# Financial disacuity **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 22, 2014, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949 "2014-12-22T20:10:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2014, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/121 "2014-12-26T04:20:57Z")
> [@chiroptera](#): > > I don’t think you are getting my point. > > I live in a region where move-in ready homes in OK neighborhoods can be had for about $3,000 or less. Properties in crap 'hoods, or which need a lot of work, for under $500. Property taxes between $300-400 per year. > > Are these properties investments? No, of course not. Are they a crap-ton cheaper than renting at $400-500 per month? Absolutely yes, if you have some basic survival/fix-it skills, and/or have friends who do. And obviously, if you don’t mind living in a place like Flint, MI. Which isn’t actually that bad. Well, I see a shared room on Craig’s List in Flint for $80. And $80 doesn’t buy you a heck of a lot at Home Depot. I would be surprised if you could maintain a home for less than that. Again, I understand you would rather live in a real house than a shared room. That’s fine. But it’s not different than Bill McPoverty preferring to eat a hamburger rather than a crock pot full of potatoes. Basically everyone spends money they don’t technically have to on things they think make their life better. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2014, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/122 "2014-12-26T05:19:47Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > I don’t think anyone is getting my point- the benefits and drawbacks of owning or renting a similar abode are what they are, and for most people come out better on the “own” side _assuming you want to live in a normal dwelling_. That’s not the debate. > > Neither buying nor renting a normal home objectively beats the financial return on living in a a dirt-cheap, minimal living space. 150 square feet seems to be the standard minimum. However you arrange it, that’s going to be cheaper than any kind of normal situation. With the leftover money, you could make all kinds of good investments- including in real estate if that’s your thing. Living smaller is cheaper. > > But of course, people don’t want to do that. People want to own a real home. Which is fine. But that doesn’t give you a lot of room to say you are so much better or smarter than the guy springing $5.99 for the extra value meal. You are still spending a ton of money on stuff that isn’t strictly necessary. You just don’t think of it that way. I totally agree with this. I’m at the age and income level where everyone expects me to be a homeowner, but I don’t wanna. And not all of my reasons are financial. For one thing, I really like where I live. Why would I uproot myself from a neighborhood I love to go to a neighborhood I feel “meh” about? “Meh” is about all I can afford on my salary. I’m a single woman approaching middle-age. “Meh” isn’t up my alley anymore. I want to _love_ where I live. I can afford something decent in a suburb somewhere, but I’m not a suburban type of person. I’m the type of person who doesn’t want to drive unless she absolutely has to. Nor am I the type of person who wants to fix 'er up or do renovations every ten years or worry about property values. Real estate is an investment, but it’s not the ONLY investment. There a whole lot easier ways to invest that don’t involve the headaches one experiences with homeownership. So yeah, I’m tired of homeownership being equated with responsibility. All the people I know who are in out-of-control debt are homeowners with too much house. Prosperity isn’t what you own. It’s how easy you can sleep at night. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2014, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/123 "2014-12-26T05:37:51Z")
> [@grude](#): > > The most mind boggling example of this I have ever seen was in my mom(who was legitimately mentally ill) but at least seemed to grasp basic logic in other facets of her life. > > My mother REFUSED to pay $10 extra for an unlimited cell plan, yet every single month she was getting hit with $200-$600 in overage charges for going over her minutes. It stunned me and my sister, my sister would actually call in to Sprint pretending to be my mom and move her to the unlimited plan. Then my mom would a month or two later call in and get it changed back to a plan with 100 minutes that was $10 cheaper, BUT if you went over the minutes you were charged an almost criminal fee for every minute(this should be illegal). > > I once called her and spent hour after frustrating hour trying to explain it to her, I said mom the unlimited plan would save you hundreds every month. > > Her:No I’m not going to pay $10 extra, I don’t have that kind of money! > > Me:Mom you’re paying an average of $400 a month now to save that $10! > > Her:Well sorry but I don’t have the $10 dollars to waste, you’re not giving me any money! > > Me:You are wasting hundreds to save ten, listen mom I will give you the ten dollars if you switch to unlimited, I’ll make the switch for you online. > > Her:Why should I give an extra ten dollars if I don’t have to?! I refuse to do it. > > :smack:And around and around and around. > > I started HATING a lot of companies and the social services for facilitating this exploitation of the stupid or mentally ill. This reminds me of people who habitually write rubber checks, because they don’t understand that you have to have money in the bank to back them up. I used to work with a woman who, along with her now ex-husband, bought a house when they got married. Nothing wrong with that in itself, but she’s a pharmacist and he was (and apparently still is) a high school teacher, with a combined income of about $150,000, and they took the “get a mortgage no more than twice your income” advice a bit too literally. You guessed it - at age 25 or so, with no kids, they bought a 5BR 6BA McMansion. :eek: They later had two kids (I’m pretty sure she oopsed him on the second one, too) and to nobody’s surprised got divorced a few years ago. You can’t tell me that the financial and other problems caused by that house weren’t a factor. Back when I worked with her, she was telling people at work that she believed her husband was cheating on her with some of his students. If that’s true, he belonged in jail, and if it wasn’t true, it was a sure sign that the marriage wasn’t worth salvaging because it’s an accusation as vile as accusing him of messing around with the kids when there’s no evidence that he is. :mad: ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2014, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/124 "2014-12-26T05:54:06Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > I think this is the big thing. If you’ve never learned to cook, and have all of these ready-made options which don’t cost that much, then why not buy those? > > back before the Food Network went to all competition/reality shows, people used to love to ridicule Sandra Lee’s _Semi-Homemade Cooking._ Especially insufferable snobs and assholes like Anthony Bourdain, who were too stupid to realize that the people she was preaching to couldn’t even do the 70% packaged/30% fresh stuff she was making. They totally missed the point of her show because they were too busy being smug. Well that and a lot of the stuff she makes is disgusting. Kwanzaa cake, anyone? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2014, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/125 "2014-12-26T14:09:09Z")
> [@grude](#): > > You probably knew for a certainty or at least had hope you would be in a better position financially in the future and could eat better. If you knew for a certainty that wouldn’t be true, or had no hope of that, I imagine eating beans and rice every day would become a little more soul crushing. The idea that in the US most poor people stay poor their whole lives is also wrong. And the ability to defer gratification is a large part of what controls if you stay poor, or move up into the working or middle class (or higher). > [@](#): > > And you can’t tell me a(at the time) 70cent bean burrito from Taco Bell was more expensive when you factor in the cost of buying the supplies and possibly cookware/crockpot/fridge/oven and cost of electricity/gas and time/convenience and labor/cleanup etc. Yes, it was more expensive. Because you are paying for all those costs for Taco Bell just as surely as if you did it yourself. That’s the point. > [@](#): > > If you own your own home and have a kitchen and all the cookware and have time , sure fast food is often a bad deal. If you’re living in a one room flophouse with not even a hotplate to your name cheap dollar menu stuff is the better deal, at least for the time being. The idea that most poor people in the US do not have access to a kitchen is also wrong. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2014, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/126 "2014-12-26T15:19:20Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > The idea that in the US most poor people stay poor their whole lives is also wrong. > > And the ability to defer gratification is a large part of what controls if you stay poor, or move up into the working or middle class (or higher). Seems to me the guy who wrote the Cracked article _grew up poor_ in a family of entrenched poverty. He wasn’t speaking of the family that falls on hard times for a year or two then recovers, he was talking about multi-generational poverty and some of the bad “poverty culture” things attached to it that are partly a result of perverse incentives in the system and partly why some people do stay impoverished. > [@](#): > > The idea that most poor people in the US do not have access to a kitchen is also wrong. The idea that there are no poor people without access to kitchens is also wrong. There are different levels of poverty and “no kitchen” is one of them. Even if you do have access to a kitchen you need to know how to use it - and if you don’t learn that growing up when will you? Some folks will pick it up at some point but I know far too many people who simply do not know how to cook beyond sticking something in a microwave and randomly hitting buttons until the food warms up. Such people are engaged in a practice that contributes to financial issues. If you have a six figure income that’s not a big deal, you can afford to eat out for every meal if you want to spend your money that way (when I met my spouse that was indeed his situation, though I will point out that he did know how to do basic cooking he simply chose not to and was making sufficient money that paying someone else to cook for him wasn’t a problem). If you’re at the poverty line, though, that may be a luxury you should do without most of the time. Basic cooking skills is something that _should_ be taught but apparently aren’t. Schools used to require “home ec”, but I assume that’s been cut along with wood shop and band and art. Shame, really. Learning to cook is how I learned some of my basic math and how to manipulate fractions, gosh darn, math has a _use?_ In my day the school had us making jello and no-cook pudding in the first grade, these days I run into people who can’t seem to do something so simple as that. ---
**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:** [December 26, 2014, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/127 "2014-12-26T16:23:32Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > I know far too many people who simply do not know how to cook beyond sticking something in a microwave and randomly hitting buttons until the food warms up. That’s all I can do. Yet I eat very healthily for not much money. Five days out of the week I eat [steamed vegetables](http://eatsmart.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/broccoli-carrots.png) and [roasted chicken](http://www.tyson.com/Products/Grilled-And-Ready-Fully-Cooked-Frozen-Oven-Roasted-Diced-Chicken-Breast.aspx) for dinner. I put each in the microwave for 3.5 minutes, and then throw them in the same bowl. It’s extremely nutritious, simple, fast, and cheap. But… if you show this to a poor person, chances are they’ll say, “that’s interesting,” and then gorge themselves with fat-laden foods. You can provide them nutritious food for _free_, and educate them on the health benefits for hours on end. But they’ll still reject it. ---
**Author:** ![chiroptera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@chiroptera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chiroptera)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2014, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/128 "2014-12-26T16:55:35Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > That’s all I can do. Yet I eat very healthily for not much money. > > Five days out of the week I eat [steamed vegetables](http://eatsmart.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/broccoli-carrots.png) and [roasted chicken](http://www.tyson.com/Products/Grilled-And-Ready-Fully-Cooked-Frozen-Oven-Roasted-Diced-Chicken-Breast.aspx) for dinner. I put each in the microwave for 3.5 minutes, and then throw them in the same bowl. It’s extremely nutritious, simple, fast, and cheap. > > But… if you show this to a poor person, chances are they’ll say, “that’s interesting,” and then gorge themselves with fat-laden foods. You can provide them nutritious food for _free_, and educate them on the health benefits for hours on end. But they’ll still reject it. Several years ago someone in my (very poor) neighborhood got a grant to plant vegetable gardens in empty lots and hire kids to work them. The vegetables were free to whoever wanted them. The project was abandoned after two years for lack of interest. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2014, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/129 "2014-12-26T16:57:20Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > The idea that there are no poor people without access to kitchens is also wrong. There are different levels of poverty and “no kitchen” is one of them. [97.7% of poor households in the US have a stove and a refrigerator](http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/07/what-is-poverty). So, the overwhelmingly huge majority of the time, the idea that the poor waste their money on fast food because they don’t have a kitchen is wrong. Regards, Shodan ---
**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:** [December 26, 2014, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/130 "2014-12-26T17:05:29Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > [97.7% of poor households in the US have a stove and a refrigerator](http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/07/what-is-poverty). So, the overwhelmingly huge majority of the time, the idea that the poor waste their money on fast food because they don’t have a kitchen is wrong. > > Regards, > Shodan Apologists are good at dreaming up all kinds of creative excuses as to why poor people are fat/obese. They claim healthy food is “too expensive.” They claim they don’t have “access” to healthy food. They claim they’re “ignorant.” They claim they don’t have stoves and microwaves. The simple truth is that most poor people _ **like** _ to gorge themselves with fat-laden, high-calorie foods. No amount of “education” will change this. Given a choice between healthy food that’s free, and garbage/processed foods they have to pay for, the vast majority will choose the latter. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2014, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/131 "2014-12-26T17:20:12Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > The simple truth is that most poor people _ **like** _ to gorge themselves with fat-laden, high-calorie foods. No amount of “education” will change this. I’m wondering what the significance of “poor” can be in this assertion. Is this true only of poor people? How could that be? ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2014, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/132 "2014-12-26T17:20:23Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Seems to me the guy who wrote the Cracked article _grew up poor_ in a family of entrenched poverty. He wasn’t speaking of the family that falls on hard times for a year or two then recovers, he was talking about multi-generational poverty and some of the bad “poverty culture” things attached to it that are partly a result of perverse incentives in the system and partly why some people do stay impoverished. > The idea that there are no poor people without access to kitchens is also wrong. There are different levels of poverty and “no kitchen” is one of them. > > Even if you do have access to a kitchen you need to know how to use it - and if you don’t learn that growing up when will you? Some folks will pick it up at some point but I know far too many people who simply do not know how to cook beyond sticking something in a microwave and randomly hitting buttons until the food warms up. Such people are engaged in a practice that contributes to financial issues. If you have a six figure income that’s not a big deal, you can afford to eat out for every meal if you want to spend your money that way (when I met my spouse that was indeed his situation, though I will point out that he did know how to do basic cooking he simply chose not to and was making sufficient money that paying someone else to cook for him wasn’t a problem). If you’re at the poverty line, though, that may be a luxury you should do without most of the time. > > Basic cooking skills is something that _should_ be taught but apparently aren’t. Schools used to require “home ec”, but I assume that’s been cut along with wood shop and band and art. Shame, really. Learning to cook is how I learned some of my basic math and how to manipulate fractions, gosh darn, math has a _use?_ In my day the school had us making jello and no-cook pudding in the first grade, these days I run into people who can’t seem to do something so simple as that. Here home ec (and shop) are state requirements in middle school - unless your school fits under some exception (charter schools and very small schools don’t have to), yet the issue persists. People who want to learn how to eat nutritiously and cheaply do - people who do not like to make excuses. I’ve heard friends make the same argument being made here - people who I KNOW took the same home ec courses I did. And yeah, lack of a kitchen really puts a cramp in things - as everyone who has done hotpot cooking in a dorm room knows - but as everyone who has done hotpot cooking in a dorm room knows (or anyone who has used a crockpot, or gone on a hiking trip), lack of kitchen does not prevent you from cooking. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2014, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/133 "2014-12-26T17:27:37Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > Apologists are good at dreaming up all kinds of creative excuses as to why poor people are fat/obese. They claim healthy food is “too expensive.” They claim they don’t have “access” to healthy food. They claim they’re “ignorant.” They claim they don’t have stoves and microwaves. > > The simple truth is that most poor people _ **like** _ to gorge themselves with fat-laden, high-calorie foods. No amount of “education” will change this. Given a choice between healthy food that’s free, and garbage/processed foods they have to pay for, the vast majority will choose the latter. Why do you say “most poor people _ **like** _ to gorge themselves with fat-laden, high-calorie foods”? _Most_ people, poor or rich, like to gorge themselves with fat-laden, high-calorie foods. This is, in part, a legacy of our earlier history when we developed an evolutionary preference for fat-laden, high-calorie foods. Those who don’t prefer such foods are either rare or have trained themselves to prefer healthier foods. It’s not merely a consequence of being richer. ---
**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:** [December 26, 2014, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/134 "2014-12-26T17:26:50Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > Is this true only of poor people? Of course not. But apologists want us to believe poor people are fat/obese _through no fault of their own_. ---
**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:** [December 26, 2014, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/135 "2014-12-26T17:31:21Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Why do you say “most poor people _ **like** _ to gorge themselves with fat-laden, high-calorie foods”? _Most_ people, poor or rich, like to gorge themselves with fat-laden, high-calorie foods. Because the point is that we like to dream up excuses for why poor people are fat/obese. (“It’s not _their_ fault they’re fat, because…”) We do not make excuses for obese people who are not poor. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2014, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/136 "2014-12-26T17:33:07Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > I’m wondering what the significance of “poor” can be in this assertion. Is this true only of poor people? How could that be? You are right - MOST people - and certainly the American palate - love high fat, high caloric, and sweet food. Lettuce, according to my daughter (who is not poor), tastes “like sadness.” But the cracked article is making the claim that poor people eat like that because that is all they can afford/have access to. The economist claim is that its cheaper. The simple fact is that it takes discipline for most people to 1) eat well and 2) manage their finances. It also takes some knowledge and the desire to do so. The ability to both plan ahead (I better soak beans tonight and throw them in the crockpot tomorrow) and to delay gratification (I’m hungry now, I can run through the McDonalds drive through, or I can make it home and it will take me fifteen minutes to make polenta (grits, if you prefer) and a scrambled egg). Plus the ability (be it intelligence or street smarts) to see what these things will get you in the end. Those are issues across all income scales - it isn’t like the middle class is any better at delaying gratification - but the middle class gets more room to make mistakes - they get a safety net. The rich get a safety net and a harness - they almost need to purposely sabotage themselves to end up poor. But the poor, they work without a net. They can build themselves a net, but its a hell of a lot of work. Probably the biggest problem with being poor is that MOST people who live in intergenerational poverty can’t see out - a few can, do, and will have the tenacity to free themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2014, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/137 "2014-12-26T17:49:04Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > _Most_ people, poor or rich, like to gorge themselves with fat-laden, high-calorie foods. > … > Those who don’t prefer such foods are either rare or have trained themselves to prefer healthier foods. It’s not merely a consequence of being richer. > [@Dangerosa](#): > > You are right - MOST people - and certainly the American palate - love high fat, high caloric, and sweet food. > … > The simple fact is that it takes discipline for most people to 1) eat well and 2) manage their finances. It also takes some knowledge and the desire to do so. The ability to both plan ahead (I better soak beans tonight and throw them in the crockpot tomorrow) and to delay gratification (I’m hungry now, I can run through the McDonalds drive through, or I can make it home and it will take me fifteen minutes to make polenta (grits, if you prefer) and a scrambled egg). Training. Discipline. Knowledge. Planning. Sounds like it _is_ largely a matter of education. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2014, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/138 "2014-12-26T18:00:28Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > Training. Discipline. Knowledge. Planning. Sounds like it _is_ largely a matter of education. Discipline and planning have very little to do with education. Some of the best educated people are the ones with little discipline who can’t plan. Training and knowledge, those are education, but as I said, around here at least, there are plenty of options to get that training and knowledge - from mandatory home ec coursework in middle school to state run coursework offered through extention to social workers who teach you to shop and cook (like my minister’s husband). However, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him actually listen when he is twelve years old and a home ec teacher is trying to teach him how to scramble an egg. Nor can you force the woman picking up her food stamps to read the brochure you include on how to stretch your grocery dollar in nutritious ways. The resources are there for training and education, but in order to have it work, people need time (a problem for the working poor) and - perhaps more importantly - the desire to learn. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2014, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/139 "2014-12-26T18:04:44Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > But… if you show this to a poor person, chances are they’ll say, “that’s interesting,” and then gorge themselves with fat-laden foods. You can provide them nutritious food for _free_, and educate them on the health benefits for hours on end. But they’ll still reject it. As a poor person who regularly cooks from scratch and largely eats vegetables and whole grains I take some offense at your characterization of poor people (which would, presumably, include me) as “gorging” on fat-laden foods and typically refusing nutritious food. Or did you think poor people were excluded from the Dope? Biased, much? ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2014, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/140 "2014-12-26T18:22:11Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > [97.7% of poor households in the US have a stove and a refrigerator](http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/07/what-is-poverty). So, the overwhelmingly huge majority of the time, the idea that the poor waste their money on fast food because they don’t have a kitchen is wrong. Did I SAY the majority of the poor had no kitchen? No, I never said that. I really wish people would read what’s in front of them instead of what they imagine they’re reading. I said that it _exists_, not that it was universal. If you’re so poor as to not have a kitchen you are in truly desperate straights. It’s the same as the notion that most poor people are poor their entire lives. THEY AREN’T. That’s _minority_ of poor people, but in many ways that’s a population that really, really needs our help because such entrenched poverty points to something very wrong in such lives/families. It doesn’t do any good to say they’re stupid, ignorant, make bad choices… that doesn’t solve the base problem. If you don’t solve the CAUSE of their poverty you won’t solve their poverty and they’ll stay poor. The author of the Cracked article somehow managed to escape that cycle, although one of the points of that article is that he still retains some very unhelpful habits from his childhood. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949.md?page=8)