Being poor is knowing exactly how much everything costs.
androbot01
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Sweetleaf
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Alison
Poverty is not more 'real' in third world countries it is just exists on a larger scale and higher concentrations of the lowest of the low when it comes to poverty. I mean what poverty is worse in some other places so the issue should be ignored and treated like a non-issue in this country?
Also it would make sense there isn't so much homeless level poverty around you if you live in a rural area, now if you lived in a city you'd see a lot more of that. Also poor people are not immune to nicotine addiction or cigarette smoking, though their ability to supply themselves with cigarettes would obviously be much more limited. I imagine most people of the U.S regardless of economic class would do well in a third world country especially one where you don't know the language.
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Sweetleaf
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Just about everyone, irrespective of status, has their choices limited in some way. Shall I take a two week holiday in Florida or three weeks? Shall I buy a new BMW/Mercedes or a second-hand Ford. It's only a matter of degree. A few billionaires might have total freedom of choice, but even for them their time may be limited. Can't be in two places at once.
I am 71, born during WWII in the UK when food was rationed. A neighbour would go out early with two pet ferrets and return a few hours later with a gunny sack of dead rabbits. Often throwing a few rabbits over the back fence. When I was young a big pot of rabbit stew was an incredible luxury.
A local golf course is overrun with rabbits. If I was really hard up I wouldn't think twice about laying some snares around the back where no one goes. Just need a few lengths of piano wire. And I would NOT consider rabbit stew to be the ultimate degradation. Quite the opposite I would enjoy it whilst revelling in my own resourcefullness.
People have been feeding themselves from time immemorial, it's called survival. Being able to frequent the local Diner is not a necessity.
That's the whole point of dumpster diving.
Which in many places is illegal and they have designed dumpsters specifically to keep people from dumpster diving in them for scraps...
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Sweetleaf
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I mix this dough, enough for the day, everyday first thing in the morning. Doing so enables me to "contain" my budget. My daily version is made with Spelt and Rye wholemeals - It's tasty, nutritious and very cheap.
How many here complaining of poverty would even have a clue how to survive in the third world where poverty is far more real.
Alison
You seem to have the assumption a person at any given time regardless of financial situation is going to have a stock of resources to make it possible to survive in the manner you describe. lighters/matches cost money, that splash of oil would cost money...flour/ingredients costs money. Maybe in the third world it is easier to get those things without money?
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Sweetleaf
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-shops at Walmarts and the Dollar Stores.
-buys his clothes at a Thift Store. (There you can get decent used clothes and shoes for under $1).
-buys the Walmarts brand pop (yuck!), and generally no-brand for most other items.
-rarely leaves a tip for anything, and if he is with someone he leaves maybe painfully a $1 tip
-drives a beat up car and does not insure it
-skirts every bill he can get out of
-asks for specials *always*
I imagine Ben Franklin: "a penny saved is a penny earned".
But I'm pretty certain that millionaire you know doesn't have to do all those things. Not so for poor people.
Doesn't have to, but he sees most spending as wasteful.
Then why keep all that money laying around, does it help him sleep at night having that big pile of cash to sit on and refuse to spend, even for so much as tipping a waitress who provides good service, it is this sort of stinginess I never understand from the wealthy. So in effect your friend is helping to stagnate the economic system it appears.
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Sweetleaf
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Good Lord. That's harsh. Sometimes people have executive functioning problems, etc. That's why there are community services.
Yeah no kidding, especially when you have a lot of people with mental or other disabilities in poverty who might lack the mental capacity to be as resourceful as some with less issues. To suggest they deserve to die is well just cruel...there isn't a place to cook everywhere especially if you're impoverished in an urban area. And as others have pointed out there are plenty of laws to make it difficult to do things that are needed to survive if you're homeless...camping in a park/open space is illegal, making a fire anywhere aside from a designated barbaque pit or whatever is illegal(so if you're not anywhere near a park with those you're out of luck unless you want to risk arrest/charges), its illegal to pee/poop outside even if you take care to go out of site its a 'sex offense' if you get caught and charged and there is a lack of availability of public restrooms so what options to people really have? I might be more sympathetic to the view of someone just dying if they cannot find somewhere to cook a simple meal if there where no laws that got in the way of that and if I was not well aware poverty and mental illness/problems much of the time go hand in hand and that could effect ones ability to be 'resourceful'. It's even illegal to sleep at a bus stop a lot of places here, or even stay at one 'too long'.
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We won't go back.
Is your last name "Cornwall"? Did your ancestors organize the An Gorta Mor, as well?
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Nothing wrong with good non-emotional Aspie logic. Unlike the medical professions I don't hold some belief that everybody should live until their very last brain cell has died including being kept alive by technology, as long as someone is prepared to pay and the medic gets his share. Cynical - absolutely. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
Someone described the late 20th century as the era of entitlement, obviously referring to the developed world. I have strong belief that that era has come to an end. Far too many countries and their citizens have been living on credit for far too long, with politicians propping up their economies by borrowing money from whomever is prepared to lend. Well the lenders are going to start foreclosing soon.
When reading posts on WP, I mentally categorise contributors as Survivors or Victims. Are they here for help in developing coping strategies that will enable them to move on, or do they see WP as somewhere where they can spread their own brand of negativism whilst looking for someone to blame. Somewhere where they can expand on their sense of entitlement with regard to what the authorities should be doing. They can jump up and down, and run around in circles as much as they wish, nothing is going to change so learn to live with it because it's going to get worse not better.
Nusub: BBQ's in public parks for group social meetings are very common in Australia. Whether for work, sports, extended family, even Aspies. Councils recognising the costs of cleaning up afterwards and potential for fires spreading started providing electric BBQ's in designated areas. Initially they had coin boxes, but councils realised that if people had to pay they would have to maintain them to a higher standard, so removed the coin boxes. Just about every large park where people congregate where I live has free electric BBQ's. Just press a button and they heat up quite quickly, staying on 20mins or so, if necessary you may need to press the button again.
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Rev Mother Bene Gesserit
Sent from my PDP11/05 running RSX-11D via an ASR33 (TTY)
Here in Belgium it is even illegal to sleep in your own car
Barbecue in the park would be a wash out for the majority of the year too.
And considering I am not even legally allowed to light a bonfire in my own garden without a permit I doubt you would be allowed to do it in a big city public space.
Exact opposite here. People dozing off whilst driving is a significant problem given the distances we need to travel, so all of our intercity roads have areas set aside for sleeping in your car. These areas are typically well back from the road, have public conveniences and washing facilities to freshen up, and even occasionally electric BBQ's for cooking. There are regular road signs suggesting that drivers should take a break and have a snooze. Back in October, drove over 3000km in the space of a week to visit my daughter and return. It's far to easy to just keep pushing on without taking a break.
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Rev Mother Bene Gesserit
Sent from my PDP11/05 running RSX-11D via an ASR33 (TTY)
-shops at Walmarts and the Dollar Stores.
-buys his clothes at a Thift Store. (There you can get decent used clothes and shoes for under $1).
-buys the Walmarts brand pop (yuck!), and generally no-brand for most other items.
-rarely leaves a tip for anything, and if he is with someone he leaves maybe painfully a $1 tip
-drives a beat up car and does not insure it
-skirts every bill he can get out of
-asks for specials *always*
I imagine Ben Franklin: "a penny saved is a penny earned".
But I'm pretty certain that millionaire you know doesn't have to do all those things. Not so for poor people.
Doesn't have to, but he sees most spending as wasteful.
Then why keep all that money laying around, does it help him sleep at night having that big pile of cash to sit on and refuse to spend, even for so much as tipping a waitress who provides good service, it is this sort of stinginess I never understand from the wealthy. So in effect your friend is helping to stagnate the economic system it appears.
The experts say you need to save several million dollars for retirement if you don't want to work and want to have the same living standard. Now many people have to work until they die.
Where I work, the pension annuity is ~60k USD/year for the rest of my life when I retire, as early as age 57. That is like having 1 to 2 million in the bank to draw down on. This is akin to the above mentioned frugal millionaire.
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I just tell my son no or say "maybe for Christmas." If he wants that toy real bad, he will still be talking about it but the rest he forgets about and he wants everything on TV so I just say no.
I am lucky my parents got me a good car and even though it needs a lot of work, it's still running and I need to take it to the shop again and we have public transportation and I can use my parents cars.
I hope I never get one.
Why?
I didn't grow up poor so I can't relate but I am sure my husband can, he grew up poor. My son isn't in school full day yet.
Nothing to do with income, I have seen nice homes next to a freeway.
Good thing I am not this poor.
Luckily I don't need to ask for help. I assume this means financially.
I am frugal.
Yep I lived this way until we moved into a house.
Never had this happen and I don't have friends anyway. Besides if you have people stealing from you, why do you have these "friends"?
I understand.
I also understand and I have read sad stories about moms stealing groceries to feed their kids and when you have kids and get caught doing it, you don't get jail, instead the cop will buy some of your groceries and tell you places to go to for free food
Frugal
Yes, been there.
What?
I didn't use AC in my apartment unless there was a heatwave and what does the school having old textbooks have to do with someone's income?
Yeah but still not enough to make a living.
I don;t have anyone but my parents and they give a damn and my inlaws are poor.
I work under fluorescent lights anyway but I work evenings.
We actually kept getting something from human services and I think it was about child support but we never opened it since it was never addressed to us. I think someone used our address to avoid it and then we had a cop in our yard and my husband talked to him.
That tells me I am not that poor.
I am not this poor either and I just assume it's busted or why would they throw it away, it would be in the donation bin.
Sad.
How would they know you're poor? This is a stereotype that poor people all dress in rags and are all dirty.
I don't see how I would survive as a single parent without help. I can see myself not working if I were on my own.
Huh?
I hate wasting food.
Anyone can be poor.
Duh. I never understood the logic about why anyone would want to be poor. I never ever thought being poor was a choice because if it was so easy to not be poor, people would have gotten out of that situation a long time ago if they didn't like living that way.
This can be anyone because accidents happen. I have once had to wait 4 hours when my son was three days old because we thought he had jaundice and thought he peed blood.
What?
This sucks. I once got a 0 dollar paycheck because my old work charged me for health insurance and they took all the money out and I only worked like two days a month when everything was slow. What is the point in working if you get nothing to take home?
We have a bed that is busted but we don't have the money to replace the mattress.
Ignorance, naivety.
I know this.
Yep.
What?
Leave what? An abusive marriage? This happens to anyone, class has nothing to do with it.
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Son: Diagnosed w/anxiety and ADHD. Also academic delayed.
Daughter: NT, no diagnoses.
I used to think I was poor until I read an article about the poor paying more than the rich. My husband used to tell me "You don't even know what poor is" and he would tell me I live like I am poor and act like we are. He also would call me cheap. Then I read that article and realized I wasn't poor. Yeah we may have lived in an apartment and can't afford to travel or pay for expensive things but those are all luxuries and so is living in a house and having a yard. We could afford to eat and didn't have to worry about not having food, we could pay all our utilities without having anything shut off and we could pay for our phones, we had internet and cable, we could afford to get our car fixed.
I also watched that Extreme Cheapskates show and I realized how cheap I am not because those people were living like they were poor when they were not. Dumpster diving, washing clothes in the shower, peeing in a bottle, getting water from the creek, driving a truck that only goes 15 mils per hour because the transmission was out, and oh boy don't get me started on the gifts they would buy their partners or feeding their guests food they got from the dumpster. Also some had lack of furniture in their home. The difference is none of these people were poor and they could afford the luxury life like laundry and buying food and flushing the toilet, using their own water, how normal people live but they were choosing to not do it while poor people who are that poor don't have a choice. It would still be wrong for a poor person to dumpster dive for food and feed it to their guests.
Reading about being poor really makes me appreciate my life more and not complain about my income and how "poor" I am or "broke."
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Son: Diagnosed w/anxiety and ADHD. Also academic delayed.
Daughter: NT, no diagnoses.
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