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I've also read that it's mostly poor people that play the lottery. I don't think the wealthy or maybe even the middle class play too often.
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It can take a while to gain a good grasp on personal finance if you are starting from knowing hardly anything about personal finance.
Giving someone that is reckless with money millions of dollars and expecting a good outcome is like leaving a drug addict in alone in a room full of cocaine and expecting a good outcome.
I will admit to playing the lottery aka "idiot tax".
I met a kid who was a math whiz and had already graduated with an MBA yet had no idea how to effectively manage his money. My wife and I tried to help him but somehow the old teachings from his poor family took precedence in his decisions.
poor is a mental state as much as a financial one . if you think poor , you will be poor . as you all know by now , i grew up pretty poor in a nyc housing project . but i never thought poor . that led to a strong drive not to be poor and it made me act not to be poor .
so today we are retired with multiple 7 figures and my mission was fulfilled . those i still keep in contact with from my project days are still poor because they never stopped thinking poor .
This is remicennsnt of something I read in a self help financial book. Mind over matter basically. I remember being poor in my early 20's and wanting stuff, well, because I wanted it. Now I have it. I worked for it. I never once thought I'd never have it because I was poor.....
This may have been possible at some point in US history - for *some people* - but, it sure as hell is NOT TRUE NOW.
Poor people buy things such as Xbox, flat screen TVs, beer, clothes - or whatever you want to begrudge them - because they have to "make it through the night". The metaphoric "night" that is grinding poverty.
I am not a techy, showy person. Hell, I don't even have a smart phone, and I don't care. I don't smoke. I don't use drugs. But I can have empathy for poor people who need these things to carry them through the devastation of a life of poverty.
Ask yourself - would I trade my life for the life of a poor person? No way. I do not judge them.
It's Thanksgiving. I am very thankful for what I have.
Empathy is good to a point. But too much empathy leads to enabling.
I think politicians like to frame their message in a way that makes all welfare recipients look like lazy drug using people living off the government and taxpayer's dime when the reality is someone earning minimum wage and unable to feed their family on a meager income and forced to supplement with food stamps and suffer the scorn of people at the store.
No, I don't think anyone could save their way out of poverty unless they had a free place to live and no health issues.
Having said that I have seen with my own eyes poor people who make poor choices and mis-prioritize the little money they have. Folks living in slums driving around in fancy cars or wearing name brand clothing just so they can appear to have money among the poor people in their neighborhood.
You mentioned not being able to feed their families. One important question is why are poor people having kids when even college educated people with decent jobs are putting off having kids until they are in a decent financial situation?
Actually having kids is what qualifies people for most welfare or public assistance types programs.
If you are just simply a poor working single person it's not that easy to get help.
Unless you are disabled or elderly.
In that sense irresponsibility is rewarded.
I'm sorry..but your IQ has to be really low if you don't realize that you could make more money and gain more education if you don't have kids to take care of.
How about the fact that many poor people in poverty who suddenly come into a windfall like the lottery or an inheritance, blow through it faster then a kid with halloween candy.
A couple of my family members have been living in poverty most of their lives. One landed an awesome job making 6 figures easily. Meanwhile back home the other was busy spending as fast as it came in. Whoever was at her house when she needed cigarettes, well they got to go with her and get whatever they wanted, on her dime. Don't wanna cook dinner? Well lets just go drop $200 on dinner at a sit-down restaurant...things like this I don't understand. What is going on in the minds of people who have nothing, that spend like crazy when they suddenly have something? Is it the fact that all they can think about is what they've always wanted to do and can now do it? Does the fact that it will end ever come across their minds?
Then the awesome job ended. Back to square one they were. Had they used this great economic change in their lives to forward their financial agenda, they could have been living a better quality of life, but nope, they lived for the now, and spent money on things that made them happy now.
Poor people buy things such as Xbox, flat screen TVs, beer, clothes - or whatever you want to begrudge them - because they have to "make it through the night". The metaphoric "night" that is grinding poverty.
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Lol. Grinding poverty are the people who lived in the ditch outside my house's 10 foot spiked gate in Indonesia.
Not people with roofs, tvs, fridges, and cars (and the vast majority of "poverty-stricken" people have these).
The poor people feel like they have to have things because SOCIETY/MEDIA/ADVERTISING tells them that they are less than everyone else if they don't own them or their kids can't play with them, etc.
Think about it. I grew up upper middle class and NO ONE had a cell phone or big tv or tablet. Maybe a rich person had cable or one of those big screens. We took books out of the library, many folks had one car, clothes were hand-me-downs and kids shared rooms in families with same-sex siblings, and we ate out once a month for special.
30 years later that's now GRINDING poverty? I mean, are you serious right now?
So the planet came up with new toys and suddenly the whole world decides the MUST have them or they are less than or missing out. This in-your-face materialistic mentality is what wears a poor person down and makes them buy things.
People still do make it and I have seen it and seeing it again...
Mostly they are people that emigrate with a dream and everything they do is focused on making it... as a family with simple goals... to own a business and a home...
Most recent is a family I know from Cambodia... they arrived with nothing... father got a job as a dishwasher in a restaurant and soon his older kids were working there...
Twenty years and the family owns their own restaurant and I think every worker is family... two of the kids attend UC Berkeley and every weekend they are waiting tables and managing so their parents can have a night off...
My guess is living in America one can get by without being motivated...
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