# Explain the "poor" mentality to me **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 9, 2013, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-poor-mentality-to-me/660558 "2013-06-09T16:21:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Rushgeekgirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rushgeekgirl/32/3715_2.png) [@Rushgeekgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rushgeekgirl)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2013, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-poor-mentality-to-me/660558/201 "2013-06-14T15:20:58Z")
> [@black\_rabbit](#): > > Tonight was my night to make dinner, and I picked one of my simple, palatable, reasonably healthy go-to dishes: linguini with olive oil, garlic, red pepper, and parmesan (the Kraft shredded stuff); a simple salad with spring mix from a bag, cherry tomatoes, feta, and red wine vinaigrette; and a store-bought baguette with real butter. > > Oh, and a $5 bottle of sauv blanc. > > Total cost for two, not including the wine? Probably ten bucks. There is no way in hell that cost five dollars unless you’re breaking down portions from “family size” bags of frozen. If you were to buy all the ingredients listed it would cost a lot more. The cherry tomatoes alone would cost 3.49. I know this because this is how I cook and how I shop. I may be poor but I don’t eat processed food except on the rare occasion I get a very good deal. Last week I bought some of that flavored Rice-a-roni 2 for 50 cents with coupons and a 2 for 1 deal. That’s out of a full week’s shopping. The rest was fresh or frozen whole foods. It is _far_ more expensive to eat this way than to buy 2 boxes of “linguine and herbs” from Lipton for a buck each, especially if you can’t keep fresh or frozen. I couldn’t for 2 years before I moved here because I had no freezer and you just couldn’t keep food on a counter thanks to the freakin bugs everywhere. Now in my new place I live like a queen with a real working freezer, a real working stove (ALL the burners! OMG!), and a microwave. I plan, prepare, and cook on a schedule and save money, but it’s still more expensive than Rice-a-roni and white bread. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2013, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-poor-mentality-to-me/660558/202 "2013-06-14T15:48:36Z")
The “poor” people I know – the ones who \*never \*have money for necessities like rent, children’s lunches, and vehicle insurance – smoke, drink, have tattoos, video game consoles, pets, and the latest smartphones. They can’t afford to go to the dentist once a year, but they can afford marijuana and whiskey, and monthly trips to the salon. Definitely misplaced priorities. It’s a mentality that can’t be fixed. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2013, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-poor-mentality-to-me/660558/203 "2013-06-14T15:56:39Z")
To my mind, all of the arguments made hold some water, and they are not mutually exclusive. Is being poor more expensive than being well off? There is no doubt of that, for all the reasons advanced. Does being poor trap you in various ways to continue to be poor? Certainly. Can being poor also be the result of bad personal choices and priorities? Undoubtedly, in some cases. The most insidious, to my mind, is that adaptations which make perfect sense if you are poor, and in fact are good choices in some ways, can work to keep one poor. In this category goes putting surplus money towards relations in need as a kind of insurance against future need. ---
**Author:** ![Bam\_Boo\_Gut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8c91f0/32.png) [@Bam\_Boo\_Gut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bam_Boo_Gut)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2013, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-poor-mentality-to-me/660558/204 "2013-06-14T16:02:57Z")
> [@Rushgeekgirl](#): > > Same with tires. Tires go bad before we get new ones, and then they’re still not new. Used tires cost 20 bucks. If you don’t have the money for new you keep getting used even though they have a drastically shorter lifespan. It would be nice to have enough to get all tires replaced with new ones but I never have the money at once. It’s not just about the lifespan of the tires themselves, they protect the rest of the car parts. I do them in twos. Someone once said to me it’s the best investment you can make in your car. You’re hammering the rest of the car by not having adequate protection from the road, and all kinds of things will wear out much quicker, but for years I never could get past the retreads and the repair shop, and the other parts wearing out and the money draining through my hands. New tires are actually cheaper overall it’s just … HAVING ALL THE MONEY ALL AT ONCE to buy them, ah that old chestnut. I’m just hoping certain friends won’t notice since I’ll get the lecture about how I could have bought at least four used ones for the same price, because it’s the same friends I’ll be calling to rescue me when tires 3 and 4 blow out before I’ve built up the funds to replace them. ---
**Author:** ![Rushgeekgirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rushgeekgirl/32/3715_2.png) [@Rushgeekgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rushgeekgirl)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2013, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-poor-mentality-to-me/660558/205 "2013-06-14T17:03:48Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > The “poor” people I know – the ones who \*never \*have money for necessities like rent, children’s lunches, and vehicle insurance – smoke, drink, have tattoos, video game consoles, pets, and the latest smartphones. They can’t afford to go to the dentist once a year, but they can afford marijuana and whiskey, and monthly trips to the salon. Definitely misplaced priorities. It’s a mentality that can’t be fixed. I’m here to tell you we do exist. We do make sure we pay our bills on time every month and we go without extras most of the time because I was taught, however poor we are, that bills come first. My only extra expense is the pets but if it came to the point only one of us could eat my family would come first. I don’t drink, smoke, or own a phone, video games, and I have zero tattoos. I haven’t ever even once in my life been to a “salon” but I did go a few years back to one of those cheap-cuts place. I do better on my own! I rent two bedrooms of a large house shared with two others. My rent covers lights and internet and pool use. After that’s paid we pay insurance then food. That’s about it. We live cheap and simple but I am happy. I would LIKE more money for more stuff, but not if I have to sacrifice time with my family. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2013, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-poor-mentality-to-me/660558/206 "2013-06-14T17:42:18Z")
Here’s the thing though- that $360 in pet food per month, not to mention whatever vet bills and other incidental costs your pets incur (shampoo, etc…) would probably pay for an entire set of inexpensive brand new tires each year. And tires last for a long time- 40k-50k miles in most cases, even for value brand ones. So right there, you have your tire issue solved in a year. I imagine you’d take care of the A/C issues in a year or two after that. That’s the point I’m trying to make- you say you’re poor and never have money, etc… but that’s not strictly true. You have pets that aren’t an insignificant cost to you, and that’s your choice, but if not being poor is a priority to you, then those pets ought to go. Same thing goes for the people **Crafter Man** mentions; smartphones, xboxes, etc… are all luxuries that come after paying bills (I know you pay yours), and to an extent, after you’ve saved some for a rainy day. It’s kind of hard for those of us who come from a different mindset to see people with all that stuff **Crafter Man** mentions turn around and complain about not having enough money to feed their kids or pay their bills. Or, my personal example is having seen a dude in front of me in the grocery line buy a cartload of food with food stamps (this was 1993 or thereabouts, so it wasn’t the card system yet in Texas), while wearing brand new Jordans and probably $300 in Fubu/Ecko clothing. It’s hard to argue that some dude wearing probably a $400 brand new outfit has any business paying for anything with food stamps, except if he has misplaced priorities. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2013, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-poor-mentality-to-me/660558/207 "2013-06-14T18:07:23Z")
> [@Mdcastle](#): > > Maybe the poor don’t have time for “real cooking” any more than rich people do? If you get off work from your job at Burger King after working a shift at Wal-Mart chances are you aren’t going to feel up to cooking a grandiose dinner from scratch as opposed to sticking a frozen pizza in the oven. It’s also possible that they don’t have a stove or an oven, or a refrigerator for that matter. Some people CANNOT cook. I know a man who had a brain tumor removed, and the surgery left his intellect intact but he has a seizure disorder and his attention span is essentially non-existent, so he is prohibited from using a stove or oven. He can use a microwave; IDK if he could use a Crock Pot. His sister does live nearby and looks after him, so that way he doesn’t have to live on delivery pizza, KWIM? I also had a great-aunt who was mildly retarded but she was able to live independently with some assistance, and for her, “cooking” was baking a frozen pizza or heating up soup on the stove. There was no way she could follow a recipe on her own, beyond adding water to cake mix, that kind of thing. ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2013, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-poor-mentality-to-me/660558/208 "2013-06-14T18:08:56Z")
The hell are you talking about **bump**? That poster spends $30 a month on her pets. 360 is what she spends in a year. And, as anyone who is being honest about the discussion admits, the rules changed drastically in the 1996 welfare reforms, and, anecdotes from before that time have no relevance whatsoever. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2013, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-poor-mentality-to-me/660558/209 "2013-06-14T18:14:25Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > It’s one of the reasons I get pissy when people advocate that poor people live on tasteless sludge and have no entertainment or luxuries. It’s the little things that can keep you sane, like buying your favorite kiwifruit instead of bruised grapes, or having access to the internet for entertainment instead of staring as stained, cracked walls all the time, or having a pretty coat or shirt instead of a patched cast-off from Goodwill that, while functionally adequate, makes you look like a bum and has the Mysterious Stain of Unknown Origin blazoned across it or just a decent haircut so you look decently groomed. It can be the difference between paralyzing despair and having the motivation to actually keep trying, keep flinging your bruised self against the obstacles between you and a better life. Back when I was a grocery store pharmacist, I worked over the years with several people who treated the Medicaid patients poorly :mad:, even the children and senior citizens. They would do things like tell them it would be an hour, and make them wait an hour, even if it wasn’t busy, or partially fill the prescription even if we had everything they needed so they would have to make a return trip, and even one that other employees said they saw taking liquid meds into the bathroom. God knows what he did to them, and if he was ever caught, he would probably have lost his license. Last I heard, he was still working there, SEVENTEEN YEARS LATER! :eek: I did not allow that kind of behavior when I was working. As for assets, “found money”, and so forth, I know a woman who recently mentioned that she got $2.76 a week in child support. I know her ex is a good father, and I strongly suspect that the reason was because she was on TANF (she was a full time student at the time, living with her widowed mother) and this was all she could get without losing benefits. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2013, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-poor-mentality-to-me/660558/210 "2013-06-14T18:19:28Z")
> [@bump](#): > > …It’s hard to argue that some dude wearing probably a $400 brand new outfit has any business paying for anything with food stamps, except if he has misplaced priorities. The clothes might’ve been gifts or purchased before he went on Foodstamps, and that’s assuming those were his Foodstamps. He could’ve been shopping for a family member or picking something up for a neighbour. When my mother worked at an adult group home the state issued them EBT cards (all w/ the same PIN) for each residents, which was how they purchased food. Usually the shopping was done by an older, semi-retired aid. I met her; she was really nice, wore really nice clothes, and drove a Lexus. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2013, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-poor-mentality-to-me/660558/211 "2013-06-14T18:25:08Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Keeping up with the Joneses is a problem, too. As is the way things are sold. > > At one point the spouse and I were looking into buying a house (obviously, this was before I lost my lucrative job in 2007). We had a specific square footage (1,000-1,500 sq ft) and specific price range ($50-75k which was reasonably for what we wanted in our area at the time, the late 1990’s). I can not tell you how many times real estate agents told us we could and SHOULD “buy more house”, insisted on showing us homes in the $150k range and double our planned square footage, pushing, pushing, pushing in some cases to the point we simply got up and walked away. Well, that’s us, but how many people cave to that pressure, and to the pressure to own in general? (We wound up renting, which turned out to be a good option for us.) > > Likewise, cars - when we bought our Echo we were laughed at (literally in two cases), told we could and SHOULD “buy more car”, and so forth - nevermind that the Echo exactly filled our needs (and, for that matter, still does 11 years later). How many people cave to that pressure that comes not only from the dealer but also their friends and co-workers? > > It happens over and over and over - we’re told we can and we SHOULD buy more. What we should do is learn to set priorities, draw up a budget, and stick with it. The difference between the “poor” middle class who are living paycheck to paycheck on $150k a year and the poor family on Public Aid making $15k a year is that the $150k year folks are bringing in enough money monthly to smooth out the bumps. That’s it. Because they are largely making the same sort of mistakes over and over again. > > Now, good financial habits - living within your means, minimizing debt, saving at least a bit every paycheck you can - not only enable you to live VERY well at $150k a year, but if you do fall into poverty it will also improve your life there. You’ll be maximizing what resources you have. > > But, like I said, having $150k a year allows you to engage in financial idiocy long term, which you can then pass on to your offspring. I used to work with a woman who fell into that trap. She’s a pharmacist and her (now ex-) husband is a high school teacher, so yeah, they had a 150K income, and when they were both about 25 years old and childless, they bought the 300K, 5-bedroom, 4 bathroom house for just the two of them. I found this out when I saw the real estate listing before they moved (by which time they had two children). IDK if this is why they divorced (see footnote) but I bet this was a factor, not to mention that she “oopsed” him on the second child, which is a surefire way to destroy a marriage if it isn’t on the rocks already. When I moved some years ago, the lady who bought my house, a simple 2-bedroom in a middle class neighborhood, was recently divorced with a young daughter, and part of her divorce settlement was an amount of money earmarked for the down payment on a house. We ended up having the same Realtor, AND the same lawyer at closing, something nobody involved had ever seen before! And here’s why. She had fired her first Realtor because that one kept trying to show her houses way beyond her price range, and she didn’t want or need that much space even if she could have afforded it, and also fired her first lawyer, a highly recommended woman, because that lawyer kept saying things like “If you tell the judge that your husband beat you up, you can get more child support.” :mad: :eek: IDK why they divorced, but that wasn’t why, and she chose the Realtor and the lawyer out of the phone book and they both assisted in making this huge transition smoother for her (and me, too!). She ended up needing (and being able to afford) a bigger house because she remarried a few years later, to a man who had 2 kids of his own, and they later had a child together. Footnote: My co-worker claimed that her husband’s only interest was watching online pornography, and also told some of us that he was cheating on her with some of his students. He worked at the alternative school, so some of those girls probably had diseases that hadn’t been discovered yet. Anyway, if that’s true, he belonged UNDER the jail, and if it wasn’t, that’s an accusation which is as vile as accusing him of molesting the kids when there’s no evidence that he did so. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2013, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-poor-mentality-to-me/660558/212 "2013-06-14T18:29:50Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Yes, I am, however what you said was > > (Emphasis added). The wording implies that while it is not guaranteed it’s much more likely you’ll have a good outcome than if you don’t take those steps. Also, what **miss elizabeth** said in posts #76 and #79. Again, while that might have been true a couple decades ago the Great Recession changed the equation. There are a LOT of long-term unemployed who are college-educated, stably married, and so forth but simply can not find anything above rock-bottom wages right now. When I lost my job in 2010 (and trust me, they did me a bigger favor than I could ever have imagined), I couldn’t get a job with rock-bottom wages either. The instant they discovered what my degree was in, I was invariably told that the interview was over and that they would appreciate it if I did not come back. Several people with whom I’m still in touch via Facebook have also had similar difficulty finding work, although they don’t have that degree and they believe that the issue is where they worked and that employers in the region are under orders not to hire anyone who worked at that hospital, regardless of what kind of job they’re applying for or why they left. I consider myself retired, because I don’t want to work as a pharmacist any more, and now have a home-based business because the job hunt has been absolutely fruitless. I didn’t even get called for interviews at Christmastime, although that’s understandable because 1) some of these places got 500 applications for every opening and 2) why would anyone hire me, when there are so many people with full-sleeve tattoos, multiple piercings, etc. who need jobs, KWIM? ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2013, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-poor-mentality-to-me/660558/213 "2013-06-14T18:34:12Z")
> [@bump](#): > > That’s all fine and dandy, but my point was that “food deserts” are largely a concept generated to take responsibility away from the people who live near them, IMO. > > It’s a lot easier and politically correct to say “But they live in a food desert!” than to say “They choose not to eat produce and healthy food.” If there was a market for it, someone would serve it, ergo there’s not a market for it, and blaming the “food desert” is deflecting the issue. Regarding “food deserts”: I have read about entrepreneurs who tried to open full-service grocery stores in low-income areas that lacked them, and the whole experiment failed almost immediately for numerous reasons. The main ones were that they couldn’t get people to work at them even though these stores were located in neighborhoods with unemployment approaching 100%, and there was so much shoplifting and vandalism, the stores COULD NOT stay open anyway. ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2013, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-poor-mentality-to-me/660558/214 "2013-06-14T18:41:34Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > Why is it that people that are perpetually broke have a broke-person mentality. The problem is that there is always an excuse, always. Look through posts by **Broomstick** and \*\*miss elizabeth \*\* and you’ll notice they find a way to excuse or justify anything someone suggests might cause poverty. I once asked why people in poverty spend such a high percentage of their income on things like alcohol, tobacco, and lottery tickets and was told things like: “Alcohol helps numb the pain, being poor is painful, alcohol helps.” “For some people the lottery is their 401K” “Tobacco helps with hunger…” A person making $8 an hour can easily consume $8 worth of beer, causing a shitty night’s sleep, making them hungover the next day, which causes poor performance and work, which keeps them making $8 an hour. That sucks so they drink another case of beer. Which is loaded with calories making them overweight, leading to a bunch of health problems and poor self esteem, which makes them sad, so they drink another case of beer. It doesn’t matter what you suggest, there are people who will find an excuse. Now imagine you’re living in poverty, and surrounded by people helping you find excuses. Someone in this thread said they were a professional cook, but then claimed they didn’t know how to store cheese. I once pointed out that I put 3M plastic sheets over my windows in the winter to cut heating costs and the response was, “Emack thinks poor people should live in the dark.” Seriously, that’s the kind of shit people come up with to justify their behaviour. Look at the comments about eating rice. Some how a billion people in India, and another billion in China, all manage to eat rice that doesn’t taste like shit, even if they’re cooking it on the side of the road using actually shit as fuel. There are people living in actual deserts that eat better than Americans living in so called food deserts. Any criticism is met with such brutal resistance, because it would mean accepting some of the responsibility. You don’t have to accept ALL of the responsibility, but in a black and white world it means accepting NONE of the responsibility. There is always an excuse. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Lowry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@Sam\_Lowry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Lowry)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2013, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-poor-mentality-to-me/660558/215 "2013-06-14T18:41:41Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Back when I was a grocery store pharmacist, I worked over the years with several people who treated the Medicaid patients poorly :mad:, even the children and senior citizens. They would do things like tell them it would be an hour, and make them wait an hour, even if it wasn’t busy, or partially fill the prescription even if we had everything they needed so they would have to make a return trip, and even one that other employees said they saw taking liquid meds into the bathroom. God knows what he did to them, and if he was ever caught, he would probably have lost his license. Last I heard, he was still working there, SEVENTEEN YEARS LATER! :eek: > > I did not allow that kind of behavior when I was working. Wow, that’s terrible. I wonder if it was done out of disdain for the poor, or just the desire to abuse customers, and they thought they’d be more likely to get away with abusing poor customers. Although for whichever reason it was done, it’s terrible. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2013, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-poor-mentality-to-me/660558/216 "2013-06-14T18:44:30Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > People of lower than average intelligence – especially those who are poor and have poor, uneducated, not very smart parents – have a harder time sorting out sales pitches from good advice. I’ve been told by people who work with the MR/DD population that the biggest challenge with the ones who can live independently is not things like whether they’re eating properly or getting to work on time, but keeping them away from people who want to exploit them financially. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2013, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-poor-mentality-to-me/660558/217 "2013-06-14T18:49:02Z")
> [@Rushgeekgirl](#): > > I’m here to tell you we do exist. We do make sure we pay our bills on time every month and we go without extras most of the time because I was taught, however poor we are, that bills come first.\*\* My only extra expense is the pets but if it came to the point only one of us could eat my family would come first.\*\* I read this as you would eat your family first before you eat the pets. Or you would let your family eat the pets first. I’m going to stick to one of those interpretations no matter what you say 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2013, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-poor-mentality-to-me/660558/218 "2013-06-14T18:52:01Z")
On a more serious note, poverty as a cycle is usually defined as being stuck in a bad series of decisions. The best example I saw was where people would spend $40 a night in a shitty hotel, because that’s all they made at their temp job. If they didn’t get work they slept on the street or shelter. But $40 a night is $1200 a month! Way more than anyone should spend, and they were making enough that they didn’t need to. The problem is that to get something like a long term stay at a hotel would only be $30 a night, but has to be paid upfront. If you’re broke, you’ll never had the $210 required, but if you did you could save $300 a month! Renting an apartment, might only be $600 ($20 a night) but requires having first and last, so if you don’t have $210 it’s unlikely you’ll ever have $1200. If you could, you’d save $600 a month! Lastly, if you were to buy a place, your mortgage might only be $500 a month, but that means having a 20% down payment which is next to impossible for most people. But doing so would mean you’d save $700 a month. I worked with a charity that set out to break the above cycle, by getting people into subsidized rental units. The catch was that they had to sit through 8 sessions where they were told quite bluntly that there are no excuses, and also taught things like “how to be a good tenant so you don’t get kicked out.” Now a person making very little is given the opportunity to plan and save. After a few years, they have enough for a down payment on a small house. This means they have even more money to save, allowing for even better choices. If the person in the above example managed to save a bit to get the short term hotel, it would only take a couple of months to save enough for an apartment, and then only a couple of years to save for a down payment. The above scenario is completely independent of income. I know people making $100k a year that are in poverty, buried in debt, barely getting by. And it’s the same process. They never have savings, so they lease their BMW. They didn’t have enough for a down payment, so they have mortgage insurance and a higher interest rate. And if there is even the slightest hiccup (like the yearly bonus being lower) they are totally fucked. But for them, living cheap for a couple of years wasn’t an option. They found a way to justify every one of their expenses. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2013, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-poor-mentality-to-me/660558/219 "2013-06-14T18:53:07Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > The “poor” people I know – the ones who \*never \*have money for necessities like rent, children’s lunches, and vehicle insurance – smoke, drink, have tattoos, video game consoles, pets, and the latest smartphones. They can’t afford to go to the dentist once a year, but they can afford marijuana and whiskey, and monthly trips to the salon. Definitely misplaced priorities. It’s a mentality that can’t be fixed. Interesting that you mention the dentist, because most dentists in my area don’t take Medicaid. They were asked why, and several of them went on the record to say that when they do show up, they are often abusive to the staff (and a couple of them had had to call the police on these clients), and their children are totally out of control. As for the no-call no-show thing, one of them also said that they may not be able to take their kids to the dentist, but they always have the means to go to an amusement park that is 3 hours away and costs $30 a person to get into. :smack: I was horrified to discover that Missouri Medicaid only covers dental care for adults if they are blind, pregnant, or institutionalized (which includes nursing homes). ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2013, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-poor-mentality-to-me/660558/220 "2013-06-14T19:00:20Z")
I think what we are seeing here is that there are two groups of poor people. 1. The group I’m NOT discussing in the OP are those that have low income and they scrimp and save every penny they can. There have been a lot of strawmen and accusations of “picking on poor people” because some of you in the thread think I am critisizing them. I’m not. 2. The group I want to discuss are those that never have a penny and yet spend far more than they need to. It’s the people that go out and have a $500/month car payment because they “had to have” a truck rather than a servicable car tht maybe costs $200/month. It’s the person receiving welfare to feed their kids that go out and get another mouth to feed (usually a dog). It’s about people that live with family because they can’t afford market rates for rent (let alone save for a deposit) yet run up over $100 on prepaid cell bills. We’re talking about people that can’t afford shoes for their kids but can spend lavishly on hosted parties. So if you want to talk about how y’all pay bare minimum to get by because that’s all you can afford that’s fine but that’s not what this thread was about. It’s about people who refuse to not be poor by making some simple life changes that could result in saving up to hundreds of dollars a month in expenses but changing priorities. Let me put it another way. You’re poor and you get an extra $100 per month. What do you spend it on? If your answer is food, some decent clothes for the kids and/or getting a more reliable car (because the one you have is falling apart) and are thankful that you are $100/mo closer to not being broke then this thread is not about you. If your answer is buy a new pet, get a better car even though yours works fine or treat yourself to one (or two) really fancy dinners out and still complain you’re broke when begging $20 off your friend for gas money to get to work, then this thread is all about you. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-poor-mentality-to-me/660558.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-poor-mentality-to-me/660558.md?page=12)