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Pick up a copy of "A Framework for Understanding Poverty" by Ruby Payne (just a couple of dollars at abebooks.com) for a truly eye-opening experience.
20yrsinBranson
Thanks. That sounds like something I would like to read.
I had a friend who had a situation like a poster's daughter. Had NSF charges and couldn't pay them, so for a very long time she could not get a checking account. When she was finally able to get one, she needed a co-signer. By now, I think she has one on her own though.
BUT, it was not a case of mis-managing money, it was just a case of a hard working person down on their luck.
Thanks to all who responded. I now realize there are lots more people without checking accounts than I would have imagined. It is like another world out there - truly mind-boggling. Banks seen as untrustworthy, so under the matress is deemed safer. Limited horizons, limited to one's neighborhood. Standing in line to get money orders at the post office or the grocery store if you have to pay a bill for which it's not feasible to walk in with the cash in hand. Cashing paper checks at some sleazy operation despite the high fees. Scary. Very scary. What a grim portrait of the true underclass. I used to think I was a member of the permanent underclass because of my low salary as a public high school teacher, but that was too pessimistic a view of my own situation, as limited as it was compared to normal people like doctors, lawyers, CPA's, and middle management types. This thread alone gives a mini-portrait of what the permanent underclass really is.
Now I see why Social Security has finally had to make a rule that paper checks will no longer be issued. Will some die-hards still resist?
My employer, a large public school district in the DC metro area, just announced that, on June 1st, they will stop issuing paper pay checks. Heck, I didn't know that they issued them...direct deposit has been mandatory for new hires for at least the 10 years I've been working for them.
Well it turns out that a significant number of long-time employees have been receiving paper pay checks. They are probably all support personnel (custodial, food service, transportation, etc)...I can't imagine any instructional/admin personnel falling into the "unbanked" or "don't trust banks" category, but who knows?
Anyway, management has offered to physically drive any employee that requests it to the school system's credit union to join and open an account into which their pay can be direct deposited. They will accompany the employee and pay the five bucks for them to join. It's a great credit union that has probably agreed to take any employee and which has very low or no fee to cash their checks. And with dozens of branches around the County...it might be more convenient than where these folks are currently cashing their paper checks...
One of the fastfood places near here, also only issues EFT or ECards. There payroll is done by a service and they dont want to get involved with paper checks. When they hire someone they have a option for EFT to there S/C account or to a ECard (a debit/ATM card) that a bank the payrolll company has set up with to issue them. Each card get 5 ATM/Debit tranaction per month (from any ATM No fee even if the bank that they are using has a fee on there atm). They can also go into the bank ( a national one that issues the card) and 'cash' the entire balance on the card. So they can get all of the $ in there paycheck (So they dont have the last >$20 on it) (There paystub is on a secure website for them to look/print).
What made me think of this is the upcoming Social Security requirement for people to stop receiving paper checks; everyone will have to receive electronic deposits, and for those people without checking accounts there is some sort of special debit card (or credit card?).
I cannot imagine not having a checking account. I've had one ever since I was in college and had hardly any money to run through it and I'm now pretty ancient (67). True, I write very few paper checks anymore because of online banking. But isn't online banking via a checking account, or am I just unaware of other possibilities?
The older seniors who do not have checking accounts presumably do not have online banking either, of course. Part of my question is how do they manage? I'm having trouble imagining it.
And apart from the homeless, are there also younger people without checking accounts? Anybody out there? If so, how do you conduct your affairs?
I used to think that way then I worked at a bank. A certain segment of the population is just not capable running a checking account. I had one Hispanic kid I opened account for who would see his whole check eaten up by overdraft fees. At one point I suggested to close the account, he did.
Then you have folks with outstanding child support orders or other legal garnishments they are trying to evade.
I used to think that way then I worked at a bank. A certain segment of the population is just not capable running a checking account. I had one Hispanic kid I opened account for who would see his whole check eaten up by overdraft fees. At one point I suggested to close the account, he did.
Then you have folks with outstanding child support orders or other legal garnishments they are trying to evade.
I had a customer that was just horrible with money. She had a savings account, and she paid herself first (YAY) but she told me once she had a checking account and the whole time she barely slept... she closed it after a month, the whole uncertainty of it made her crazy.
She'd bring her paycheck in and cash it. And then deposit so much in her savings. And then buy money orders one at a time. Took me a while, but I finally convinced her to give me her list of money orders. I could make them up all at once and then we could dole them out one at a time as was her preference, instead of chasing me back to the MO machine (This was WAY before we were all computered up) time after time after time.
And this wasn't a stupid woman. She could tear down an engine and rebuild it. She just didn't do money.
Thanks to Jade408 and to 20yrsinBranson for the book recommendations: "Nickel and Dimed" by Barbara Ehrenreich and "A Framework for Understanding Poverty" by Ruby Payne, respectively. Since I posted a few days ago, I have read the former and I'm about half way through the latter. Both are excellent.
Just in case others are also interested, Ehrenreich's book came out about 10 years ago but is still relevant. She went "undercover" and lived the life of a minimum wage earner in three jobs in three cities, actually paying for her food, housing and other expenses out of her earnings. Eye-opening.
By contrast, Payne's book is an academic treatise, but a very down-to-earth and sensible one. It focuses not so much on the financial aspects of poverty, but rather on the attitudes and the unwritten rules which determine how people in generational poverty set their priorities and conduct their lives. Sadly, many of these attitudes and unwritten rules guarantee that the poor will remain so. Practical strategies for schools to "unteach" these rules offer some hope.
It focuses not so much on the financial aspects of poverty, but rather on the attitudes and the unwritten rules which determine how people in generational poverty set their priorities and conduct their lives. Sadly, many of these attitudes and unwritten rules guarantee that the poor will remain so.
I haven't seen family cycles repeat in poverty, but I have seen it in abuse, and unfortunately no matter how long and hard to you talk, you can't convince people -- even when in their heads they agree with you.... and it's just an amazing miracle when the cycle breaks....
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Thanks for book recommendations
