Put yourself to the test: How long would you survive as a poor person? (illegal, healthcare)

[tamajane]

Originally Posted by andywire

I lived poor in my late teens and early 20's. It was easy enough then. All I had to do was not spend my money. I saved by having a roommate and making my meals from scratch using basic ingredients. But as my income grew, so did my appetite for convenience and the finer things in life. Going back would not be as easy, but I could manage. I can keep a beater car working, and do the work myself. No drinking craft beer. Eat more basic foods like rice and vegetables, while reducing meat consumption.


In many respects, I was better off when I was poor. I ate better, didn't work myself to exhaustion, exercised more (because it's free). As I acquired more wealth, my lifestyle changed, and not necessarily for the better. It's no surprise to me that Americans are so unhealthy. It's the lifestyle we live.

I do that stuff anyway. It seems what is considered poor now was considered normal when I was starting out and I'm used to being frugal so it's not that different. I never got caught up in consumerism or unnecessary debt so I'd be good at being poor by it's modern definition.

[Eeyore1954]

In todays job market I would get two jobs.
I would share housing costs with someone.
I would prepare inexpensive meals.
No movies, eating out etc.
That is what I did during the bad job market in the Carter years.

I do understand there are some who through no fault of their own are unable to do this because of young children and no spouse but I believe this is an outlier not the typical situation.

[Eeyore1954]

Originally Posted by Rachel976

Yup. And my dad it WITHOUT all these government programs. When he was growing up, they had no food stamps, subsidized housing, free lunches, and Medicaid. They lived in a cheap tenement, rented out what little space they had to a "boarder" to bring in cash, bought off pushcarts, and had heat from 6 pm to 10 pm only. He even walked to bring back the ice (for the icebox) with his little wagon because it was 5 cents to pick it up and 6 cents to have it delivered to the tenement. He got to keep the extra penny so he could buy a candy.

Now, poor people have subsidized, air-conditioned apartments, washers, color TVs, microwaves, smartphones, free lunches for their kids, free health care, food stamps, etc.

Sounds like my dad. At age 10 he was up at four to work with the milkman, In the summers the whole family (10 kids) picked fruits and vegetables in the California central valley, etc.

[ClaraC]

I volunteered with this group when they did a poverty simulation at the university for Social Work students.

It was in a huge auditorium and the students had to go from desk to desk - get bus tickets, go to the pawn shop, the medical clinic, WIC, etc.

The simulation lasts a few hours, and the students were fearful and exhausted by the end, although "surviving" and having extra money didn't affect their grade at the end - it was participation only.

The volunteers had to be harsh. Short their change, be "out" of bus passes when they came to buy some, etc.

I had to tell this one girl who had tears in her eyes, honey, this is only a simulation, you'll be back at your dorm in an hour.

[Rachel976]

Originally Posted by Eeyore1954

Sounds like my dad. At age 10 he was up at four to work with the milkman, In the summers the whole family (10 kids) picked fruits and vegetables in the California central valley, etc.

Yup. Sounds like your dad was "country poor" and my dad was "city poor." They got by the best they could, and nobody complained. (Given what was happening in Germant at the time, my grandparents were glad to be in America, poor as they were.)

[ClaraC]

Originally Posted by Rachel976

Yup. And my dad it WITHOUT all these government programs. When he was growing up, they had no food stamps, subsidized housing, free lunches, and Medicaid. They lived in a cheap tenement, rented out what little space they had to a "boarder" to bring in cash, bought off pushcarts, and had heat from 6 pm to 10 pm only. He even walked to bring back the ice (for the icebox) with his little wagon because it was 5 cents to pick it up and 6 cents to have it delivered to the tenement. He got to keep the extra penny so he could buy a candy.

Now, poor people have subsidized, air-conditioned apartments, washers, color TVs, microwaves, smartphones, free lunches for their kids, free health care, food stamps, etc.

This simulation makes it very clear that the government programs are a part of the problem.

Spending a great deal of time trying to get services that you never receive, or receive less than you were expecting, is a problem. The amount of time and energy put into receiving is a large burden on the person in poverty, where if he/she just got their things through other means or did without they may be better off.

[ClaraC]

So along these lines, a few years ago community leaders did this project where they lived as if they were on food stamps for two weeks, and had a small amount of expendable money to get a feel for what people in the community who are in poverty deal with.

It was interesting, and eye-opening, both for the participants and those reading the story in the media.

One man said it all came to a head for him when he realized he'd have to choose between toilet paper and coffee. Which is profound, really, until you realize he was referring to Starbucks coffee. It didn't seem to have even occurred to him to buy the cheapest coffee grounds and brew his own in a standard drip coffee maker.

A woman said her tip she could pass along to stretch dollars is 'do it yourself' peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Um. I didn't know, at the time, that the freezer section of the grocery store actually sells premade peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, which are more expensive than this novel 'do it yourself' kind she'd discovered.

The divide does seem very, very wide.

[1AngryTaxPayer]

Originally Posted by Oldhag1

They do not do that any longer. Schools highly discourage paying in cash, every student has a lunch number that they rattle off, and no one knows if that is tied to a free lunch account or one where your parents pay in to every so often. I suppose if you pay attention to who always brings their own lunch or who is told their account is low so they need more money put in, you’d know that particular student definitely isn’t on free lunch, but that’s it.

Here in S Cal if a % reach the threshold tax payers are on the hook for the entire school for meals, after school programs. The whole works. Many schools also feed their entire families even in the summer when it's recess.

[tamajane]

Originally Posted by ClaraC

So along these lines, a few years ago community leaders did this project where they lived as if they were on food stamps for two weeks, and had a small amount of expendable money to get a feel for what people in the community who are in poverty deal with.

It was interesting, and eye-opening, both for the participants and those reading the story in the media.

One man said it all came to a head for him when he realized he'd have to choose between toilet paper and coffee. Which is profound, really, until you realize he was referring to Starbucks coffee. It didn't seem to have even occurred to him to buy the cheapest coffee grounds and brew his own in a standard drip coffee maker.

A woman said her tip she could pass along to stretch dollars is 'do it yourself' peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Um. I didn't know, at the time, that the freezer section of the grocery store actually sells premade peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, which are more expensive than this novel 'do it yourself' kind she'd discovered.

The divide does seem very, very wide.

Hey hipsters let's learn a new skill, pb&j "crafting".

[Volobjectitarian]

The test only allowed me to have one job, so right off the bat, it's invalid. In my 20s and then my 30s, I had two separate periods of at least two years where I had either:

• 1 full time job, full time school (undergrad) and 1 part time job (and by full time, I mean my average credit hour load was 18, and one semester was 25, and that is not an exaggeration)
• 1 full time job, part time school and 2 part time jobs (and the two part time jobs were BOTH manual labor gigs)

There are 168 hours in a week, not 40. Ask me how I know.

That's the first mistake a lot of people make when either excusing their own situation or making excuses for someone else. They think the week only has 40 hours in it. They're wrong.

I have a colleague right now, this very minute who is 49 years old and just got divorced. She makes right at a 6 figure salary, but now that she is down a salary and has all three of her kids, she figured her spare time could be put to better use, so she took a part time gig setting up catered events on the weekend. Pays her around $100-125 per week, so nothing major, but it helps her from getting into her savings and she figures she'd be goofing off at that time anyway, and it isn't cutting into any of her mom_run_the_household time. This is a college degreed, senior analyst who is widely respected as one of the best in our company. But she figured she could make a few extra bucks on the side doing manual labor, so why not? When she told me, I said "good for you." I wasn't aghast at her situation or feeling sorry for her. She wants extra coin and she does extra work for it...so good for her.

In the above periods where I was working/schooling more than 80 hours per week, I was thinking the same thing. No big deal, so why not? I wanted extra coin in the near and long terms, so why not do extra work to get it? It's REMARKABLE how much money you can conjure up when you are willing to accept two things:

• There are 168 hours in a week
• You'll get all the sleep you need when you're dead.

Honestly think of how much time you spend lounging, watching TV, or otherwise goofing off. Now take just HALF that amount of time and pay yourself $8 an hour after taxes. Start adding it up for weekly, monthly and annual totals. Even dopey, easy peezy low wage jobs, if part of a 80+ hour work week, add up.