What is it like to be poor (low economic bracket)

In My Humble Opinion
1

Perhaps poor is too strong of a word . In my future profession I may be making as low as 20,000$ a year. Of course the clincher is I will really like my job as a musician. So tell me how will it affect my life. Right now I live in the comforts of home with big screen T.V, good computer, cable, etc.

I’ve never though of myself as needing much. I’ve got no plans to get married, I like to watch movies and read in my spare time. I don’t care about fancy cars or cable T.V. I don’t need a big house. I don’t need to spend lots of money on expensive hobbies like golfing and so forth.

What sacrifices will I be making. Will I become a better/tougher person? Is it worth it to sacrifice money for enjoyment?

Whats it like?

2

Being poor sucks.

3

How much are you making now?

If you’re making 120,000 then things will be much different and you’ll have to make more sacrifices then if you’re only currently earning 40,000.

4

This is much more of an IMHO question than a GQ question; it’s only a matter of time before this thread gets moved.

A lot depends on where you live. Some places are way more expensive to live in than others.

You may not be able to afford much of a social/love life. But being a musician could help make up for that. It helps if you have friends/dates who like to do things that are cheap or free.

Try living near a library.

Can you stay healthy? Buying your own health (and dental) insurance can eat up a lot of cash, and getting sick or injured without insurance could be a lot worse.

You say you don’t have expensive hobbies; what about expensive habits (smoking, drinking, etc.)?

If you’re gonna try the poor-but-fun lifestyle, do it while you have no dependents or other responsibilities. You can always turn respectable later.

Only you can decide whether the sacrifices would be worth it. If you did have money, what would you do with it that would be more enjoyable or worthwhile than the life you’re contemplating?

5

Be careful. The one time I felt like I was poor is when I had to put things on a credit card just to get to the next day. Avoid that at all costs. It will only make you poorer.

$20,000 a year is not much in the US. But for about half of the world, that would be considered great wealth.

I, make around 54,000. My Wife, about 40,000. No kids, modest house. One dog (she needs minor surgery next week, that will be a grand). Two cats. One new car, one that is 12 years old. And an old pickup truck that I plow with. We sunk some money into land. A 40 acre parcel, and the 1 acre next to us. Our TV is 15 years old. Priorities.

I would not want to try to live on $20,000 in the US.

A musician you say? You may make 20,000, or perhaps 200,000 if you got picked up. Or nothing at all.

Way to ‘iffy’ for me.

6

I’m poor. It would probably not be so bad if I didn’t have kids. I don’t mind going without a nice house or a nice car, but it’s hard to see your kids going without the things that most of their friends have.
You do alot of bargain-shopping, you buy most of your clothes at thrift stores, you do alot of juggling bills from this paycheck to the next. On the other hand, I think I’m more appreciative when I go out for a nice meal or I get something that’s brand new and not used. I seem to appreciate nice things more than most of my friends, who take these things for granted.
A big question to ask yourself is, could you live with one or more roommates to save money on housing? I could not, as I am used to living alone (or at least being the only adult in the home) and I value my privacy way too much. Sharing living quarters would give you more disposable income. Can you use public transportation easily in your town? Not having a car saves alot of money, too, but I couldn’t do that again, I’ve done it in the past and it’s just too difficult in this town.
You could always try it out for a year or two, and if you find that you’re just not happy being poor, get another job. It’s not something you’d have to commit to for the rest of your life. If you don’t have children, I’d suggest you not have them until you decide what kind of lifestyle is best for you. The kids tend to limit your choices alot more than if you’re single and free.

7

As others have said, where you are makes a huge difference; I couldn’t imagine trying to scape by on $20 grand out on the coast, but I make less than that here in S.D., and I live quite comfortably - I can afford a decent apartment, plenty of food, decent clothing, I drive a used car, but it is not a beater, have broadband internet, am putting away a decent amount of money away each month ($100) into an index fund for my future, and so on. I just do most things cheaply, and don’t buy things I don’t need (except for computer stuff - I spend maybe $750 on that stuff a year.) Being single on that type of money isn’t that bad.

8

Well, as it stands right now, I pull in about $10,000 a year Canadian, and I have to say that all things considered, I lead a comfortable life. The biggest complaint that I have is that I rent a room in a basement suite with two other people (everybody has their own room). I like one of my roommates, who has been here since I have moved in. The third roommate has changed four times in the six months that I have been here, and they’ve all been people who I didn’t like. As soon as I can, I’ll be moving out into my own place.

Do I feel like a better person? Well, not really. Like I said I live in relative comfort. I don’t own a car, but I have a smallish TV, a laptop, a desktop, an IPod, ect. I can say that I appreciate money a lot more than when I was living with my parents. And frankly, a $20,000 a year job to me seems like a kingly sum. It does help that the area I live in has a very low cost of living. IIRC a house (Two floors, 4 bedroom) goes for about ~ $1000/mo rent. Apartments are about ~ $500 for a two bedroom with utilities included (Heat, water, ect.)

I would say in the long run, if you are happy, then how much money you have doesn’t really matter, provided you are not working yourself into debt. One thing I can say, is with the less money you have the more you appreciate the little things in life. Like I said, just the thought of having my own place fills me with joy.

Of course YMMV

9

To answer some of the above questions.

Right now I’m a student, so i’m making about zero profit. I’m living with my parents but that will change in about 5 months.

I know I can make about 20,000 a year. Right now I teach out of a guitar studio and I have about 15 students. I would like to triple that number teaching privately where I pocket all the cash instead of having to share with the company. I don’t mind working another job in the day to help make ends meet.

No expensive habits, I like to drink occasioanly but not too much. I don’t smoke.

I live In Canada so healthcare is not as big a deal as in the U.S.

I just want to enjoy myself. I am also very young (22) so i figure i should try going for it now while I can.

10

Seeing movies in the theater, even a matinee, is a luxury for the poor. While I was in grad school (5 years), I probably saw about five or six movies at the theater, and some of them were paid for by someone else.

Reading is free. Living close to a good library will ensure a lifetime of entertainment.

Get used to watching TV on a 13" that only gets a two or three channels…none of which you really like. If you have a hard time handling this, then you’ll have a hard time being poor.

Keep in mind that as people get older, they become interested in new hobbies. Some of which may be pricey. When I was in college, I didn’t have time for hobbies. Now, I like doing arts and crafts and playing my keyboard. Tomorrow, it may be something else.

The worse thing about being broke is longing to do stuff (like traveling, hosting nice dinner parties, taking up a cool hobby, etc.) but not being able to afford it.

It depends. If you’re making $12,000, you’re going to be making a bunch more sacrifices than if you’re making $20,000, regardless of where you live.

When I lived on $12K, I couldn’t afford namebrand foods. I couldn’t afford to spend more than $15 on groceries. I would eat saltines for lunch. I had to buy a winter coat from the Goodwill. My mother had to buy my plane tickets for Thanksgiving. My biggest “fun” in the morning was getting onto the NJ Transit train during rush hour and hoping the conductor wouldn’t take my ticket. But I wasn’t too poor that I had to sell my mountain bike (a gift from my sister) or my computer. And I had two kitty cats too.

When I got a raise to $16,000, I became a little more carefree. I could afford to go to Target every once and a while and buy new clothes or furniture. I could go into NYC on the weekend and go to a fleamarket and maybe buy something. I took my sister to see a show at NJ PAC. I took my other sister and aunt to see a Broadway show. I finally got cable. I still couldn’t buy a whole lot at the grocery store, but at least I wasn’t eating saltines for lunch.

When I got another job in addition to my fellowship and started making close to $20,000, I felt like I was “rich”. When my car busted its radiator ($500), I paid for it without breaking a sweat. For Christmas, I was able to send a basket of fruit and chocolate to a nice administrator in my office, in addition to other Christmas presents. I got myself a $100 keyboard and bought a laptop (albeit refurbished). I went to Puerto Rico for 10 days and then went on a cruise seven months later. With what I was getting paid, I was able to save enough so that when I became unemployed, I had enough to survive on for four months.

So to me, $20,000–even in northern NJ–wasn’t poor at all (granted, I was living in dismal low-income housing). $16,000 wasn’t that bad. $12,000 was as close to poor as I hope to ever be, but even that wasn’t as bad as it could have been. I became a more resourceful person and more appreciative of things, but it didn’t give me any special insight into the world of poverty. Living on $12,000 with four kids to feed…that’s poor!

(Note that I only lived on 12K for a couple of years. Living on 12K isn’t that bad when you know it’s not going to last forever. It sucks tremendously if you know that’s your only lot in life and you’ll never be able to satisfy your hopes and dreams.)

11

Otto’s on the money. Being poor sucks.

The good thing is that if someday you decide that you don’t want to be poor anymore, and go out and make decent money, you’ll appreciate life in ways that the people around you won’t.

12

I’m self-employed as my primary job, with the occasional part-time job when business is slow or I can’t quite make ends meet. Usually I have a part-time job, but I had to quit the last one for health reasons, because it’s better to miss a month or two of PT work than stress myself into a hospital.

I make around $10k a year if I’m lucky. I live in a small 1 bed apt by myself, my boyfriend sort-of lives with me not really, but he does contribute ~$200/month to my $655/month rent. I pretty much live hand to mouth. I can’t afford cable TV, but I do have DSL because I need it for my business. I have a mobile phone but no landline. I have a small amount of emergency savings, but I also have a decent chunk of credit card debt from financing business stuff and moving. I have a nice apartment, it’s furnished well, but that’s partly because I am very good at finding things cheap. I got two nice armchairs for $10 and $15 each, just because I managed to find someone having a moving sale that wanted to get rid of them. That’s how I get most of my stuff. Craigslist and the Salvation Army are your friend.

All my dishes, pots, pans, vacuum cleaner, dining table, and probably at least half my other posessions were gifts in one form or another. If it hadn’t been for the generosity of people I know, my friends, my family, and in a large part my fans, I would have almost nothing. I do worry continually about being able to pay all my bills and the credit card debt looming over my head. The boyfriend and I manage to eat out about once a month, I think we’ve seen one movie in a theatre in the last 5-6 months… the one thing I do have is video games. Most of my systems, along with a little 19" television, he brought over from his parents’ house. But in terms of entertainment value and time played vs. cost, video games are fairly cheap (especially used ones) and are something fun we can do together. That’s about the extent of our social spending, except for sometimes a cup of coffee someplace.

I’m hoping I can go back to school part-time by the fall of '06. I don’t have money and don’t want to take on more debt for it, and in this city it would be impossible to go without a car. It may be once the bf finishes his education and can work full-time in a couple years, if we move in together, then I can go. I don’t have a car or vehicle of my own, and don’t see myself being able to get one any time in the forseeable future.

So yeah, being poor sucks. I’m not starving, but it is a stressful, worrisome existence. I do it because it is the only way I can really be happy, though, balancing what I need to do with what I love to do – because I have done the full-time “regular” job thing and just got to the point I was getting suicidal. Fortunately, at least for me, I have some publishers interested in my stuff so maybe within the next year or two, I won’t be in such a shaky sitaution anymore.

13

This is actually pretty easy to compute.

For the sake of simplicity, let’s say that you make $20K after taxes.

If you live in a city, figure an absolute minimum of $400 a month for rent. That won’t cover all your utilities, so very conservatively, assume another $50 a month.

Now you’re down to $14,600.

Since you’re a musician, you’ll need a phone to stay in touch. Landline or mobile, let’s say you can get one for $30 a month.

Assume you have decent public transportation and you can get to where you need to go. A monthly bus pass in my area is $60.

That leaves $9,200.

Food is your next expense. Since you’ll have to haul your groceries on the bus, you won’t be able to stock up when there’s a big sale. But by avoiding conveninece foods, eating leftovers, etc. you might be able to get by on $5 a day.

You’re down to $7,400. I hope your income is steady, because you’re already spending more than 60% of it each month.

So far, we’ve allotted nothing for clothing, furniture, cooking utensils, laundry detergent, personal care or entertainment. You’re also not paying off your student loans, contributing to a 401K plan or anything toward health insurance – and God help you if you get sick or get in an accident. You have $20 a day to spend on everything else in your life.

So, if you can start out with a computer, TV, clothes, furniture and cooking utensils, avoid getting sick and get by without a car, you can probably make it for awhile. But I’ve been in your shoes, and I have to agree with Otto . Being poor sucks.

14

You could check out a book called Nickel and Dimed describing what it’s like to try to live on a low wage job. It’s based in the US, so not strictly applicable to our North American brethren with a decent health care system, but still an eye opener.

15

Pay off (or pay very far down) any debts before you move out. Seriously. It will Suck Badly™ if you don’t.

Forget cable TV and high speed internet for the most part. For the past six years, I have lived without cable TV and have mooched off my sister’s dial-up connection. I inherited my 20" TV when my mother died. I saved up for nearly a year for this el cheapo computer.

Try to get as many home furnishings as you can from others. I paid for a lot of mine via stuff like student loans (bad idea :smack: ) and used sales (good idea :slight_smile: ). Anything free/cheap and useful is your friend. I got my bed from a friend. I inherited my mother’s vacuum cleaner and coffee table. I bought my bookshelves and computer desk used. Do your parents have any old/spare stuff that they’d be willing to give you instead of perhaps selling at a garage sale or donating to Goodwill?

Clothing – what you have now is your friend. If you need/want new clothes, get them before moving out.
Utensils – 6/$1 flatware at Walmart. Need I say more? (Although in my case, I saved up a bit and spent about $25 on a 20 pc. flatware set seven years ago. I don’t regret it one bit, and I still use that flatware regularly.) And I’ve been using/abusing some plastic dishes I got for about $1 each at Target for about seven years also. It’s amazing how long you can use utensils when you don’t really care what they look like, as long as they’re clean. (My 15-year-old third-hand colander has stories to tell!)

Fear not, you can make it a whole life like this, just don’t have too many expensive emergencies. :slight_smile:

16

I’m lucky in many ways.

Firstly I will finish my music education degree in the next few months. I can always apply in a school system for a job if ever I need to. I’ve lived at home and I have no debts right now.

I’m considering some further music schooling. Where I’d like to be is to be a prof at a university teaching music while also teaching private lessons and doing some music projects on the side.

I will have to take out a loan for any more schooling though.

These numbers are adding up. I’ve been doing some calculations and think I can make about $23000 a year before taxes if I’m not teaching at a university. I woder how much more I’d make if i had a job at one.

Perhaps the one expense I would need is the internet. I can’t survive without it.

All good tips, thanks for sharing.

17

20K isn’t to poor. You shouldn’t have to worry about food and housing at that rate. When trips to the grocery store are rare events, that is when it’s really serious. You shouldn’t reach that point, which is around 10K, I think. Your especially lucky to live in Canada where health care is not an issue. Not to beat a dead horse, but plenty of people would kill to be making 20K.

You will probably have to sacrifice to have your own room. I havn’t had my own room since I was in high school. You will probably not ever have your own apartment all to yourself. Your houses will be cold, poorly maintained and kind of ugly. The showers will have low pressure and there will be mold. But you may end up in some pretty neat funky old places.

You will have to find free ways to entertain yourself. Get used to thinking of parks as your backyards, and libraries as your bookstore. If you are a movie lover, go in on a Netflix account with your housemates, or get a part time job at a video store (thats how I got my entertainment for years). Matinee movies will be a once-a-month treat. If you drink, drink at home instead of going out to bars, or if you like dancing, drink at home before going out to bars and get there and get your hand stamped before they start charging a cover. You won’t have a lot of money for concerts and things. Get to know the people who can get you in places for free, or look really hard for free events. There is plenty of stuff out there. It sucks not be able to go ice skating or to the movies or whatever with friends, but there is plenty to do if you are creative.

If you go out to eat with friends, eat something beforehand and order a side dish. Eating out isn’t as bad as it may seem because it fulfills both food and entertainment needs, but you have to be careful. No more sodas with your meal or salads beforehand or desserts. Food shouldn’t be an issue at 20K, but it might be. Learn to cook- especially things that involve beans and rice and other cheap things. Snack food will become a luxery. Buying a bag of chips will be a rare event. Say goodbye to the days of buying a soda at a gas station or a cup of coffee with friends. If you arn’t a cooker, learn all the cheap restraunts in the area. I know a dozen meals I can get for under five bucks around here. You will have to save your leftovers. You will rarely go to a sit-down restraunt.

Buying new stuff will be rare. Get to know your local thrift stores- and learn when they have sales. Learn to make the things you need. If you want something, think about it for a week and then see if you still want it. I’m always amazed that people buy all this stuff. You will probably still be able to buy a few things that are really important to you- even luxery items like musical instruments or computer parts. But you will not be able to buy the everyday stuff, like new clothes or shoes or furniture.

A car is a huge money drain. You will basically double your dispasable income if you find a way to go without it.

Good luck in your life. I think you’ll find it really isn’t that hard- just stay out of debt and try not to get to where you are making less than, say, 15K.

18

Also, word of advice…have a backup plan. Your plans will probably not work out how you intended, and you may end up unemployed for long periods of time. I hope that doesn’t happen to you, but nobody I graduated with is doing anywhere near what they thought they’d be doing when they graduated. I had a ton of great plans and thought I was going to be doing A-OK, but it didn’t work out that way at all. Save some living money, set your expectations pretty low, and plan for the worst. It’s a harsh world out there.

19

No matter how much or how little money you make, you will certainly get offers in the mail for pre-approved credit cards. If you go with them and sign up for the credit cards they’re offering you, you’ll be in great shape for emergencies. If you get an abscessed tooth, acute depression or a blown head gasket on your 15-year-old Ford Escort, you’ll be able to pay for it with your credit card.

You’ll inevitably end up owing so much that it will take the rest of your life to pay it back. Forget about ever seeing Europe without owing even obsecenely more.

You will either find Jesus and become a Pat Buchanan supporter, giving more than you can afford to TBN, or you will become radicalized, able to mention Ralph Nader or Noam Chomsky without laughing.

If you ask me, the picante chicken ramen noodles are the best.

20

You might want to look closely at this plan. In a number of industries, the reason that the companies charge more (and take more off the top) is that they have the resources to find “triple that number.” This requires advertising (usually) and sales (always), as well as a collections process (too often), so you may discover that you cannot actually do much about your client load without expending time/energy/money to solicit customers while that time/energy/money actually cuts into the time (and energy and money) that you would like to expend simply in teaching (and collecting fees).

That said, I cannot actually see a definitive factual answer, here, so (now that I’ve chipped in my two cents), I’m going to move this over to IMHO.

[ /Moderator Mode ]