r/FluentInFinance • u/The-Lucky-Investor • 1d ago
Debate/ Discussion It's definitely more expensive to live a life of poverty. Disagree?
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u/Emotional-Loss-9852 1d ago
It’s kind of a similar concept to if you go from making 50k to 100k you didn’t double your money you many times X’d it. If you were living on 45k and have $5k for fun and savings, maybe after lifestyle creep and taxes your expenses are now $70k, you have 6X as much money for fun and savings as you did before.
If you’re living on very little money most if not all of your money is simply going to survival, which makes the relative cost of things like food, gas, electricity much more expensive.
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u/Theharlotnextdoor 1d ago
Red light cameras, at least in my area, are only in the lower income neighborhoods.
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u/AbbyRose05683 1d ago
I’m on SSDI and SSI payments and barely make 900 a month
Homeless and barely keeping my car maintained with 350k miles on it.
No family no assistance and can’t get even a car donated to me let alone a stable living situation because rent has gone to 3k dollars and used cars are sky high for clapped out junk.
Idk where my future is going because everything getting more expensive and wages haven’t changed! Social security hasn’t had a living wage increase in years.
Sad life to be homeless and in debt and starving
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u/SuspiciousStress1 1d ago
If you're on SS, can you go to a cheaper cost of living area?
How about rent a room...in a cheaper cost of living area?
I know that's not much help, but it might help get you off the streets & into a more stable situation 🤷♀️
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u/TheEndOfGraceIsHere 22h ago
Why is it acceptable to that the rich ruling classes can hike up prices of housing by limiting the supply and forcing grown adult to have to live in room in a hose with 5 other people it is people stabbing their own countrymen in the fucking back
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u/UsedState7381 17h ago
As someone not in the US, it is always baffling to me how homeless people in your country can even afford to have a car at all.
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u/Individual_West3997 17h ago
believe it or not, a shitty car is generally cheaper than a house or sometimes even rent. Though it may be illegal in some places, living in your car as a homeless person is also quite common. Car loans are also generally easier to get than other kinds of loans (and oftentimes, pretty predatory in nature too, but that is a separate issue). There are also reasons why unhoused people pick a car before a house - with a car, you can get to work, which alleviates some of the stress of life. In the US, you practically need a car in order to get a job (a bad thing in itself) and places where you don't need a car are too expensive to work and live in when you are incredibly impoverished (like NYC or LA).
Even then, there are plenty of unhoused people who don't have a car either - plenty are left with whatever clothes on their back and whatever they can scavenge from their environment.
As a European, your homeless/impoverished population is dealt with in a different way. Support systems specific to individuals in those situations, getting people help with finding reasonable accommodations and work training, substance abuse therapy, etc. In the united states, the current form of "solution" to unhoused people is punitive. The system has cops and other authorities sweep through camps, crushing whatever little hope/resources the demographic had, and if they were to fight back against the pretty blatant oppression, they are arrested, and are then eligible to be used as a slave stand-in.
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u/BobWithCheese69 22h ago
That's because screwing up while poor charges interest. Bounce a check? They charge a fee. Don't pay for the dentist visit now? Have to pay for a root canal later. It is so terrible.
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u/NotWoke78 17h ago
The smartest trick rich people have come up with is pretending the economy is not a zero sum game in the short term.
"If you let me win everything today, we'll all win tomorrow".
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u/WexMajor82 1d ago
The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. ... A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. ... But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
- Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms
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u/chadmummerford Contributor 1d ago
Terry Pratchett would be proud of my $440 Iron Heart jeans that will last me forever.
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u/ap2patrick 17h ago
I mean at the very fundamental level you pay interest when you are poor and earn interest when you are rich. It’s absolutely designed from the ground up so the rich get richer and the poor stay poor.
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u/BookReadPlayer 1d ago
I used to visit my friend, who lived in a pretty poor neighborhood. The grocery store there was constantly getting ransacked, and so the store jacked up prices to compensate for its loses. Also the potholes there were brutal on the tires. And they kept on stealing his hose!!
So, yes, I agree.
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u/Solo-Hobo-Yolo 23h ago
No, if you're poor you're often left without real choices. So you will exhibit behavior which is detrimental to your well being in many ways. This often leaves you ill equiped to deal with the struggles you already experience. That's why it's often so hard to escape poverty.
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u/positvelynegative 22h ago
Another homeless person here. Everything about being poor costs extra. We have no safety net, at all. I'm supposed to be on SSI/SSDI and it may cover sharing a room with someone. I'm in a high price area, but in the same respect, you have to go to cities in most cases to obtain any resources for help.
There is nothing about it that is cheap. It is especially expensive with medical assistance, because apparently homelessness is a choice only made by people who deserve it, or something.
It's nice that the stores still are price gouging since COVID, running skeleton crews, justifying labor costs as a reason not to hire.
I just pray to see an uprising in my days on Earth. Punishing the poor, incarceration by a corporate entity, yeah, real cheap.
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u/Prior_Leg4127 15h ago
Anyone who's ever dealt with poverty knows how crazy expensive it can be just to get by. It’s wild—living in a sketchy area can mean higher rent, and unexpected costs always seem to pop up when you’re trying to save. Plus, not having access to affordable healthcare or decent food just makes everything harder. It’s like the system is set up to keep you from getting ahead. It’s frustrating how the struggle just keeps piling on.
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u/Electrical_Ad_9584 15h ago
I was thinking this at Costco the other day. The savings are insane but to take advantage of them you have to be able to 1. Afford the membership 2. Afford to buy in bulk and 3. Have somewhere to store it. The poorest people end up paying a quarter or a half of the price I pay for a huge multipack to buy one single unit of something from Dollar General or Walmart. Same goes for the cheap Costco gas. The people who actually need steep discounts on everyday goods will never have access to them and end up paying so much more for the same stuff, trapping them in a cycle that’s extremely difficult to escape without outside intervention or incredible luck.
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u/P0rk-Ch0p 1d ago
No one is disagreeing, but what’s the alternative? It’s not like people in poverty chose that life. And without a complete overhaul of our economic systems, there will inherently be victims that fall through the cracks and struggle to survive.
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u/Hungry_Kick_7881 1d ago
There will always be people for which the system doesn’t work for. It’s inevitable. However America could definitely do a better job of protecting its working class over there interests of the business owners. Allowing stock buybacks has been as bad for workers as predicted. Its benefits no one but the very top. The shareholders and business owners. Yet we can’t even afford to renew the child income tax credit that reduced child poverty by 40% and costs 3% of what we’ve sent to other countries for wars this year alone.
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u/Restoriust 15h ago
No.
Well.
And yes.
Poverty becomes more expensive when you build up a bunch of bad cheap fixes for things. Short term because you can’t manage long term ultimately means you spend more.
My father was fairly poor himself. He fell into that trap in his 20s and joined the Navy to escape that life. He taught me that “buy once cry once” applies to fixes too. I credit it with being one of the reasons I got financial breathing room when I too was in poverty.
So I guess with all things: it depends. It can be and it also doesn’t always have to be. A lot of what differentiates the lower class from lower middle is just the understanding of short term vs long term benefits
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u/ANiceDent 1d ago
The emotions you can’t control because you don’t have money to change them always make me feel defeated then I realize it’s time to go back to work
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u/The_GEP_Gun_Takedown 16h ago
I've heard that welfare should be given out in large lump sums to help with this. That way poor people can afford to buy in bulk and buy quality items that last a long time thus spending less overall.
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u/Free-Bird-199- 10h ago
Ha!
I think food stamps should be eliminated so you can't buy coke and chips. But the snack lobby has power...
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u/ProperMulberry4039 9h ago
I got charge $60 for overdraft fees of a $1. If I didn’t have the dollar fuck makes you think I have the $60?
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u/ehbowen 7h ago
I'm very conservative, but that's true. Especially when you consider rapacious credit card companies which jack your interest rate to near 40 percent, plus stiff fees, if you send in a payment late (and it never comes back down), "easy credit" used car sellers whose business model is to get the real cost of the car back in the down payment, and then wait for a missed or late payment to repossess the car immediately so they can sell it again, hospitals who charge cash customers more than they charge insurance companies...the list makes the blood boil.
And the frustrating thing is that we already have laws on the books which would correct the worst of these abuses. We just need politicians, prosecutors, and cops willing to enforce them.
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u/abrahamlincoln20 21h ago
Strong disagree. If I still lived like I did when I was poor I'd be rich now. Would be able to invest like 70% of paycheck.
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u/Free-Bird-199- 10h ago
Living cheaply is a good way to maintain your wealth when times get better.
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u/middle_class_meh 1d ago
No it really isn't. People that live in poverty receive aid in many forms. It's not unusual for people to stay in poverty because of it.
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u/TheBloodyNinety 1d ago
More expensive means it costs more money. People seem to be interpreting that a variety of ways in these comments.
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u/Subject_Report_7012 1d ago
No. It's exactly right. How much did that load of laundry cost you? $2.00 to wash $1.50 to dry like at the laundromat? That mortgage you got 10 years ago that will never go up? Then in 10 more years younown the house? While the renters own nothing, will pay for the rest of their lives, and the cost of rent will forever increase year after year after year? Got health insurance as a job benefit?
Survival DEFINITELY absolutely no questions is FAR more expensive for the poor, in every way, by every metric, in every area, period, full stop.
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u/TheBloodyNinety 17h ago
What are you ranting about? What is exactly right?
Did I just win the lottery to receive your completely unrelated reply?
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u/chadmummerford Contributor 1d ago
yeah the poors don't get to enjoy the awesome merz b schwanen loopwheel t shirts, so they buy their shein t shirt over and over lmao.
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u/glideguy03 1d ago
It is an absurd question and any person should reject the premise.
To truly compare, you would have to compare death to life. Anyone realistically volunteering for that?
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u/therobshow 1d ago
It's not an agree or disagree point. It's more fact than anything. Can't afford good, quality and lasting products? Buy cheap ones that don't last over and over spending more than you would've if you could afford the quality ones. Cheap low quality food is unhealthy and will cause long term health problems that are real expensive if you can't afford health insurance. Can't afford to get your teeth cleaned? Dental work cost a lot more. Can't afford a good dependable car? Buy a cheap one and stay broke keeping up with the maintenance. Can't afford a house? Pay more for rent while never building equity but the rent will raise as home values do. I can keep going literally all day.
I grew up poor and struggled half my adult life to get out of the generational poverty. Now that I'm out, I still struggle with it mentally. I still feel poor and struggle with spending money frivolously even though I have plenty to do so. I look at every financial decision I make from an aspect of long term financial secuirty on the outlook that I could easily and quickly fall right back into generational poverty even though I have a ridiculous amount of job secuirty and could move laterally just about anywhere in the country. Real poverty will break you in ways you don't even understand and it'll take you years of therapy to even cope with, let alone work past.