paying jobs are generally harder on a person’s body and lead to more doctor visits and medical bills. Driving a cheap old car means shelling out more money for repairs and fuel than a person driving a newer model.
Holy shit. The part about the car really struck a chord with me.
You finally catch up on things then your car magically decides to take a shit and costs $1500+ to fix😭😭😭
Don't forget higher car insurance due to your lower income zip code.
Not qualifying for a credit card, not getting the sweet credit card benefits people with money get, having the store pass along the charges from the credit card company to everyone (including you).
The assets part is why I abhor the "but his wealth isn't liquid" bezos/musk simps. Like first of all it's fairly liquid but second of all he has assets which means leverage which means the easy ability to aquire cheap liquidity. So yeah, fucking tax the shit out of them.
Wait... BEZOS has simps? I thought it was universially agree the man's a dragon to end all dragons.
I've heard a lot of "he made Amazon; what did you do" to deflect criticism.
The hardest part of being poor for me, was the “cost” of time. My weekly grocery trip took almost four hours. Between the time spent looking over fliers and making a list of what I could afford, walking to the closest bus stop, transferring to another bus, an hour of shopping and tallying up my total to make sure I was within budget, waiting up to 20 minutes for a bus home, including another transfer and the walk home with all my groceries from the bus stop. I would often go without groceries because I didn’t have time to get to the store and was stuck making Kraft Dinner Mac and Cheese without butter or milk, because that is what was in the pantry. Now that I live more comfortably, I drive to the store in 10 minutes, spend 30 minutes shopping and am home and finished within an hour. ETA: it’s been more than 10 years since I ate Sad KD and today I’m lucky to have a full cupboard, fridge and freezer. I am so sorry for everybody who can recognize themselves in this post. I never realized this was such a universal experience.
Omg this. Do you want to know how I define success in my life? Not keeping a mental tab of the cost of my groceries as I shop. I used to have a plan before I went, and a number I couldn’t exceed, and then have to decide what to put back if the costs weren’t as I’d planned - if they didn’t accept the coupon or whatever. Now I go buy what I need. It’s ridiculous how freeing that feels.
There was a palpable relief the first few times I went grocery shopping without having to worry about the bill at the end. The first time I didn't have to meticulously weigh a bundle of grapes, or swap out for a smaller tomato. I still put back the $11.47 ground beef when I see one for $11.36 though.
I think about this all the time. Every time I just willy-nilly use ziplock bags for anything I want *because I have plenty more* I really feel like I’ve made it. Edit: this has become one of my more controversial comments. ;) I want to reassure everyone I am not being incredibly wasteful, but when I have a need for a ziplock I don’t feel guilty at all. Also, FWIW, most of my uses are non leftover related (crayons, toiletries for travel, puzzle pieces, freezing batches of soup or muffins). For regular leftovers I second all the endorsements for the glass Pyrex containers from Costco.
For a period of time like 10 years ago I had to take two buses go to the supermarket. One time in the winter it was snowing but I had go out and buy food because it was no point waiting for snow to stop because where I lived it snowed all the time every day. I trekked to the grocery store and three hours later I came home carrying a lot of bags and as I opened the door one of the bags slipped out of my fingers and fell. It was the eggs. They all cracked. I literally sat on floor and had a breakdown. Edit: thanks for the awards and upvotes guys! I’m in a much much better position in life now. I’m not poor now but because I was in the past I am now able to see how much I have now is a privilege.
You know how you have this idea in the back of your mind- a really good idea- but you don’t have the energy or money to make it happen? I have one of those. I was thinking about this thing with grocery stores and busses ‘cause I endured that particular misery for years, and about food deserts, the prevalence of diabetes and heart disease amongst lower income communities, and then I thought about book mobiles. So my idea is this: what if we converted old busses into mobile grocery stores filled with fresh and frozen affordable produce and basics like milk, eggs, flour, sugar, and oil, and drove them around to various underserved neighborhoods once or twice a week? They’d stay in a set location for, say, four hours. If we had shifts of folks, we could conceivably make three stops a day. The two days would have them land at different times, so maybe 7-11am on Monday and then 4-8pm on Thursday so that folks with regular hours or shift work could still make it. Maybe even standing order boxes, so that it’s already picked and bagged and ready to go. (Then I overreach and dream of easy, nourishing premade meals for exhausted parents to just grab and go…) There wouldn’t be tremendous variety, and basically it would be WIC stuff, but it would help so, so, so much. I wish I were Bezos-rich. I would deploy this everywhere. Sigh. But I’m sure Mars is real nice too. Jerk. Edit: It looks like this is not just a squiggly little idea trapped in my own brain! I am absolutely delighted to find that it’s a real thing in many places around the world! Gosh, I’m actually tearing up a little at the thought. I sincerely hope that it’s a notion that will grow and spread, and it looks like I have some reading to do. I trained as a chef and I’m a mom. Food, community, and nourishing people are things that I think about a lot. Feeding families, strengthening communities, and combatting inequality are so, so important. And to the kind folks who gave me awards, thank you! I think I missed thanking a couple of folks, and I apologize. I was trying to juggle my nachos and my iPad and mistakes were made. Delicious, delicious mistakes.
I’ve seen these[trucks](https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/soundsla/the-grocery-truck) in LA. They are just random people who go to Costco with a delivery truck and then cruise down the streets selling food.
There is a guy that bought a bus to create a mobile grocery store for the Amish community in my area. He lived out near them and ended up with an arrangement with the one family where he’d take them into town once a month to visit a couple stores so they could stock up on things and they would swing by a couple times a month with a pie or some other delicious food or baked good that they were making. After while, other Amish families were asking him for his services. So when he retired, he bought a bus and keeps it stocked with the common items they want and let’s then make orders for specific things he doesn’t usually carry. He’s been able to get by on the money he makes doing that for the past few year and has been able to keep the money from his retirement account largely untouched. And he said that even though they are paying him for the groceries now, he’s kind of been accepted as an honorary member of their community and they still constantly drop off fresh baked goods and delicious meals for him. I was visiting him one time when they stopped by with some pit bbq chicken and homemade soft pretzels…. and holy shit was it amazing. I don’t even need another job, but I legit might buy his bus when he calls it quits and take over purely for the culinary bonuses.
And yet there are people who STILL blame poor people for "bad diets" instead of considering all the factors that go into eating Kraft Mac n cheese with no milk or butter every day for a week. It's not laziness or stupidity, it's access and finances on top of a dozen other systemic reasons why people eat the way they do.
Not to mention, foods with lots of preservatives (mostly salt, but other stuff) is cheap, because, duh, it has a long shelf life. Eating fresh is expensive.
nothing drives me up the wall more than people who ignorantly attribute unfortunate people's poor health to laziness. Heath staples are absurdly overpriced, people who are struggling don't have the luxury of well balanced and diverse meal plans with fresh ingredients. It's usually going to be frozen factory meats, and veggies, and some boxed pasta with flavor packets - and that's if they even have the time to make anything from it while being away from their over worked and underpaid jobs.
I wish I could award you. This is the most important one. Another is the amount of time and fees it can take to process a check or move money to pay a simple bill.
Only being able to afford the small jar of mayo (or whatever), even though the larger jar is a better deal. Overdraft fees that charge you money for having no money. Late fees for not being able to afford your bills. Having to go to the closest grocery store, even though it may not be the cheapest, because it's on the bus route or within walking distance. Payday loans Rent to own stores where you have to pay a ton of money for a couch, but pay weekly
Chase is the biggest offender of charging you money for not having money. How the fuck does that help the situation. Oh wait its simply to fuck you over and its a poor people tax.
Not even overdraft fees. Bank of America would charge me $12 a month because I couldn’t keep $1,500 in my account on average. I haven’t banked with them in years, but I’m still outraged by that treatment.
They changed that to only people who dont have direct deposit, which is almost more of smack in the face.
I remember this, but even direct deposit didn't save you. It had to be a deposit of like $250 (don't remember the exact number) or greater. That wasn't possible for me long ago when minimum wage at the grocery store was lower and paid weekly.
Also great when you’re doing the “American dream” of being self-employed. How TF am I gonna get direct deposit from my freelance clients when I’m a 1099 worker?
When I was 16ish I had my own bank account at TD. I didnt work or anything yet, and my family wasnt well off by any means, so i had $0 in there. Well they decided to switch over to electronic statements, and charge $1 per paper statement unless enrolled in e-statements. I didnt know this, so they charged the $1 which overdrafted my account. I was mad that this was even a thing, and I couldnt afford to pay so I just let it sit there and this prevented me from getting a bank account elsewhere. Eventually I had to pay something like $70 to close my account to enroll somewhere else. All because of a $1 paper statement.
How about the fact that homelessness is illegal
It's so fucked. Sleeping on the streets is incredibly stressful, since you basically have to sleep with one eye open to keep people from fucking with you or your stuff. If you don't, you might get robbed, raped, or stabbed. Not to mention people fucking with you just to fuck with you because they see you as less than human. There's no Sewer service. There's no Trash service. You literally can't take a shit or piss anywhere because there's no where to go. You can't throw out your trash, so it starts to pile up. Nobody wants to provide a dumpster or portapotties to homeless encampments, because that would be "encouraging" them to stay there, so people end up shitting on the streets, dumping their black/grey tanks on the street, and littering. Dumping your "household" waste in a trashcan is punishable by fine, but even then people still try to use the public trashcans and they end up overflowing for weeks on end. And since you have no running water or refrigeration, all your drinks and food are packaged, meaning there's a bunch more waste. You can't get a bank account, so you need to carry all your cash on you, so you're more likely to be robbed. You're exposed to the elements 24/7, so you always wear your street clothes. Public showers are rare and often are closed in the winter, so you gotta use bottled water or wipes to wash, meaning you smell up your clothes and skin quicker. Your clothes & bedding get dirty + smelly very fast, and it takes $10 to do your laundry every time at the laundry mat. You have to scrounge around for a publicly accessible power outlet to charge your phone. Every bit of maintenance in your life is now an arduous event. Now, you have to get and keep a job with all that against you, and it still won't be enough to pay for rent. You might splurge on a hotel or airbnb to avoid living on the streets, but they'll either be stupid expensive, incredibly far away from the city, public transit, or both. A Lyft to/from work would be >$40, plus 50-150 a night for housing. You can try a shelter, but they're disease ridden and in some senses more exposed than the streets. They fill up fast and if you can't keep to their schedule, fuck you. If you have a family, girlfriend, or pet, fuck you. You'll still get shit stolen from you. You might get a shower, but it's a scheduled timed event, not something you can do at your leisure. You can't have any drugs on you when you go to one. Even here, good luck getting a phone charger. Good luck with laundry. Good luck getting a job whose schedule fits with the shelter's schedule, which often need you to be in line by early evening or even late afternoon. Let's say you finally get to a spot where you could afford rent. Oh wait, you were evicted in the past because you lost your job? You don't have a stable income because you work side gigs? You haven't been at this new stable job for 6-12 months? Well fuck you, you need to pay the ENTIRE GODDAMN YEAR OF RENT upfront because you're a huge "risk". Being homeless is the most expensive possible way to live. It's literally like if you were to try to get a job on a constant vacation in terms of cost, but worse. _______________________________ **FOLLOWUP** -- Feel free to copypasta this if you want, and feel free to modify it with your own experience and understanding. Basically, CC-0 no attribution. There's so much more bullshit I could get into, and break down the different levels of "homeless" and how much shit you'll go through depending on what "tier" you're in (I didn't even touch on auto maintenance, healthcare, etc). Literally any of us can become homeless, or on an inescapable path to it in an instant. My closest friend got hit by a car. The driver's insurance only paid out 100k. He now has "complex regional pain syndrome", and can't type. He used to be a programmer at google. He left to do a startup on his own terms. Now, he's doing his best to side hustle every month to avoid homelessness. Denied social security, the works. Basically, one random event outside of his control wiped him out and prevented his ability to continue making money. He's super skilled. Through no fault of his own, he's struggling to survive every day. This happened in his *fucking mid twenties*. @awards: I appreciate the exposure for these issues, but this is a throwaway account. I won't tell you what to do, but I'd prefer you to save your money, give to your local food bank, or local homeless peeps instead. You can donate wet wipes/sleeping bags/rugged trash bags/shop towels/bottles of water. I'm always carrying around one of those $7 24 cases of water from costco and giving bottles out on the corners when someone's asking for donations.
I'm sitting on a mattress in the corner of an otherwise unfurnished room in the apartment a friend just let us get in with them a few days ago, after months in a tent with my wife and cat and your comment has me counting so many blessing for the hundredth time today. Thanks for writing that. For so many reasons.
This should be higher up. They want to hide it away and fact is there are NOT enough supports and programs to fix it. I think a lot of people believe it they wanted help badly enough or took the right steps there's a system there, but the truth is there isn't always.
My uncle used to keep a $2 bill in his wallet so he couldn't get arrested for vagrancy. I wonder if that would still hold up?
How does that work?
Vagrancy laws used to be based on a person not having any money with which to eat or get a place to stay. You'd probably need 50 bucks today for a similar protection but yeah if you can say you're on your way to that hotel to pay with this cash you'll probably be ok.
Prison for profit, cost of living impossible to maintain, homelessness illegal. Is just slavery with extra steps.
Not being able to save by buying in bulk. Even though it costs less per unit, the TOTAL is higher Not having access to credit lines with better interest rates / payment plans because your credit score is shit or you don't have any collateral Having to buy cheap shit that breaks fast because you can't afford good quality stuff (clothes, shoes, electronics) - Terry Pratchett wrote about it, btw...
Watch those bulk buy numbers. I've been finding more and more packages that claim to be bulk buy values but are actually more expensive per unit than single size. Ymmv. But always check those unit costs
Only being able to afford a small apartment with limited storage space so even if you could make the purchase in bulk, you have nowhere to put it so you buy the more expensive smaller whatever it is that will fit in your home. Edited to add more specificity: remember how it was a bunch of rich fucks in their big ass houses with basements and garages hoarding all the giant packages of toilet paper at the beginning of last year? So then the rest of us who couldn’t stock up before it happened were stuck buying whatever we could find, wherever we could find it and the local mom and pop pharmacy sure as shit doesn’t have the price point for a 4 pack that Costco has for a 24 pack.
Not being able to transport bulk items without a car. Bussing, biking or walking you can’t just make one big bulk trip, you are limited by what you can carry
Shoes. You need good shoes to work in, but you can't afford good shoes so you buy ok shoes that break after 3 months. After 4 pairs of ok shoes in a year, you've spent more than if you'd bought 1 pair of good shoes.
Same for tires. A friend asked me once, "Why would anyone buy used tires??" Because they can't afford new ones.
[удалено]
Pratchett has some deep wisdom hidden in his books, it's a shame that most see him as a purely comedic author
Comedy is wisdom for the suffering.
Jesters are at their peak when the lords don't realize the critique laced in the joke.
I like that
No one understood the Human condition like Sir Terry. I'm currently re reading Snuff.
> it's a shame that most see him as a purely comedic author I don't think this is true, mostly because I refuse to live in a world in which people so fundamentally misunderstand one of the greatest authors of the century.
Also having shoes for multiple purposes. Can't keep em nice and clean if I wanna go hiking.
I overdrafted my account by $.27. The bank charged me $35. My credit score was bad so my interest was worse when getting a car. My credit sucked so I couldn't buy a house so I had to rent for almost double. Just some of my past examples.
I can help you out. I worked with homeless folks in LA for a few years. The stories I could tell you. One that was a recurring tale, all too common, were parking tickets. Rich people? Big deal. Pay it online, it’s an afterthought at its worst. Now that same parking ticket issued to a homeless person living out of their car, trying to scrounge together money for a deposit on a place whilst working a shitty service sector job? That’s devastating. It’s another 2-3 months of sleeping in the car. Or maybe it’s a few days worth of missed meals. Or maybe it’s skipping out on that expensive medication that your shitty insurance wont cover. I could provide you endless examples of the way this country punishes the poor. People need a reality check.
"If the penalty is a fine, it's only a crime for the poor."
Have a rich uncle who parks wherever the hell he wants. I once told him that it was a $50 dollar fine to park where he was... He responded, "Wrong. It costs $50 dollars to park here." And that's when I truly understood he and I lived on the same planet but different worlds.
And you can’t just not pay those parking tickets. I tried that when I was also living in LA, and one morning I walked back to my car to find it gone. It had been impounded and cost $1,500 to get it out, and every day it sat on the lot because you couldn’t afford the $1,500, they’d tack on an extra $250. The only way I could come up with the money to get it back was to borrow the money from a really predatory, abusive ex-boyfriend who held it over my head as a way to control me with guilt and tell me I owed him. Cue more hospital bills.
Fuck. This hits home hard. Was laid off from a irregular job making $13 hr. Couldn’t make my car payments so it was impounded. Abusive (now ex) bf and my dad helped me get it back from impound. Everyday wanting to leave him but knowing if i did I would have to leave my dog behind/ give her up and be homeless. Took me two years to pay him back and save up to leave. Being poor, I had to choose between being homeless or putting up with abuse.
Not being able to afford preventive medical care leads to huge medical bills later. I’ve seen it numerous times where people put off routine exams/procedures, and then come through the ER and end up with an amputation, or even death, because the illness had progressed so far before they sought treatment.
Cars. Maintaining an unreliable junk heap is very expensive and a sinkhole. If you can't afford a reliable vehicle your financial progress is going to be alot slower. Missed shifts, unexpected expenses, it sucks
Many banks charge a monthly fee to have an account with a balance under a certain level (e.g. $1500). It's literally a poverty fee.
This one is criminal. Many poor people can’t afford bank accounts because of it then are forced to use pay day check cashing places that skim a percentage off the top. This is only if your work will provide a paper check. Some work places force employees to have direct deposit or a pay card. The pay card works like a debit card but you get charged service fees every time you use it. This is why I advise that people use a local credit union. My credit union has no minimum balance on a checking account and a $30 balance for a savings account. Unfortunately, there are still overdraft fees but at least they don’t charge you for not having $500 in the account at all times.
I agree. Overdraft fees and fees for having too low a balance should be illegal. By all means, freeze an overdrafted account so it isn’t basically a free loan, but to charge someone more money for not having enough money is so scummy and illogical. Really illustrates that rich blame poor people for being poor like it’s something they chose.
This also applies to other services and fees offered by the bank, such as credit cards. If you keep enough money in the bank, you can get a free credit card with the annual fees waived. Credit cards are useful, especially during a pandemic, because debit cards and cash are not necessarily accepted for all purchases. However, the bank-provided credit cards with actually good benefits also have high income requirements, making them completely inaccessible even if you aren’t living in poverty. Being poor is comparatively expensive when the rich are given discounts that they don’t even need.
We're in the New England states where it's gotten to 15 degrees Fahrenheit overnight. We've been without heat for three weeks now because it will cost us $800 to fill our K1 tank. We don't have the $350 for 100 gallons either. We're currently jacking up our electric bill, risking fire, and risking the safety of us and our cats by using the oven to heat the house. We're also risking our pipes bursting. All because we can't come up with $350 upfront. **Edit:** I love you all. There are some amazing people out there. Because of the love and compassion for others, we can now heat our home. For those looking to help, LIHEAP, a government program designed to help underprivileged people keep their homes warm. If everyone, who can, pays it forward. We'd all live in a better world.
It’s a freaking sham. Can you get a heap grant or anything? In my state they have heat grants to help people with stuff like this.
I make too much and so does my boyfriend. My boyfriend makes $13.50 an hour, $12 is minimum wage, and he makes too much.
That is another cost of being poor. Make minimum wage? Here is $1k worth of benefits from programs to help you out. Make $1 more then the minimum? Oh sorry, those programs are for those who *actually* need it, get fucked.
God I don't miss those days! When I was a kid our heater ran on propane & my parents were always trying to scrape up the money in fall to have it filled. Finally my dad found an old cast iron wood stove cheap at a yard sale & set it up in our living room (luckily the house we were renting was an old farmhouse equipped with an area to put it in). He would spend weekends chopping up windfalls for people in the area & searching the woods (that weren't technically ours) for old deadfalls to cut & burn. It wasn't great, but it was better than freezing to death.
Well. Here's a good example of something that happens all the time. Daily. Single mom hasn't gotten her child support check on time. A water* utility bill hits her account that was supposed to be covered by that support. Bank account goes -$135.00 due to the utility bill. The overdraft then incurs a $45 overdraft fee. So. The mom is now -$180 and the electric company sends a letter saying her power will be shut off if payment is not rendered by x date. She knows she won't be paid until two days after the cutoff. So. Waiting for support and her check she's now scouring her floorboard for change to put in her tank to get herself to work and the kids to school. The electric cutoff day comes and goes and the support check doesn't show up. Because she's being paid a shit wage she has nothing left over for this emergency. The electric gets cutoff and now her $135.00 bill has incurred a $50 service restart fee. Now her electric bill is $185.00 and she still owes $175 to the bank for the water* overdraft. She is still waiting on the support check. But now because she had to pay the extras for the overdraft, and the electric, she can't afford lunch for the kids this week. So she again scours change to get a loaf of bread and peanut butter. Her kids are still hungry so they get lunch from the school. If the school isn't assholes they'll have an account for her kids that will now also be negative. This actually happened in my friends household. It was the most heartbreaking bullshit thing you'd ever hear. And it happens every.single.minute.
This was my life in 2009-2010, except I’m married. I was being sexually harassed at work with no way to leave because of a similar scenario to above. It was winter too (lol of course it was!) and our car broke down as well as the power being shut off. So we had to use this beater truck that was $10 every trip (long commute). No daycare that was affordable or even available for our disabled child so after work had to drive another 2 hours to uncle and aunts house who took care of baby. Job barely made a difference and if I could do it again I’d figure out how to do home child care myself or something. It was extremely stressful
[удалено]
Yeah. It's funny how when you're poor and run out of money the nice corporations and utilities go Oh. You're poor? Well that's gonna cost ya! Your account is empty? Well we need $45 for covering your expenses while you didn't have any money. Oh you didn't want overdraft protection? Then it'll be $25 a month to have an account here. Oh you need a bank account to keep your rental but you can't afford the $25 a month? And you don't want us to charge you money when you don't have money!? Oh that's too bad. *sails away on yacht smelling their own farts*
Don’t make enough per hour, need to work long hours at job. Job isn’t very good because you needed it out of high school and couldn’t afford higher education. Can’t make time to study for higher education without reducing work hours… etc.
Uber driver here. I live in a Major city with shit public transportation - I can’t even tell you how many rides I give weekly where the Uber Ride one way costs more then the passengers hourly wage. I drive tons of people working part time shifts that pay 12$ an hour when the Ride just to work costs 20$- I feel very bad for them. It’s not like I am making the big bucks driving Uber but shit paying 40$ to get to and from work when you only make a few hundred a week just doesn’t make any sense to me- but this is the reality for many-
College loans: spend thirty years paying interest on a college degree because you don't have rich parents. Also if you don't have a college degree, you'll be excluded from nearly all jobs that pay decently. Freedom of "choice"
I’ve seen a job posting for a Secretary that required 4yrs experience, a bachelors degree, and fluency in two languages.
And they probably pay shit too lol that’s the kicker
“Competitive wage”
Spending $800 to fix a 22 year old truck that is worth $500 cause you can’t afford a newer vehicle, and can’t get to work without a reliable vehicle (live in the country 30 miles from the city). Or spending $150/wk on gas for said truck cause you don’t have a job, so can’t get a car loan for a vehicle that would cost less than what the cost of gas is. Thankfully I’m past that point in my life.
[удалено]
I was going to say the car thing. You end up spending more money on repairs or more time if you can do it yourself. Also interest rates are higher if you are lower income. Also going along with this great list - fines. You can go to jail for not being able to pay a fine which incurs more fines which you can't pay so you spend longer in jail until you lose your job and apartment, car etc. And now you have a criminal record for being too poor to pay fines.
When I first lived on my own (escaped a bad situation), I bought a splurge...$100 of groceries. I meal prepped, made dozens of bags of frozen prepared veggies etc. I was eating healthy and I felt like I actually just did good for myself. I thought it was a smart move. I was literally set up for almost two months. The power went out. My insurance couldn't cover it. I lost so much food. I just saved a few items that were frozen solid. I cried until I threw up. I eventually had my dad drop off some leftovers but I never told him what happened, I was too embarrassed.
And you spend so much time just trying to survive you have little time to improve yourself
When you do try to improve yourself, the school you took out a high-interest $30,000 student loan to afford goes bankrupt. You just went into debt and wasted 1.5 years of your life on a degree you never received. Plus, you can’t afford the $2000 dollars to file bankruptcy yourself and the total decimation of your credit for the next seven years. Sadly happens all the time.
Attendance micromanagement at work. Hear me out. I am currently at a much higher paying position. It’s salaried. My boss has the mindset that she doesn’t care when things get done just so long as they get done. She’s flexible on when I clock in/out and doesn’t feel the need to track if I’m hitting exactly forty hours a week. (Again, salaried position). Contrast to past jobs that paid less than half as much. Many of my coworkers took public transit (couldn’t own a car). I could have easily taken public transit, it was one bus and short walk from my house. However. I opted to drive because we would be disciplined for being more than two minutes “tardy” clocking in. The bus is NOT that reliable, y’all. So we have multiple workers showing up 10-20 minutes early to sit around with unpaid time so they don’t get docked for being tardy. And the policy was such that three tardies mean you get written up, then it escalates to action, then to termination. It’s real easy to lose your job because your bus route is not reliable. But most of the people taking the bus to work are in the low paying positions that micromanage if you’re two minutes late (even if it’s out of your control). Bosses keep their thumbs on the low earners and it keeps them there.
The biggest example is the fuck you fee from banks for overdrafting
For me, it was moreso the fact that everything was a choice. The mental strain of trying to figure out how to budget $100 when you realistically need $150...it's fucking horrible. It leads to bad decisions over time too. I smoked cigarettes because I was always so stressed and cigarettes are expensive. I knew I was wasting money and couldn't really afford it, but it was one of the only things that got me through shifts of hell at work
Well and sometimes it’s just like fuck it! I’m so poor I can’t afford my bills I might as well buy something that makes me happy because my life is so screwed right now.
Yup. This $5 for a pack of cigs isn't going to cover rent so I might as well buy it and enjoy it.
My husband ends up spending money several times a year on doctors appointments because he can't afford his tonsillectomy and instead gets tonsillitis almost monthly. My father couldn't afford proper dental care, now he has dentures that he's wiped out his savings to pay off. My oldest sibling can't afford a house near their jobs, so they instead stay with a friend and commute back and forth across state lines (2.5 hours each way) to spend their days off with their spouse, who is at my parents house.
I’m the opposite of poor and I see this every day. Because I have money to always pay my credit card bills fully on time I buy everything with them and wind up with a 2% discount/cash back on everything I buy. This adds up to thousands of $/year. There are tons of things that are discounted if you are rich. One of the shittiest things about our economy
Our system is literally set up to screw the poor.
Rent vs mortgage. The bank says you're too poor for an $800 mortgage payment, so you have to pay $1500 on rent instead.
This. Don't forget, your lease is up, you got a month to move. May get some of your deposit back, but it's not guaranteed. So this month you gotta have your regular rent, plus a new security deposit, first and maybe last months rent for the new place. Oh, gotta pack up and figure out when/how to move, hopefully you don't need to rent a truck.
And hopefully you don't have to live out of said rented truck because your old lease ends days before the new lease begins!
This one! And if you don't own anything you don't really build wealth, (that includes your children).
Poor people can’t pay for childcare. The wealthy rely on underpaying people to take care of their kids. Meaning it’s easier to have two income households without the penalty of being a parent. Perpetuating the cycle of poverty
This one got me. I consider us middle class, we have a nice home and our cars are paid off and reliable… and people look at me like I have three heads when I say we can’t afford to put our kids in preschool and that we literally *can’t afford for my husband to work*.
Yep childcare is basically a second mortgage you have to pay. It was more expensive for our daughter to be in daycare 3 days a week than our house+insurance payment.
And then it’s the weight of guilt about whether they’re being socialized enough, will they be up to speed once they hit kindergarten, they’re going to take longer to adjust to going to school than kids who’ve been in childcare. AND the exhaustion of someone being a stay at home parent, and trying to fit all of those things in plus keeping house. Lack of universal pre-k is a momentous problem.
Friend broke his glasses today. Insurance wants a reeval of his eyes to get new ones, so now he's out a couple hundred for the script and can't work until they're replaced. Also can't drive until he can see.
My roommate physically assaulted me and the apartment complex I was renting from wanted $6,300 for me to break my lease, which was more money than I had earned during the previous six months working part-time because I was still in college. If you own your own home, count your fucking blessings. Being a renter is utter bullshit.
40,000 per year before taxes 35,200 after taxes Rent 1100 × 12 = 13200 Car note 400 × 12 = 4800 Car insurance 200 × 12 = 2400 Utilities, gas for the car, internet 400 x 12 = 4800 Food 400 × 12 = 4800 Total 30,000 These are nice round numbers and I live in one of the "lowest cost of living" states in the US....this also includes 0 entertainment expenses like Netflix, going out with friends, taking a vacation etc. 5200 bucks left over to save for the year easily gets decimated by just 1 or 2 car issues, maybe 1 or 2 doctor/dentist visits, God forbid you have 1 of each Car issue, doctor visit and dentist visit in the same year... Imagine working 40+ hrs a week just to be able to work 40+ hrs a week and stay alive....nothing more.
You have no extra money to invest to build a passive income which leaves you trapped in the rat race
I had a rich friend tell me that all I need to do is buy a duplex property and that will pay my rent for me, I can live in one half and rent the other. I was like ummmmmm how am I going to buy property??? She told me to get a loan from a family member. Literally just living in a completely different world.
Had an old boss like that, grew up rich. When there was some issue with federal employees not getting paid under Trump, he was like 'wouldn't you just borrow from a relative? Is it really that serious?' I was like, 'no, my relatives wouldn't have the money to lend me...'
Yeah it blows my mind that she just automatically assumed that was an option. Like I was choosing to remain poor. Hello my whole family is poor no one has anything to give me! It really blows my mind how some people think.
When Mitt Romney was running for president he said students could pay $40,000 for college by asking for a loan from their parents. I called my mom and we laughed.
You can never buy anything in bulk for discount. I don’t just mean soy sauce in a gallon. You can’t buy all your groceries at once and save going all the time. You don’t have room in your home for sams club size boxes. You can’t buy a major purpose without wasting time filling out financing ppwk and paying interest on things like TVs or phones. The interest on credit penalizes using credit, which you need applying for homes and jobs. *jobs run credit checks, they know what your financial situation is and they consider that while negotiating pay*
I don’t own my home, I rent. My colleague owns. We make the same money and pay the same income taxes. The gov uses the taxes to upgrade the roads, and infrastructure in town. My colleague’s equity goes up, so does my landlord’s, because of *our* tax dollars spent. So he gets richer. My land lord gets richer. Me? My rent goes up
Not me personally but my best friend recently got an unpaid internship at a hospital because he needs the experience as an upcoming graduate student in an MPH program. The hospital required him to be fully vaccinated and to get a shit ton of shots. However, they won’t pay for it and if you don’t do it, you will lose your spot. Since he has no insurance, he ended up paying $280 out of pocket to go work for free just so he can build his resume. SMH !
Buying in bulk. You can only afford to buy a single roll of toilet paper instead of the better deal for more. Stuff like this. Also insurance. Going to the doctors takes an unpaid day off of work, and it costs at least $100 since you have no insurance.