I have only had one brand new car in my life, we normally buy used. My current is a 2006 Jetta I ought when it was fresh off lease, and it still looks almost new because we maintain it. mrAru’s is a mom van we bought at a car auction, also a 2006 though it looks much less new because it was used as a mom van by someone who had kids and drove the hell out of it. [though he drives my jetta because it gets 43 MPG and he drives 75 miles each way to work, I drive the mom van because I need to get chicken feed and bales of hay, and do not do anywhere near the miles each week he does. ]
Back when we were house hunting, we budgeted for $90-95K even though the first realty bunch kept trying to get us to move into the $150K + region. Our second realty person found us a lovely farm for $91K. We don’t have any credit cards other than the Navy’s “Star” card which used to be the revolving charge account the Navy Exchange had. At some point they turned it into a charge card of some sort. We use it to get large ticket items like the freezer we just had to replace because it finally died after almost 20 years. Normally, if we do not have the actual money in the bank for something, we do not get whatever. Currently, the only thing we owe money on is the house, we paid off the freezer already.
And mrAru joined the Navy in 1984 and stayed until retirement, and found a job as soon as he retired, and has not been unemployed for more than a total of 6 months in the past 10 years between jobs. The longest was the 3 months we took last spring for the round trip to California and back to visit family he had not seen in a decade.
I can’t afford to feed my kid but I bought/got a pet that will cost me money.
I won’t apply for a job that pays better because [fill in excuse]
And some issues that have been raised are perfectly valid but it’s not the issue I raised. For example, I raised the point that poor people seem to do parties out at expensive places. Someone countered with what if they don’t have a large enough place to do it. I know it is hard, especially being a single parent, to go back to school The people I am discussing are the people that DO HAVE opportunities and don’t take advantage of it. For example, why would my SIL that is living with us in a large house with a back living room and backyard need to spend money she doesn’t have to go to a putt-putt place where the pizza and cake and drinks were at least 3X what she could have bought them for (and gas money which she asked me for so she could get there). She had so little money she made the invitees (technically their parents) pay for their own kids to go bowling and mini-golf. What was wrong with a party at the house?
It seems to me that the subset of the population that is being discussed in the thread are the working poor that are doing their best and just can’t get caught up. But they scrimp and save what little they can and want to work their way out of the hole. But what I want to know about are the people that given chances to better their lives just want to stay in the same rut or make things worse by spending money they don’t have on non-necessities. Why does someone that can’t feed their kid buy a Gran Pyranees dog? Why does someone that complains about their minimum wage + $0.50 job refuse to even apply somewhere that they are qualified for? Why does someone who already can’t afford rent buy a huge truck for $500/month when a smaller (and cheaper) car will do? Is it just a refusal to not be poor?
My cite does not say the opposite of what I said it does. I said three quarters of poor households do not have a full-time year-round worker. My cite showed that 74% of poor households do not have a full-time year-round worker.
No, that is untrue.
Yes, it is. I am correct; you are not.
[QUOTE=Broomstick]
Funny - I have
Graduated not only from high school but college as well (4 year degree)
Been married 25 years
Do not have kids
Yet after 2007 I could get a job for years (was often told I was “too old to hire and too young to retire”). I was freakin POOR. I am just now creeping out of the whole, here in 2013 or six years later and we’re still at the poverty line.
[/QUOTE]
I’m sorry to hear that. Are you aware that the phrase “the chances are” is not synonymous with “you are guaranteed”?
Section 2 of the report discusses it (entitled The working poor lack full-year employment) but it doesn’t support the conclusions he draws from it.
eta: it’s actually a great report with a lot of good information on the topic. Everyone should at least skim the cite, if you’re interested in the topic.
If I could change anything about the American school system, I would want a home economics course to be a requirement for everyone. It would include some lessons about how to cook healthy meals and stuff like that, but there would be a heavy emphasis on personal finance. It wouldn’t solve everything, but I think it’d help.
Well, think of all the requirements you need to cool healthy meals:
[ul]
[li]A way to get to the store. I understand that you see poor people at your Kroger and Wal-Mart. But are they able to go there often enough to get fresh produce? Or are they only able to get there once every three weeks, so they need to stock up on stuff that will last for that long. If you have to rely on the bus, or a ride from someone, or just have an erratic schedule, it can be difficult to go to the grocery store regularly.[/li][li]A place to store and cook the food. Some people, like **Foggy **upthread, don’t have full size fridges, or stoves or ovens to cook the food. Or maybe they have a fridge and an oven, but they don’t work well, and they are unable to get them fixed or replaced.[/li][li]Tools to prepare the meal. Even a basic meal would require at least a knife or spoon when preparing, and a pot or pan or something for when cooking. You can buy cheap ones, but they might not last, and replacements would have to be bought. [/li][li]Knowledge of how to cook healthy meals. This is a significant one. A lot of people don’t know how to cook, including people from the working class, the middle class, and the upper class. I didn’t know how to cook very well when I started living on my own. But if I ever tried a new recipe and screwed it up terribly, I could afford to throw the ruined recipe away. If you tried cooking once and had to choke down the terribly burnt chicken because otherwise you wouldn’t have anything to eat, I can see how you wouldn’t be eager to try cooking again in the future.[/li][li]Time and energy to cook the meals. It can be hard for anyone to find the time to cook, I certainly don’t always have the time to do it. But I probably have more energy to do it after I’ve been sitting at my desk at work all day, as compared to the woman working at McDonald’s who has been on her feet all day. [/li][/ul]
There’s probably some things I’m forgetting too. It’s true it’s not the hardest thing in the world to cook healthy meals for yourself and your family, but it’s also not the easiest thing.
I did some church work in a poor area of Mississippi, and a local preacher said:
"Being poor isn’t just not having money.
It’s not having options."
I’ve noticed people who have enough income (and by third world standards would be rich), playing the “‘Woe Is Me’ Card” and assuming they don’t have options… I guess that means fewer decisions that way. With one couple we know, it ties in with their clinical depression.
Also, to follow up my previous post, just because you see non-poor people buying healthier items at the grocery store, it doesn’t mean they are making better decisions. A significant amount of food is wasted in the U.S. People buy meat and produce and never get around to cooking it and throw it away. Whether it was poor planning, or they ate out more often than they expected, or just didn’t feel like eating the vegetables they had bought. Middle class and upper class people can afford to buy healthy food and throw it away. Poor people can’t afford to do that, so they’ll just buy the less healthy food that they know they’ll definitely eat.
Scheduling can be an issue. Customer service workers usually get their weekly schedule at the last minute, work odd and varied shifts through the week, and are expected to deal with last minute shift changes. It can make a lot more sense for me to spend $5.00 on a meal I know won’t spoil, than $3.00 on fresh stuff that has a 50% chance of spoiling before I eat it.
Another factor is staples. When you don’t cook often, you don’t build up a pantry of things like spices, flour, baking powder and oil. I don’t think about how much it costs me to make a marinade because I have all those things handy. But if you are throwing oil, vinegar, a tub of salt, some Italian herb mix, and a bottle of mustard into your cart all at one, its going to be a pretty big sticker shock for what seems like one tiny part of a supposedly cheap meal.
Yeah, that’s who the OP was talking about, I think. My husband works in construction; we have front row seats to see this in action, too - construction workers who make very good wages who cannot get ahead. They smoke, they drink, they pay money to ex-wives and to child support, they all drive huge trucks, and they never, ever get ahead.
I think another problem is an all-or-nothing attitude - if you can’t make a big dent in a debt, just don’t bother, instead of whittling it away bit by bit.
Those are fairly common here, too, and they are flat-out usury. Another thing that high-earning poor" like is things like home equity loans - take out a loan for $15,000 with your house as collateral, then lose your $200,000 house over a $15,000 loan.
I’ve heard that list before, too. I agree that it isn’t a sure-fire guarantee, but it works a hell of a lot better than job-hopping and marriage-hopping and multiple kids that you aren’t or can’t support.
At ten years into our marriage, and both of us in our 40’s, we bought our first brand-new couch last year. Before that we had done very nicely with second-hand furniture from other people. I don’t understand people like your in-laws, either - sometimes you need to spend a little money and get something that will last a long time, but you don’t have to buy things just because tv or your friends say you have to.
I think so too. I was recently working with a 26 year old who didn’t have a clue about anything to do with personal finance - she was an eager learner, and I made the effort to teach her some basics, but there is no reason kids can’t be taught realistic lessons about how not to be poor all your life in school.
I kind of like that quote except that I don’t buy the premise that people have no options. (I think we’re in agreement on that.)
For example, there’s been lots of talk about the poor feeling obligated to help family members. I think you stop being poor and start becoming rich as soon as you can say “I chose to forego (x) because I chose to place a higher priority on helping my family member. Therefore, my current situation is a result of my choices.”
The ownership of your own decisions is an incredibly powerful mindset.
I think it takes a lot more to becoming rich than just saying that. Even as the first step. And I think a lot of people realize that they are sacrificing buying their kids new clothes for today to help out the parents fix the car or whatever. It’s a conscious decision that they make, because they realize that when they have an emergency and need help, their parents or other family members will help them.
It’s not that all poor people have no options, it’s that they have very few compared to others.
The thing with helping family members is that it is a whole system. You may not ever see that money again in cash, but you will probably see it in child care, help with household repairs, hand me downs, and other informal services.
That $100.00 you see someone “wasting” to bail out a friend? That may add up to a month of having someone watching your kid after work- a huge net savings over paying a babysitter $10.00 an hour.
And again, middle class people do it too, with slightly different capital. We pick up the check at dinner, invite people to stay in our guest room or use our cabin, lend our lawn mowers and the like in exchange for job leads, legal or professional advice, etc.
Do you have anything like https://www.wonga.com/ in the US? If you look at the site you will see that they are currently charging Representative APR 4214%
I’m not saying that helping out family is a bad decision. Heck, it might be the best decision they could possibly make from both a logical and emotional standpoint. But you have to be honest with yourself after you do these things. Everything you do is a choice, and every choice has consequences. There’s no “have to” in life. As long as you perceive your situation as being out of your control, you’ll be unable to change the situation.
I just finished reading a good book about why social inequality is so damaging. One thing the authors talk about is how relative poverty affects people’s low self-esteem.
You can be picky with your status symbols when you have some money and status. This was clearly evident when I was a teenager. When I was in high school, it was the middle-class kids who wore thrift store clothes and raggedy tennis shoes. I was one of them. The poor kids were the ones who wore pressed, spotless name-brand clothes and got pissed if someone stole or sullied their stuff. But the middle class kids weren’t virtuous penny-savers. We flashed our status in other ways. Li ke in hand-me-down Volvos, violin lessons, and “good” zip codes. We weren’t flashy like the poor kids, true. But that’s because our self-esteem didn’t need to “flash”.
My couches are tore up, I don’t own my home, and all of my clothes are second-hand and Target. But I have a good middle-class job where I have some prestige. I have a nice car. I take vacations and have sinfully leisurely weekends, replete with bougey activities like yoga and hiking and ceramics classes. I have multiple degrees and a title. I’ve got plenty of insecurities, mind you, but I ain’t sweating my social class. I’m feeling alright in this department.
If I wasn’t feeling alright, though, I could definitely see myself buying big TVs and fancy trucks. Not just to provide comfort, but also so I can show everyone I ain’t no dirt poor, no-account nobody.
I used to not understand this, and I used to sit around shaking my head at all the clueless people I’d see. I still don’t understand a lot. But I guess I’m starting to see things in a different way.
That is interesting. My husband and I aren’t too concerned with how our status looks to others from status symbol things (and there is more playing into that, too - we’re both consciously trying to avoid being rampant consumers, and I come from a Mennonite background where conspicuous consumption was not a Good Thing), but I can see how that could play into these decisions.
Getting back to how people can work (and work hard!) and never get ahead, I think a lot of it comes down to poor decision-making skills. Classes in schools could make a huge difference in that - learning different options from people other than your parents and family and friends.
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.
Total time from the moment put the water on to boil to the moment everything was plated? 40 minutes.
Oh, and I used probably 25 individual dishes and utensils in the prep. Rinsing everything off and throwing it in the dishwasher probably took another 15 minutes. Call it a half hour if I were washing and drying everything by hand.
I work a desk job that, while it can be intellectually challenging, really doesn’t take anything out of me physically. Mrs. Rabbit and I don’t have any kids running around under foot, either. And I like to cook; meaning that I find the mostly mindless physical activity of the whole endeavor to be a nice break from the more cerebral shit I do for the rest of the day, the same way I like mowing the lawn or chopping wood once in awhile.
If none of the above were true, and I was humping banquet tables around a hotel or bussing tables for eight bucks an hour the way I used to do, not to mention having a couple of kids howling for my attention when I got home from the grind, I can totally understand how a couple of cans of Spaghetti-O’s and a box of texas toast would be a perfectly reasonable option for a family dinner. Let alone the temptation to just pick up a Crave Case on the way home.
I keep a grocery database in Access because 1) I am a nerd and 2) we were poor for a really long time and these habits die hard. So I know what things cost. At the local grocery stores here in Columbus, Ohio, assuming you bought the least-expensive versions of the items you mentioned at the least-expensive grocery stores, you’d have run up:
Linguini: 1
Garlic: .50
Kraft parmesan (Kraft is more expensive than generic-brand, but you said Kraft): $3.50
Bag of spring mix greens: $2
Cherry tomatoes: $1
Feta cheese: $4
Red wine vinaigrette: $2 (for the bottle)
Store-bought baguette: $2.50
Butter: $2.50 (for the pound)
I’ll be generous and leave out the olive oil and red pepper; while they are expensive items, the cost per-meal is usually pretty small. (Though that doesn’t help with the grocery bill on the day you actually have to buy them, which is why until a few years ago, we rarely bought olive oil.)
A lot closer to $20 than $10. If you eat like that every single night, that’s $140 per week for a family of two. After my husband lost his job in 2003, I fed a family of three on $50/week.
You think that the meal you just described is inexpensive. It isn’t. Quick, I will give you: Assuming you have the cooking know-how to be able to throw together a quick and tasty pasta dish. But two Swanson’s pot pies from the freezer section cost 1/10 of what you made, and will feed the same number of people. Also, apart from the cheese, your meal is lacking a protein source.
I know I keep nitpicking people’s supposedly cheap and/or quick and/or healthy recipes in here, but my experience, borne out by this thread, is that most people have no real conception of what it means to cook a genuinely healthy and inexpensive meal, every single night, when you are on an extremely tight budget. It requires planning. It requires cooking know-how. It often requires a freezer. And nothing about it involves “throwing something together” or buying pretty much anything from the bakery section of the grocery store. (Not to mention feta cheese! What are you people, the Waltons? )
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