Why are people so entitled to give financial advice to poor people while boasting how they worked hard to “save up and live bellow their means”? It’s not even a financial advice forum, it’s a rant thread on a hifi forum.
It’s a rant thread and mostly anything goes, but if you want to vent your frustration at poor people, expect some backlash.
Yeah but in five years of being homeless you’ll be able to qualify to live in a government subsidized apartment. And from there, the sky’s the limit! Oh wait, you need a car now so you can commute to a better job? Loser just live below your means. 
Listen guys, not to get in a back and forth on this but living below your means is only possible if you have a support structure. Parents, friends, an education that’s being paid for, something that will get you through the rough ramen eating noodle years while in college. Some people don’t have support, and their entire existence is making it to tomorrow. The fallacy you’ve been sold is that they’re poor because they spend too much.
If you make $150K a year and you spend $200K that is not the same thing as making $12K a year and your basic living expenses are $20K.
Don’t confuse the two, one is not like the other. And what I mentioned before at least in the US, 50% of workers make less than $30K a year that’s never an issue that’s addressed. On the contrary, we bailed out Wall St. twice now in the last decade… because they don’t manage their finances. But apparently no one questions that.
Fuck there were talking heads on TV saying how we needed to bail out the investment firms that lost money on GameStop. WAKE UP and see the fallacy you’ve been fed.
@EvilGnome6 “edge cases who need help from others”
Before Covid there were 40 million people in the US living in poverty. The richest country in the world. The average person is not you dude, the average person is making less than $30k a year!
I’m not venting my frustration at poor people. The poor need external help. I’m venting my frustration at the fact that the average person could be much better off if they had financial discipline. I’m not even blaming them. It’s a social and educational problem.
Not you, this:
theres always enlistment, put in that 20. Beats prison.
You could hookup with someone from work. But the application wont get approved for a bathroom in LA (dodgers) when the apartment complex wants 3 times amount of monthly rent plus security on top of first/last months.
Being the eternal victim is the shortest path to being poor forever. Yes, I grew up poor, and I have a feeling a few other posters have here as well.
You develop a different mentality about things growing up poor.
Seeing the system being rigged and your interpretation of that is that being poor is a choice because you were once poor and you made it so everyone else should?
Growing up poor isn’t special. Most people in the world are. Like I said, most people in the USA are.
I don’t know anything about you but while we’re at it, hell I was poor when I came to the US. Like not a nickel in our pocket poor immigrant. But guess what? My father 61 at the time and my mother 50 at the time of our arrival were able to get employment within a week. My sister was older so she was able to get a job. Three people working a minimum wage jobs, full time with paid time off and benefits in 1975. Add to that the fact that they were able to work overtime 10 to 15 hours a week. In today’s money that would be $11.25 an hour.
My parent were able to pay for my college education working those low wage jobs, they were able to help my sister buy a home.
You show me a path for an immigrant family to come to the US today and have the same path of opportunity that my parents had in late 1974 when we got here.
If you want to have a discussion, we can. But if you can’t even agree to the fact that the system is rigged to favor wealth and that there is no way to rise above the poverty line today unless you’re either fortunate or have deep help and support; There’s no point in having a discussion.
Look on the bright side things could be worse. Imagine having to pay 300 fozools for a set of miccas.
Yes, we do fundamentally disagree then. I work with immigrant family’s every day that have worked there way out of the “poverty” of living in the west when they immigrated here. Was it easy? Hell no, but being poor in the west is still many, many, many more times more extravagant than being poor where they immigrated from.
Why are you defining poor as below the median income?
We can disagree but the facts are on my side.
$30K a year is $15 dollars an hour.
I’d love to see your model for lifting everyone out of poverty, not just the few lucky ones that get to work with you that have to work very very hard.
…Wait, why isn’t it easy to get out of poverty in the first place if you’re willing to work 40 hours a week at a job? That shouldn’t be that hard right? Oh yeah, because capitalism has been relying on indentured servitude wages and we rely on tax dollars government assistance programs to make up the difference in starvation wages Walmat pays their employees.
So unless you’ve got something other than anecdotal examples to justify your very restricted pov, I’ll end the discussion.
Basing all your arguments on the minimum wage is a bit disingenuous. Minimum wage earners are a small (and decreasing) minority of workers.
“According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) 1.6 million workers, or 1.9% of all hourly paid, non-self-employed workers, earned wages at or below the federal minimum wage in 2019.”
“In 1980, when the federal minimum wage was $3.10 ($9.86 in 2019 dollars), 13% of hourly workers earned the federal minimum wage or less. Today, only 1.9% of hourly workers do. The number of federal minimum wage workers has decreased from 7.7 million in 1980 to 1.6 million in 2019.”
And what’s with the one bedroom apartment standard? I never lived in my own apartment for long. WAAY too expensive. I lived with roommates nearly my entire adult life until I got married. We saved money on rent so we could take classes, acquire new skills, get certifications and challenged each other to get better jobs.
Yes, the minimum wage is indeed disengenuous, as there aren’t people that are good at their job that stay at that wage for very long. Several people on this thread have already echoed that the whole point of encouraging people to save money is to improve their education and get better jobs and not make minimum wage.
Why should everyone be not poor? The poor will always exist since it is essentially the people who earn the least in any society. The standard of living however is relevant, and has been increasing steadily pre lockdown. I could provide stats for this if you are genuinely interested. Being poor in the west today is better than being poor 50 years ago, or even 15 years ago. There is more mobility for a poor person today than ever before thanks to the internet. Education and skills can be had for almost free.
However, if you believe that the system is rigged against you AND that there is nothing you can do about it, then you’ll always be poor. There is a lot you can do about it, and if you personally are in that situation perhaps we can help advise you if you want to tell us more about it.
i feel you. I traveled across the country too with basically nothing, only god helped me really get through life. he’s a cool dude
You can always check into a sleep-n-fuck and if youre not hit with the ugly stick split the rent with the coworker youve been banging. Thats like $500 left before tax each month. So 40hrs a week and a couple classes at the CC funded by the student loan. Whew thats not living.
Disingenuous? You realize that the reason the numbers have gone down is because $7.25 an hour is the minimum, and it’s been like that for over a decade. You can make $8.00 have just a shitty life and not be in that BLM statistic. But sounds good to anyone that’s already come to a conclusion about people being lazy if they’re broke.
…anyway, take care guys, no point in further discussion.
Wow this thread went into a full financial advice thread.
Where did I suggest people are broke because they are lazy? Many who are broke work extremely hard and put in many hours. The tragedy is that many (not all) who are broke could be much better off if they practiced financial discipline. Their lack of financial discipline isn’t because they are lazy or stupid, either. It is the product of our cultural and educational environment.
Bottom line, you cannot build wealth only by increasing your means. You must also practice the discipline of living below them.
But whatever, you’re probably right there’s no point in further discussion when you make assumptions about other people’s beliefs.
This is not to mention that a lot of the jobs that should be minimum wage (I’m looking at you, Micky D’s drive through fucker) are meant for high school kids. You know, people who don’t have any experience and are just getting started. Sadly, we simply have a surplus of unskilled labor, and a lot of people would rather resign themselves to that life and have something to bitch about then actually gain the skills to move up in the world.
https://www.facebook.com/matt.loganbill/posts/1770314019797454
yes, it’s fuckin’ facebook. Get over it. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve had this same kind of experience. Do I think it’s worth $15/hour? Fuck no!
Didn’t sleep enough last night basically a shitty sleep cycle being on for me again, for 2 hours and 54 minutes of sleep is not exactly a healthy amount to start your day at the family business that I am working on right now.
The coffee didn’t help also, making me space out at times that fully requires my attention and focuse. I hope in time meditation or some other forms of it, can help me clear my mind and just have the opportunity to sleep well just once.
I just woke up for no obvious reason at 3:30 AM and my power is out. Hopefully by the time I fall back asleep and wake back up I’ll have power back.