#being poor

[bitchesgetriches]

It's More Expensive to Be Poor Than to Be Rich • Bitches Get Riches

Terry Pratchett had a really perfect explanation for one of the many reasons why it’s more expensive to be poor than to be rich: “Take boots

It’s More Expensive to Be Poor Than to Be Rich

Terry Pratchett had a really perfect explanation for one of the many reasons why it’s more expensive to be poor than to be rich:

“Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. 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 the 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. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socioeconomic unfairness.”

-Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms

By this model, one reason the rich are so rich is because they manage to spend less money… and not just on boots.

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[michaelpaul7]

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[butterfly-brain]

Today at the food bank, a guy came up to me and started chatting. It was pretty clear he needed someone to talk to.

He started telling me about his taxi business that went bankrupt during the pandemic. One thing that he said really stuck with me. He told me he used to look down on people getting aid by the state if they looked physically able to work but no that he's in the same spot he understands. He was one of the people thinking you could become a millionaire just by working hard but now he knows that everyone is closer to living off state support than being rich and that he wished he wouldn't have had to learn it this way but that it has really opened his eyes.

I think that's a lesson everyone needs to learn. Everyone is closer to living off state support than living like the billionaires they defend.

So be kind to people. Help if and where you can. We're all just playing the cards we've been dealt and the game is rigged.

[crmsnmth]

10.6%

We learn the price of air early how even breathing feels borrowed when the fridge hums louder than hope and the floor knows your footsteps by name

Poverty is not empty pockets it’s the math you do in the dark subtracting hunger from dignity adding excuses until sleep arrives

The lights flicker like they’re nervous rent crouches in the corner like a threat and the future keeps its distance as if it costs too much to get close

We wear our clothes thin as apologies wash them until they forget their shape every dollar leaves a bruise every choice tastes like something you didn’t pick

Being poor is watching time rot because you can’t afford patience it’s knowing the value of everything and owning almost none of it

They say work hard as if exhaustion were a moral failure as if broken backs don’t already pray every night on unforgiving mattresses

And still we survive out of spite and habit stitching morrow from scraps standing upright in a world that keeps trying to teach us how low is acceptable

[lobotomite-chan]

that moment when you were born to a very low income family and to the point you and your family had housing insecurities and your mom left when you were 6 and now you wish you had a simple life as a middle income person with a healthy and functional family in a regular home so day by day with your “unwelcomed” life to middle and high income, your discriminated against due to being poor and having mental health challenges and what housing you have so a 2 story home and both parents seems like a paradise to you - yes, that’s my reality sadly :(

[dumblr]

Being poor is only romantic in books.

[zebulontheplanet]

I think people don’t understand how tough it is being a college student from a poor family. My parents can’t often send me money, and I’m grateful for what they can send me, but also being poor as a college student sucks.

Crying in the middle of a Walmart because you can’t afford groceries and the food at your college is so bad, is terrible and I wish it on no one.

Wondering if you’ll be able to buy pads this week is terrible. Wondering if you’ll be able to have a snack this week is terrible. Wondering if you’ll be able to pay your phone bill is terrible, even though you rely on your phone because it has assistive technology on it. Wondering if you’ll be able to afford your nicotine addiction is terrible. Wondering if you’ll be able to afford clothes is terrible. Wondering anything when it involves money is terrible, and I hate every moment of it.

[sevilemar]

Well, one way to live sustainably is to simply be poor in our fine capitalist society.

You automatically buy less and mend/repurpose more, you never buy new if you can get away with it, you seldom buy things you don't need (and sometimes not even those you do need), you have no choice but to accept gifts and use them no matter if you like them or not, you have to stretch what you have as far as possible anyway and use what you have until it is completely finished/done/worn through, meat is way too expensive anyways, so is sweets and sugary drinks, and also a car, or a holiday, or going to a restaurant, and the swap-and-lend-and-pirate/copy system in your community is pretty well developed.

It's remarkable how many things we had to do when I grew up are now things people choose to do in the name of individual sustainability.