Sounds like this family will fit right in in America.
I am shocked. Who the fuck eats Domino’s? :eek:
I get where the OP is coming from - and some are quick to Straw-Man against him/her - but what the mother did wasn’t bad financially at all. (The headline is also misleading; made it seem as if the mother spent ALL of the $50 on pizza)
In that situation, you have 1) hungry people 2) lack of refrigeration 3) need for portable, easy to carry and store food. Pizza fulfills all three points. Wings, pizza, etc. are totally reasonable things for her to have bought. And assuming that she saved the change from the $50, she still has some spare money too.
You might want to reconsider that second sentence in context.
When did this start?
You only live once, and there are times when, given the opportunity, one chooses spending over prudence. Back in 2007, I wasn’t doing as well financially as I am now. In fact, outside of basic living, I really didn’t have the money to do anything over and above that. That summer, I was able to earn an extra $8,000 because they gave me $40 an hour to work on the technology infrastructure, and we had some LONG days.
Anyway, I had a real chance to take a long stride towards financial security by starting a significant bank account. I didn’t. Instead, I bought a new laser printer, a 24 inch monitor, and a rocking gaming desktop. I spent the rest on a dream vacation in Hawaii. She got $50 that she absolutely didn’t expect. She had a chance to hoard it, but she chose to do something that she never thought she’d be able to do instead. I understand.
Certainly and it is those who have nothing to lose who have really little to risk by trying.
Actually the more I think about it, the more I commend them on their decision. That person giving that $50, and the results made a lasting impression of those lives, more so then if they conserved it.
If you’d read the previous story about this woman, you’d seen that she decided to leave her home and support system (she was divorced, but her parents lived there). Apparently she was threatened by gang members looking for her ex.
No money, pregnant, two kids in tow. No English. So she decided she’d join this convoy to the border. What she plans to do here if she does get in is beyond me. She probably won’t be able to find a job that pays enough to live on for her family. She’ll have no insurance, and she and her kids have already been sick on the trip. She won’t be able to afford day care, especially when the new baby is born. Not exactly on the path to success.
The CNN article was clearly written so we’d cheer her on and support her journey, but frankly, she’s the sort of person the wall-builders want to keep out. A future drain on the taxpayers with an “anchor baby” on the way. I believe we need to increase the path to legal immigration, but to me, she’s not a “refugee”. She’s fleeing poverty, but without the skills to propel her and her family out of that same poverty here. She’s left behind everything and everyone she knows. She has absolutely nothing, and no way to get anything. Even in the open immigration days of Ellis Island, immigrants were required to show they could support themselves once they got here.
She bought pizza because, time and time again, people have held out their hand to support her. What happens when she has to support herself?
StG
I know, right? How dare she give up absolutely everything in order to make a dangerous trek 1000s of miles to provide some sort of better life for herself and her children in a country that spends more per day killing people in caves than it would take to set this woman and her family up for generations. She should just head back to her gang-infested town and huddle in fear in her shack until she just dies and stops being a drain on the world.
Fuck it. My response to the OP is here.
Ages ago an economics prof insisted the main reason poor people tend to remain poor is that they are never taught basic money management. That could be the case here. Or like my family at times when things were silly-lean-times and a windfall happened ----- they just felt the need to splurge and live it up. After three months of eating mostly what we could catch and/or kill, when Dad’s checks started again, we bought some food we probably shouldn’t have (steaks instead of hamburger) but by God it tasted good. And it was worth every penny we barely had.
There are many times when poor people do splurge foolishly. What is being described by the OP doesn’t sound like it.
The mother didn’t buy a gourmet $50 caviar and smoked-salmon pizza that was only medium-sized; that would be a waste. She bought five-dollar pizzas, fries, wings, etc. and may have had some change left over. That wasn’t bad financial management. In fact, given her circumstances (no fridge, on the move,) it is hard to see how she could have possibly spent it better, food-wise.
This actually occurred to me as I was writing the response in the Pit. There are certainly cheap foods available, the standard beans-and-rice meal, for instance. However, I’m assuming she has no way to cook anything so is limited to shelf-stable foods that need no refrigeration or heating. Further, she likely doesn’t have a way to transport much so buying, say, a loaf of bread and jar of peanut butter wouldn’t work. All this compounded by (I assume) the fact that she doesn’t have a can opener or set of utensils in her pocket.
Buying large pizzas for $5 a piece may very well have been the most economical way for her to load up on calories given her limitations.
This thread reminds me of the time my sister-in-law went off on a rant about some woman she saw in a restaurant, a mother with her kids, paying for dinner with food stamps. She was absolutely outraged and indignant that her tax dollars were being used to pay for someone else’s restaurant food. My wife then told her a story about when she was on assistance, and the looks she got from people when she tried to buy her son a birthday cake at the grocery store using food stamps.
Sometimes you just want to do something nice for your kids or your family after they have been through much hardship. What business is it of anyone else’s?
Yeah, this.
What is she supposed to do with her $50 windfall? Invest in some growth stocks? Put a down payment on a place to live? Sign up for a course? Spend one night in some super cheap motel? Buy a month’s supply of quinoa or lentils? Bribe somebody?
I’m curious about this as well. asuka, what would you have done if you were in this woman’s situation?
Considering her situation, it’s a bit of a use it or lose it. She may be able to hold onto it, but it would be easy to steal it from her in those conditions.
I suppose, maybe the OP is surprised that she didn’t use the money to take them to see them to see Avengers.
Why they could’ve bought cans of spinach! With their new Popeye strength, they could’ve entered bear wrestling contests! The children could have been tag teaming partners. They would all become millionaires overnight! It’s their lack of gumption that’s holding them down.
Having gone through a period of poverty and bankruptcy, I know that having a treat or a good meal on occasion is very important to your mental health.
What I don’t have is a lot of patience for people who think they’re entitled to tell poor people exactly what they’re allowed to spend their money on.
Well, I think it’s safe to say that asuka would welcome someone who is more successful to follow her around judging how she spends her money on a daily basis.