General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe 5 Stupidest Habits You Develop Growing Up Poor
http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-5-stupidest-habits-you-develop-growing-up-poor/Forget about fresh produce or fresh baked goods or fresh anything. Canned vegetables are as cheap as a gang tattoo, and every poor person I knew (including myself) had them as a staple of their diet. Fruit was the same way. Canned peaches could be split between three kids for half the cost of fresh ones, and at the end you had the extra surprise of pure, liquefied sugar to push you into full-blown hyperglycemia....
Every poor person I knew got a big check one time a year in the form of their tax return. They made just enough money to file taxes, and made little enough to claim "earned income credit," which is a tax credit that can dramatically boost your return. For my ex-wife and I, it meant getting around $5,000 at the end of January. And just like many poor people, we'd be broke within days of cashing that check, our living room sporting a new TV. Or we'd replace our old computers and all of our furniture. There's a reason many poor people blow through that money instead of saving it for future bills....
When a windfall check is dropped in your lap, you don't know how to handle it. Instead of thinking, "This will cover our rent and bills for half a year," you immediately jump to all the things you've been meaning to get, but couldn't afford on your regular income. If you don't buy it right now, you know that the money will slowly bleed away to everyday life over the course of the next few months, leaving you with nothing to show for it. Don't misunderstand me here, it's never a "greed" thing. It's a panic thing. "We have to spend this before it disappears."
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)but I think that money isn't the only, or even main, form of help that poor people need. They also need advanced life skills. They need these skills more than people who have the margin for error that a better income can provide.
For instance, the ACA is a great benefit. It removes one of the major hazards that can throw families into crisis, but the poor people that I know personally find the need to go on a website to register for something to be mostly a big inconvenient, confusing and dubious pain, even if it's free.
655351
(8 posts)Its long over due the bank accounts and assets of the rich are seized and redistributed evenly among those on the list of people receiving government assistance. Giving them 'life skills' is only insulting them because it reminds them that the rich have systematically denied them the means to achieve under the Capitalist economy.
nolabear
(41,960 posts)And how is that not wrong?
valerief
(53,235 posts)655351
(8 posts)Its not like we'll be taking from the innocent after all; wealth is a sin and sins must be repented.
Skittles
(153,150 posts)nope, not at all
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)About those famous Skittles ass-kickin's…
Skittles
(153,150 posts)it would be like beating on a child 
BlueJazz
(25,348 posts)Skittles
(153,150 posts)YEE HAW!!!
BlueJazz
(25,348 posts)I'm not suspicious enough...people tell me.
Skittles
(153,150 posts)
nolabear
(41,960 posts)What, 13? 17? Paid?
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)that the likelihood of a low count poster being a troll is directly proportional to how many numbers are in their handle?
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)
murielm99
(30,736 posts)before turning him loose on us.
He needs to be taught life skills, that is Internet life skills.
Skittles
(153,150 posts)they get their RIDICULOUS concept of liberalism from assholes like O'Reilly and Palin so they sound sound just as stupid as their dittomasters
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)lol
BlueJazz
(25,348 posts)...deserves no respect or consideration regarding the outcome of the person holding the wealth.
If the hive is to survive the people must enforce the rule that the hive should enforce and punish those that do not support the hive.
Fla_Democrat
(2,547 posts)but, last I checked.. so is Envy. 
nolabear
(41,960 posts)
Hekate
(90,660 posts)
magical thyme
(14,881 posts)duffyduff
(3,251 posts)force. It's not easy to do it when you are close to 60 years of age.
And yes, being poor these days has little to do with personal initiative or "lacking life skills," whatever that insulting term means.
We have Washington politicians hellbent on making almost everybody poor because of ideology and being puppets of the billionaire class.
aristocles
(594 posts)Boudica the Lyoness
(2,899 posts)I came here 40 years ago, alone, no family in North America and with a ninth grade education. I worked my arse off and did very well...nobody told me I wasn't allowed to. As for taking the bank accounts of the rich and giving them to the people on public assistance....I find that extremely offensive.
Hekate
(90,660 posts)Gooooood grief
Sirveri
(4,517 posts)Cooking, hire a chef.
Cleaning, hire a maid.
Taxes, hire an accountant.
Running the assembly line, hire a foreman and work crew.
Running the office, hire an office manager and clerks.
In trouble, hire a politician, or call daddy, or call friends/contacts.
Do any real work, call someone else!
reflection
(6,286 posts)Apparently everyone except 4 jurors can see right through you.
IronLionZion
(45,433 posts)Why post outrageous things that you think your political opponents believe even though it is obviously more extreme than anything the real forum members would ever post? It proves the forum members are more reasonable than you claim they are and discredits your side.
Do you really believe if I oppose your ridiculous assertions then you'll convince me to go vote for your party instead? Who do you think you're kidding?
AAO
(3,300 posts)
ElboRuum
(4,717 posts)An open-faced troll sandwich with a slice of pizza. Delicious.
Tigress DEM
(7,887 posts)Maybe that can be provided without a simple exchange of funds. Maybe people could get into a program that teaches them not only life skills, but green skills that will move the economy forward in a healthier direction for all of us. For their efforts and participation they get basic needs met. Extra effort for things you "want" and a plan to save up to get OUT of poverty.
We still need to CHANGE the system, but simply redistributing wealth isn't going to teach anyone something they can pass on to successive generations. Though it would feel good to see some of them try to live on what most poor people do these days.
We need to repair the social fabric for the bottom 99% as well so we can come together to make the needed changes.
But teaching "Life Skills" that are about more than survival IS necessary because people deserve to do MORE than just survive. They deserve to LIVE like free and equal people, especially here in America of all places.
riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)Canned veggies ARE cheaper.
If you only have $3 to spend on tp you will only be able to afford the three pack and not the cost saving of the 6pack.
Poor people don't go to the theatre or ballet or concerts so that 52 in teevee IS their family/social event. So when they get the windfall they choose the crap on teevee rather than two nights at the symphony.
Honestly in a lot of ways I agree with you but your dream runs smack into the harsh reality of too little $. Period.
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)As the author so deftly explains, the psychology of scarcity sabotages every windfall which comes their way. He describes a family dynamic in which earned income credit tax refunds could arrive in the mailbox twice a year or more and still have the same lack of effect. "Spend it before it disappears!"
If this years EITC hadn't been exchanged for a 52" tv, there would be the extra $2 to buy the 6 pack of TP.
I don't discount his statement that poor people manage money poorly because they lack practice. I'm suggesting that there are other ways than unsupervised trial and error to get that practice.
I don't think you can fix poverty without fixing the psychology and skill deficit that the poverty has caused.
I thought this time slideshow of one-weeks-food was a real eye opener.
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)to get the EIC in advance every two weeks with your paycheck.
It's hard for me to think of those people as poor, since they made as much as I did, but it seemed to me that I knew people who got paid on Friday, and then had no money by next Tuesday.
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)But when you have a middle class level of income, there's a buffer between those bad choices and hunger.
I didn't know about the EIC advance. How would that work? The families described in the OP would be unlikely to have any federal income tax withheld. There's no way to have federal income tax anticipated refund injected into a paycheck is there?
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)that they got rid of that program in 2010. http://taxes.about.com/b/2010/08/16/saying-farewell-to-the-advance-earned-income-credit.htm
So I guess it does NOT work any more.
Half-Century Man
(5,279 posts)So the forced upward redistribution of wealth started by Ronald Reagan and accelerated by every president since was caused by the victims poor life skills?
All of the disappearing middle class was because the new poor formed multinational corporations and outsourced their own jobs?
May you never have to face the .....interesting take, you have on poverty.
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)
Blanks
(4,835 posts)I actually kind of agree with you. When I was young my dad took his tools to the pawn shop and then on payday - he went and got them back.
It shouldn't take life skills training to see how that was stupid, but some kind of education couldn't have hurt. Very often poor people borrow money and then they have to pay back a lot more when they have it (bounced checks, payday loans etc).
They need to learn how to hold out for a couple of days. I've been pretty broke myself for long periods of time, but when push came to shove - I'd sell everything I owned rather than borrow a cent to get me to payday.
I don't think a lot of poor people realize the cost that comes with this borrowing.
My old man pawned his tools for a night on the town, not to pay bills.
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)... but to me the key was to grok the distinction between "money" and "wealth" (or between income and assets, if you prefer).
Income doesn't mean jack. Only net worth matters.
A decent car is both a tool to get to work, as well as a financial asset. Other than that, it has no real value. I bought the car I drive (91 Subaru Loyale) for $200, towed it home, repaired it and put $500 worth of tires on.
It's a reliable asset. My wife's friends laugh at me because it doesn't befit my station in life. Like I give a shit. All up, it costs me about 18 cents per mile to drive it and when I sell it (or scrap it - it does have 270,000 miles on it after all) I'll recoup my investment. This compares favorably to my neighbor's new Dodge truck at 55 cents+ per mile, or even a new Prius at 46 cents per mile.
Want a better TV? A bike? A video game? Fine. Craigslist, not Walmart.
Insurance, interest, rent and services are all waste. Minimize all of them. No one has your financial interests at heart except you, so do it yourself. Taxes, investing, repairing, learning; you gotta do it yourself so get curious.
I don't want to belabor this point, but I confess to being a bit militant about personal independence because the east LA projects aren't acceptable for 5 year olds. Helpless victimhood isn't good enough. Explanations of why people make stupid choices isn't good enough. They need the knowledge/tools/kick in the ass to encourage better choices.
The one immediate thing I'd recommend is to go to the library and check out "your money or your life" by Vicki Robin.
Tigress DEM
(7,887 posts)Kind of like a personal trainer who pushes people to their limits and just a bit more. A coach who makes people drop and give me 20 just for discipline. IN the present culture of despair, though, it takes a bit of zen as well to make the changes without breaking someone's fighting spirit.
What you did with your car is cool. I'd like to see everyone in my program convert to electric cars or public transportation for day to day stuff and if they want to keep their other cars, have them overhauled by schools to be in top running condition because another thing that keeps poor people poor is cars breaking down at the worst possible moment and sucking up limited resources on repair bills.
KNOWLEDGE IS THE POWER that gets a person out of the victim mentality. When I tell you the system is rigged against poor people, I'm not saying that it's a valid excuse to remain poor. I'm saying it is a fact and there needs to be a working system to get the job done for the huge group we are now dealing with who are either poor, working class poor or just hanging onto middle class by the skin of their teeth.
If I had not met my current husband, I could still be working 3 jobs and be stuck in the poverty trap. It wasn't just his financial stability, that got me out either. We didn't get married until I was already financially able to support myself and son. It was his belief in me and my intelligence that caused me to take a career path turn and go into computer support. I don't have a degree, but at first level, customer service skills and basic trouble shooting mean more. After all these years I still don't have any degree, but I my first call resolution is the highest in my group.
My husband is also involved with the Maker community who share tools and resources to remake and re-purpose things and in generally just have fun learning "New-Old" skills. There are folks in his group who make medieval armor, make glass crafts, teach welding classes, make their own wooden furniture and techies who like to get in on the newest trends and push them even farther. (That's him.)
So although there still are good tools "in the box" some of the best and fastest ways to alleviate poverty will be found outside that box, even if it leads right back to the box eventually. Know what I mean? Get unstuck from the mentality that poverty is too big to solve by shaking things up quite a bit.
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)You need to retrain your eye, so you’re not looking at a thing as to what it is, what it’s branded, what it’s originally intended for. What you’re looking at is what it is at the core, and once you start looking at things for what they really, really are, you have the power to completely remake the world.
http://hackaday.com/2013/09/22/hacketts-tripod-and-some-advice-on-abstraction/#more-103527
A little off-topic for this thread, but improvisation is another useful
I see Hacketts philosophy in a broader sense - sure, a steel caster could be repurposed as a pan-tilt device. But what about money? Debt? Assets? Work? What are they fundamentally? Vicki Robin defines money as the medium with which we exchange hours of our life for goods and services. If I make $10/hour of which $4.00 is overhead (costs to service the job e.g. commuting expenses) then I'm selling, not renting, the hours of my life for $6 each. When you look at your credit card statement and see that you sold 4 hours of your life this month for an interest payment, it helps bring the choices into focus.
I see where you're going with your last paragraph and I agree. I'm sure there are a variety of ways to get people out of the mentality - all of which deserve a shot. I apologize for my flippant response downthread.
YarnAddict
(1,850 posts)I heard a lecture by her once, and it was fascinating. Her audience was made up of people in the "helping professions"--teachers, social workers, etc., and the gist of the message is that people in poverty need a mentor to achieve transition to the middle class. They need to learn the "hidden rules of the middle class." Things most of us take for granted, like showing up ON TIME for a job, or calling in if your are sick. For most of us, that is just common sense, but to many people in poverty, they just don't know that's how it's done.
In explaining the culture of poverty to us, who were mostly middle class, she compared the things we understand about middle class life to the "hidden rules of the upper class." When presented that way, it was obvious that most of us wouldn't have a clue about how to function among the upper class.
She gave an example of taking a casserole to her husband's colleague, who was ill or had suffered a loss. This is someething that most of us would have done. Unfortunately, it isn't something that is done among those in the upper class. The recipient looked down her nose at it and Ruby felt uncomfortable at her reaction.
Check it out: http://www.ahaprocess.com/who-we-are/dr-ruby-payne/
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)I work with people with marginalized populations as a day job, and what is apparent to middle class people is not apparent to everyone.
YarnAddict
(1,850 posts)but I sort of expect to get attacked by someone who is going to get righteously indignant.
BrotherIvan
(9,126 posts)I worked in a very economically challenged neighborhood as a high school teacher. The teachers were the only college graduates and middle income people many of the students interacted with regularly (that and their PO officer). The majority had immigrant parents who had not gone past 5th grade. The most successful teacher and role model was a 30 year-old family man who taught math who was from this neighborhood. The students could relate to his stories and just hung out after class to be near him as he offered tutoring and basically talk sessions. I also had many students who I couldn't get rid of at lunch or after school.
I was always shocked at what they didn't know: how to fill out a form, including a job application. How to read a public transportation map and plan your route. I could list a million things. It eventually got so that their parents were bringing in legal forms or medical forms for help. While I protested, they were so sad and desperate, I tried to help by merely translating the meaning and giving them instructions. They did not know about many programs that could help, such as Medicaid, food stamps, I even helped one widow sign up for VA benefits her husband should have been getting for 25 years.
And because they did not have the same life lessons that middle class people and more educated people take for granted, they were often taken advantage of. Sleazy employers would steal from their paychecks or not pay the hours and overtime they were owed. Landlords would cheat them or refuse to keep the apartment up to basic code. Mechanics overcharging them on bills they couldn't read. I realized how much these people were in desperate need of help and education. But when you're working three jobs and barely getting by, how can you take the hour trip into the city center to get these services?
It often seemed like the plan to educate as many people from economically disadvantaged areas and then subsidize them to move back to these areas is the way to go. I have often heard of this on Native American reservations. The community needs mentors that helps everyone, that provide role models for the kids, that think like a wealthier person. I do believe that would really help because most of these parents were very proud. They wanted to take care of their children and provide a good life for them. They didn't want handouts and often they were too ashamed to ask for help. But they did need assistance to deal with more complicated things and someone to be their advocate.
LuckyLib
(6,819 posts)Google and read the host of critical perspectives on Payne that are enlightening, for example:
http://www.tehamaschools.org/files/iss50/ResearchonRubyPayne.pdf
http://rubypayneiswrong.blogspot.com/p/scholarship-debunking-payne.html
YarnAddict
(1,850 posts)Seriously, I'd like to know. I have bookmarked the links you provided, and will read when I have a little more time.
There is a big difference between generational and situational poverty. There is something to be said for the habits that successful people develop, and a lot of those habits have no prerequisite of having money.
Payne's explanations of class differences make a lot of sense to me, for a lot of reasons. Even if you don't buy the whole thing, there are differences in mindset between people in generational poverty and those of us in the middle class. Our priorities are different. I have seen this with my own parents--lower middle class--and those of my husband's family which was somewhat better off.
LuckyLib
(6,819 posts)Having prepared teachers for decades and also attended Payne's sessions, it is clear that many teachers take comfort in explanations that see poverty and struggle as endemic, cultural, generational, and self-imposed. In that way, they are absolved of examining the systemic social and economic (and historical) factors that have impacted both individual and community progress and achievement.
To the extent that teachers become aware of their own privilege (e.g., work by Peggy McIntosh) and understand the hidden dimensions of culture that schools expect children to have as they enter the building, staff development can hope to open educators' eyes to the complexity of poverty. Understanding the part that all of us play is important. But I don't think Ruby Payne is the way to go. Hundreds of school districts have thrown valuable staff development money at these sessions (and are required to purchase a book for every teacher attending) ignoring what is known to be important in staff development that can have real impact on teachers beliefs, attitudes, and practice. Administrators check the box "poverty session" and move on.
Another interesting article by Paul Tough shows what some researchers have found to be important steps toward giving children, parents, and communities the tools they need to navigate the information age:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/magazine/07wwln-lede-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)... and fixing the problem in the classroom.
My math teacher was pretty good at math. Some of my fellow students were not. Acknowledging the position of relative math skill privilege that the teacher held didn't make any material difference in the need to teach.
I don't get the defeatism. I don't think it makes much difference where the "bad habits" came from, but I do think it is important to recognize, identify and fix them.
Yes, I suppose there is some comfort in a soluble problem. If they aren't then why bother trying?
YarnAddict
(1,850 posts)Knowing the social, economic, and historical roots of poverty doesn't do much to help any individual get out of poverty. Helping them to develop habits like setting an alarm and getting up when it goes off, eating a healthy breakfast, getting to school on time, etc. and understanding that those skills are also important in the working world, absolutely can help a person to overcome.
magical thyme
(14,881 posts)backed up by any data or research.
Looks to me like she cashed in big on the No Child Left Behind Act.
YarnAddict
(1,850 posts)anecdotal, but I think it actually pre-date NCLB.
For me, it put everything into perspective. Generational poverty is a problem that can't be solved by throwing money at people; it will take much more than that. I have worked with an organization that attempted to provide ecucation--parenting classes, personal finance classes, cooking classes, etc. That was helpful, but only in a limited way.
magical thyme
(14,881 posts)that lead to analysis of her claims, along with perusing her website. I've seen those types of sites before.
Igel
(35,300 posts)The result has been this is a general ed class that a lot of kids take.
In some cases having the kids of parents making $400k/year take such a class is worthwhile. They have the same problem: They see no need for saving.
But the OP leaves unanswered the question: Did they go nowhere else during the month, whether to friends, family, or work? I seldom make a separate run for the grocery store. Usually I pass one, whether heading north or south, and stop en route to someplace else.
Then again, the closest food store to where I live is only about 5 1/2 miles away. If I lived in the middle of nowhere, a rural area, it might be much farther away.
LWolf
(46,179 posts)The ACA is not a "great benefit." One of the first things we'd do, if we really wanted to eradicate poverty, would be to institute a universal, nationalized health CARE program, paid for entirely by taxes and free at point of service. The absence of premiums, copays, deductibles, and gatekeepers deciding what, when, and how often would go a long way to narrowing the economic gaps.
Then we'd look at the job market; get rid of fucking "free" trade and outsourcing, stop engaging in global military actions that use up so much $$, ensure a TRULY living wage for 30 hours a week, do a better job regulating hours and working conditions, and guarantee every single person who wanted a job a job by investing in domestic infrastructure.
Then we'd expand Social Security.
We'd provide day care to every working family. We'd provide universal, free, fully public education pre-school through university or trade school.
We would have active community centers that connected people to everything they needed.
And finally, we'd provide a guaranteed minimum income to make sure that every person could afford clean, safe shelter, utilities, and food.
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)The people I'm talking about are actually poor, i.e. "qualify for Medicaid poor", not "here in the Bay Area, 350% of FPL isn't very much" poor.
Their checkups, birth control and chronic care are now free. You are out of touch if you don't think that these things are actually beneficial in a practical sense to people at 133% of FPL.
LWolf
(46,179 posts)That's a benefit for a very few.
Don't lecture me about what is, or isn't, "poor." I know poor, and qualifying for medicaid is not the only marker. Medicaid is not "free," although it's certainly close, and better than private, for-profit insurance, which is what most of the rest of the population, including the rest of the poor, are dealing with. Or not.
Out of touch? No, I'm out of regular care, even though I've had insurance my entire life. Having insurance doesn't mean one can afford care.
Out of touch? Out of touch is thinking that you can limit the definition of "actually poor" to those who qualify for medicaid. May you never have to learn better through hard experience.
Prophet 451
(9,796 posts)People are not poor because they lack life skills, moral fibre, bootstraps or any of the other ridiculous excuses to blame the poor for their plight. People are poor because the capitalist system is designed to produce winners and losers, requires a certain percentage of unemployment to keep wages down, pretty much everyone is now on minimum wage and the minimum wage is contemptible.
uppityperson
(115,677 posts)
enki23
(7,787 posts)...that I'll be able to finish if I can manage to get the fucking energy and time to do it. The energy, mental acuity, free time, and the money to buy them. All of these things are truly fucking hard to find when you are constantly flat broke trying (badly) to help put your partner through nursing school so that there can be at least one actually reliable source of income in the family one day. All this is because a very serious, very applied, high achievement* education in an area of hard science can be worth fucking jack shit in this economy, particularly if it took too long due to advisers lighting out for the territories partway through and funding collapsing repeatedly throughout.
You know what poor people actually don't have much of, but affluent people imagine they have *tons* of? Time. We have no fucking time, and everyone imagines we have nothing but. For example, I can't afford to take "welfare," even though we easily qualify for it. Our welfare requires us to drive a two-hour round trip to learn how to make fucking resumes in Microsoft fucking Office for thirty hours a week, at least three weeks a month, for about two-hundred dollars a month. Welfare is far too expensive for any but the most completely fucked.
I know you probably mean well. But please, I beg you. Consider the reality of this world before blatantly patronizing the millions of people like *me* with the "life skills" shit. It's certainly not like the myriad of trips to fill out and update paperwork to apply for every little pittance of aid doesn't require you to be surrounded with another set of bullshit about "life skills". Right now, I have some handouts here from some state agency, under some of my pharmacokinetic modeling notes, on the awesome benefits of a "healthy marriage." That's nice of them. I seriously wouldn't have thought much about that without their help.
At least, I must admit, some of the people who've had to run through the spiel with me had the decency to look embarrassed about it. Most didn't, though. Most of the paperwork pushers I have to deal with are so much fucking dumber than I am that they can't work up enough cognitive momentum, or basic decency, to lay off their reflex condescension.
But hey. Yay America. We have everything but "life skills." (Oh, I don't just work as an adjunct. I also work as a sometimes-machinist on the side for ten bucks an hour, which does wonders for one's publication schedule and mental fucking energy, lemme tell you.)
[font size=1]*(Well, I got a B once, in advanced grad level biochemistry because I took a test two days after my son was born and missed four lectures on remedial electron pushing and tried to cram it all in a few hours on no sleep whatsoever. But I passed my written and oral prelims with nothing but flying colors and rave reviews, with a committee containing a former president of my discipline's main professional organization, a top scientist at one of the largest chemical firms in the world, and one of the top government researchers in my particular area or research. But it's my fault. I couldn't take that full scholarship to MIT when I was an undergrad that would have opened so many doors for me, because it didn't come with a living stipend. So it makes sense that I'm fucking broke, and fucking fucked. Because this is a meritocracy. I just didn't have the fucking "life skills."
[/font]
Tigress DEM
(7,887 posts)The whole playing field has been detonated with more ready to blow, especially for scientists. People used to have a lot of respect for science, not so much any more.
WE need new solutions and part of that is to recognize the skill sets people already have and enhance them, get them support to pursue them without the whole "judgement clause" attached.
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)It's an investment like any other.
The world won't necessarily conform to reward us for our choices.
Working as a machinist sounds like the only profitable thing you are currently selling your life hours for. For that reason, perhaps you should give it a little more respect. Maybe the work isn't getting in the way of the publication schedule but the reverse.
Dispassionate evaluation is also an important life skill.
enki23
(7,787 posts)No need to belabor it. I have to say, though, I think you could use some life skills.
dem in texas
(2,674 posts)If people don't have a computer or don't feel comfortable using one, they can get the navigator to walk them through the application process if they can find where the navigators are setting up shop. It is big secret here in Texas, no well advertised locally.
There should more neighborhood navigators to help people with other things too. I have a disabled and autistic nephew who we have tried to get assistance. We have to get him in in a car, drive in across town to a large building that is hard to get him into, then wait 3 or 4 hours to see a case worker. Then we have to go back, or go someplace else, it all involves getting him in a car and then in a building, always across town. Why couldn't there be someone in the neighborhood to help him or why couldn't he conduct most of his business on the phone. You can sign up for social security on the phone. He is lucky that he has us to drive him, many people in his shoes do not have any transportation to go to the places that they have to go to get qualified or get help.
It would be a good project for the rich white churches to have teams to help people with all the paper work and qualifying they have to do in order to get some of the benefits. But most of these people would rather deliver a frozen turkey on Thanksgiving or go down to Mexico and put a roof on a house and pat themselves on the back. Forget the poor people who live in their neighborhood and need a little help year round.
Being poor is hard, it is degrading, everything little problem becomes a big obstacle or a hurdle to have to get over. Many of the poor are disabled or it is too late for them to acquire the life skills you talk about. Sorry I rambled on so much. But looking after my nephew whose parents are both deceased has been a real eye opener for me about what poor people have to deal with.
tech3149
(4,452 posts)It is and has never been easy being poor. I think the OP said it pretty well that every decision you make has a life and death consequence, just might not be today.
People like you and me with an internet connection should honor the skills it takes to survive being poor and learn from that and use our privilege to multiply those assets.
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)It was a list of self described bad habits that, although understandable, perpetuate intergenerational poverty.
"Doesn't that suck! Oh well what are you gonna do?" Isn't my style. The op was a problem statement and I'm the only one seriously suggesting a solution.
I know for a first person fact that it can be changed.
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)have skills in serving people a hamburger or squirting bug spray around peoples' houses?
What skills are you talking about that people need and in what industries?
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)The "life skill" that when you get a check for $5000 in January 30th, you should still have some of it on February 1st. To people with "stupid habits" like the author, doubling the EITC would have no practical benefit. Without dealing with the underlying psychology and skills deficit, it would be impractical to shovel enough money at the problem.
The author uses the example of the penniless lottery winner.
Once You Escape ...
Have you heard those stories about lottery winners who are bankrupt within a year or two, despite winning millions? That's because they can't turn that off. They can't shake the idea that the money is perishable.
And I'm not going to lie, if I had an unexpected check show up right now, I'd drop all of that fucker right into a new car and a computer for my kids. But for the most part, I've kept my head clear where those rare pockets of money are involved. My truck broke down last week, and for the first time, I was able to get it fixed without having to call my friends for a loan. The reason is because I've learned to manage that money a little better and not spend it in a blind panic when I fall into some.
The mythology surrounding "the poor" from both right (they are poor and should be ashamed because they are morally deficient) and the left (they are helpless pawns in their own lives and have no agency over their own spending habits and choices) are equally destructive. In fact, I'd suggest that at least some poor people have probably been inspired to improve their circumstances through shaming in a way that rationalizing and excusing has not.
One_Life_To_Give
(6,036 posts)The generations that lived thru the great depression learned something that goes beyond just learning how to save. There is a fundamental discipline that came from expecting that this might be the last food, money whatever you might get until who knows when. That was passed for a few generations but quickly lost. Except now in the great recession we see it's revival.
Seems to me it's a continuation of the 7yrs feast vs 7 yrs famine. So it would seem to have been in our nature for thousands of years. A lesson we frequently relearn the hard way.
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)People in the depression had fewer resources and fewer choices. They didn't have to choose between the fresh vegetables and the hungry man entree, or between the kids clothes and the phone bill.
They bought beans and rice, because that's what they had to do.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)Here, I'll help since you couldn't find it the first time:
Your "life skills class" isn't practice.
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)Why? Because the drivers ed car had a brake pedal for the instructor's use. I'm sure it was an insulting and demeaning infringement on my personal sense of autonomy at the time, but somehow I don't remember it that way.
If your income is high enough, you can afford to make all the "life skills" mistakes and learn through trial and error. The author flat-out says that windfalls all create the same response: spend it before it evaporates. That reflects an absence of life skill and there's little reason to suppose that doubling the size or frequency of his financial windfalls would mitigate that.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-lottery-winners-go-bankrupt-1301002181742
Big lottery winners, defined by the researchers as those awarded between $50,000 and $150,000, were half as likely as small lottery winners to go bankrupt within two years of their score but just as likely to go bankrupt three to five years after. "The results show that giving $50,000 to $150,000 to people only postpones bankruptcy," the authors concluded.
Perhaps most shocking, the typical big winner in the sample was awarded a prize of $65,000, while the most financially distressed ones had unsecured debt of $49,000. In other words, the cash was more than enough to pay off everything most winners owed.
The researchers offer a few theories on why so many winners went bust. Prior research has shown that lottery players have below-average incomes and education; it's no great leap to assume they tend to have limited financial literacy (even compared with a general population that has been shown to sorely lack it). Winners might also engage in something behavioral economists call mental accounting by treating their winnings less cautiously than they would their earnings. Of course, winners might simply "develop a taste for luxury goods that outlasts their money," the researchers write.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)Along with a learner's permit that requires a licensed driver to supervise you.
You are pretending that the poor are morons who just don't know that they should save money. This is false. The article says it's false. Everyone in this thread who is talking about their "life skills" are saying it's false - they refer to the practice they got.
People who aren't poor get practice because they can afford to screw up. And you cite them as examples of proper behavior, ignoring the practice.
But clinging to this does let you call the poor morons.
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)That's exactly what I said. Unfortunately, it's impractical to throw enough public money at people until they've exhausted all the possible avenues for screwing up.
At some point, you'd think that all the crashed cars would inspire someone to put instructors in the car.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)That's why we invented learner's permits.
Why must it be public money?
Raise the minimum wage. Suddenly, the poor have a bit more of a buffer to work with. As an added bonus, it's a massive boost to the economy.
But again, your proposal relies on the poor being idiots. I'm really not sure why you enjoy calling the poor idiots so much.
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)jeff47
(26,549 posts)So.....are the poor just dumb and need a class, or does your proposal make absolutely no sense?
Pick one.
Marr
(20,317 posts)As for what "life skills" might constitute... that's a tough one. I was raised well below the poverty line myself, and I know exactly what single lesson would've benefited me most at an early age: an understanding of wealth vs. money. Money is just chits in an economy that can gain or lose value day by day. Wealth is assets, and it doesn't evaporate due to conditions you can't control.
Anyone who gets that is going to make reducing their debt and all rental arrangements their top priorities. Those things are designed to keep poor people powerless, imho.
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)I could tell stories, but the upshot is that I decided when I was pretty little that I wasn't going to live like that forever. And the key piece is not going to college or doing well in school or eating your vegetables.
The key is learning the difference between income and assets and the importance of turning the former into the latter.
Dash87
(3,220 posts)for a lifetime. What you're saying makes perfect sense.
Here's where the Republicans are wrong: Welfare can be a holistic approach as well. You can throw a ladder into a hole to try and get someone out, but it's not worth a damn if they don't know how to climb. This is an area where the government can definitely help and currently ignores. Financial planning services that teach budgeting and wise spending could increase the worth of government money given out ten-fold.
There's also the issue of finding jobs - this is a problem that you didn't address in your post. What good are advanced life skills with no money to use? This is another area that fails in the feedback system that welfare is supposed to be (and why the Republican philosophy is so counter-productive). Sneering at the unemployed and creating an "unemployed underclass" is the worst thing you can ever do. You're creating leaks in the welfare feedback system, which bleed potential tax revenue out of the hands of the government. Has Washington forgotten what welfare is supposed to be?
Remember, "a chicken in every pot?" That's what we're supposed to be striving for - not just because it's the right thing to do, but because it has numerous benefits for the government (and our nation as a whole). Part of the issue is also that wages have not kept up with costs these days. Financial planning isn't always going to cut it when you can't afford anything anyways. We need to increase the minimum wage to a livable amount. Keeping people below poverty level is doing more damage than inflation could ever do. They end up generating even less revenue for the government.
You're also right that making things needlessly complex for people that are already frustrated can only lead to failure.
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)I have learned to expect, but still don't understand, the hostility to this patently obvious observation.
Personal financial acumen has ramifications in the workplace. If you spend the EITC refund on a TV and then one of your bald tires blows out the next day, your inability to get to work is going to affect your employment prospects.
Personally, I think the life skills should come first.
Dash87
(3,220 posts)Welfare, from a government standpoint, is a feedback system. It's an investment in you, much like a bank giving out money. The idea is that the recipient will take the investment and make something out of it. Logically, the purpose of this ranges from creating tax revenue to preventing a re-enactment of Les Misérables.
The issue now is that wages are so low, money is instantly put to use with no long term benefit. It can't be invested, used to create a small business, etc. because it is needed for essentials like medicine, food, water, etc. You can't teach someone to use their money wisely when they're already doing the most logical thing possible with their money: spending it on essentials. In return, this acts to create a resentful underclass and a hole they can't get out of.
Currently, wages and joblessness are the predominant issue. I think we both agree that personal financial acumen is a very useful skill, but there is no point if nobody has jobs and low wages make it impossible. Welfare can only be successful if the conditions are right in the first place.
maddiemom
(5,106 posts)be better yet.
Boxerfan
(2,533 posts)And its pretty accurate...
So many denials for the family when money is tight-like almost always-
So when the tax refund comes it is buy it now or loose it. And usually the crap is in need of replacing.
Because one key denominator was thrown away a long time ago-Build it to last.
And we did that well in America.
We need jobs of the menial high tech & every flavor in between.
Whoever decided America should be a economy based on "Shopping!" should be taken out back & summarily disposed of.
Bring back manufacturing & you need Tariff to make that work. Then people don't have to make these crummy decisions quiet so easily.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Now we have "free" trade and it is costing ordinary Americans their livelihoods. Trickle down? It's poverty that is trickling down. As those at the very top take more, those in what used to be the middle class get less, and those at the bottom get less and less. That's what happens when you have a large disparity between the incomes of the rich and everyone else.
I oppose "free" trade. We need to tax imports enough to make American manufacturing pay. That was a basic premise on which our country's "free" economy was based from the very beginning.
"Free" trade has made our economy profitable for the very rich who invest capital. It will eventually make slaves of the rest of us who invest our labor.
Warpy
(111,253 posts)so if they've been lusting over something, they do drop it all at once. The bill collectors, once appeased, don't stay away for long and a few weeks of no duns isn't nearly as good as whatever they've wanted for a long time but just couldn't afford. They also know that prices are going to keep going up, which is another thing driving the purchase.
What this article failed to address is food insecurity and what that does. Even now I tend to overbuy food and this is really a bad habit.
Bozvotros
(785 posts)If the state finds out that they have a few thousands in the bank they will cut off Medicaid or Food Stamps until they reach the spend down level permitted. There is absolutely no incentive to save money unless you can do it covertly. And that's risky. If you do squirrel it away and get caught with it or someone turns you in who is pissed at you, you will have to pay back your food stamps you took "illegally," and whatever medical bills the state paid that you could have paid with that money you used to buy a TV.
Capt. Obvious
(9,002 posts)Chances are one of your poor neighbors is going to come looking for it.
Break ins used to happen rather frequently during rebate time.
FarCenter
(19,429 posts)KamaAina
(78,249 posts)I always thought it was "until the Indian rode the buffalo".
Tigress DEM
(7,887 posts)They need a way to get honest credit, skills for a decent job and financial planning skills. They need training and jobs and kind of a forced savings plan. Like "goal getter accounts" or "Christmas accounts" but for serious things like 1 years worth of rent or car insurance for a year or an account for major ticket items like that fridge that is on it's last legs or a freezer that can help buy in bulk.
One thing we could do is use the money coming back from Banksters to buy up land and properties to form Commonwealth Properties whose sole use is to turn renting into equity, like a condo. Most middle class people hang onto their homes and they don't go under financially. Once that is gone, savings everything else can follow.
Update those properties with the labor of the participants, sweat equity, into Energy Free or as close to it as possible units with solar and wind turbine power being developed everywhere to end this problem of people who need energy assistance dying in frozen climes or desert ones. Training adults in new energy crafts that requires intelligence and ability to labor replacing a lot of the factory jobs we've lost.
Purchase large hotels with their many common rooms and parking ramps. Make those into community zones to train on clean energy platforms and even put in hydroponics or small dirt urban gardens with vines of tomato's and cucumbers scaling the main atrium up to each successive floor and the residents who live there harvest the food and use it for members in the commonwealth properties, selling some to the residents in the neighborhood and setting up vouchers for food shelf users to come and get some Fresh N Greens with their bags of cans and boxes.
People at many income levels can participate, but they have to engage in a high percentage of green behaviors to remain in the program and contribute their outside wages into a plan to get themselves out of poverty or out of crises and into a state where they have voucher specific monies available for a years worth of expenses and some rent equity to take with them whenever they leave the program.
Say someone's house was being foreclosed, they could apply to make their home a commonwealth property and the FED buys it up and rents it back to the homeowner, basically a refinance and gives them more ways to make the rent. Valuing sweat equity behavior in the range of $10 an hour people get paid to do what makes the world a better place and brings the cost of living in their home down in energy savings, availability of healthy food. Their own energy needs could be met and the energy put back into the grid to offset costs and be a source of some income.
The Commonwealth Resource sites could also have electric shuttles, little electric cars to rent and the solar panels and/or wind turbines to power them. Greenhouses growing fresh spices and veggies for the restaurant use and some dried or fresh off to the Commonwealth CoOp as well.
TheKentuckian
(25,023 posts)Tigress DEM
(7,887 posts)Am hoping to present this idea soon. Got a few pages to change on a 25 page presentation and some people to contact. Hopefully my cold will be gone by the time I'd be meeting someone.
BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)I hope you get it going. It's very exciting!
Feel better (I have a cold too. I'm just proud of myself for getting up and doing a few house chores! Nothing like developing a visionary plan to help people and the environment. )
Tigress DEM
(7,887 posts)Long time ago my idea was to do a non-profit niche to help creative types get out of poverty. All the training programs tend to produce jobs that are practical and boring. I wondered about a lot of cottage industry type employment that while still pretty labor intensive required creativity which for someone who is of that persuasion helps fuel the day.
Then things got worse and worse and every plan I had needed to be a bit bigger and address more needs because it wasn't just about helping the few that were marginalized in a slowly improving economy (Clinton years), it was about helping the bottom 80% who had become marginalized too.
My cold really does suck, but I went to work yesterday anyway. Always good to show up looking like death warmed over and still work circles around some of them. Course, I didn't have a fever and kept to myself trying not to breathe on anyone much. I need to bring Clorox wipes to clean up my workspace tomorrow.
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)If the refund is more than 10% of AGI, IRS would pay it out in monthly installments. I know that Wal-Mart and payday loan places would hate that.
Tigress DEM
(7,887 posts)It would still be the person's money being used for their own purchases, but it would be part of an overall plan.
You could still plan for a big screen TV etc, but it would come after the main living expenses had been covered in advance.
But with my plan there would be constant planning in advance to give hope for better times and real success. You could put kid's birthday present budgets and Christmas gifts into vouchers, back to school expenses. But the idea would be to envision the future and put down the do-re-me in advance for it while living in a program where you're working on learning advanced Green technologies and contributing to the community's well being also.
gristy
(10,667 posts)
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)Rudimentary money management isn't rocket science. Utopian green social engineering is an entirely different issue and combining the two dooms both to failure.
Teaching people organic rooftop gardening and wind power generation is outside the immediate skillset required for people who are intimidated by the idea of cooking broccoli or refuse to cook "because it attracts roaches".
Money management requires discipline. If the $5000 check you got on January 30th is gone on February 1st... every year... then your choices are part of the problem, and continuing to pretend that they're not is a harmful self-delusion.
xulamaude
(847 posts)she said that if you had a stovetop and pots and other cooking tools in a weekly motel (many do not allow hot plates and the like just like dorms at colleges) and that if you were too tired (from work and being pregnant) to clean up afterwards that the dirty dishes could attract "bugs" which could be unhealthy.
Just clarifying her situation and her reasoning behind being "intimidated" by broccoli and "refusing to cook".
Tigress DEM
(7,887 posts)Money management alone with the present broken system just isn't enough, but you are right it is needed. That is why my suggested system uses vouchers and basically people don't see their checks, only the path they are making our of poverty with that money. They wouldn't get that $5000 back in cash, it would be directed back toward goal setting accounts tallying up a years worth of vouchers to cover living expenses, so they don't fall back into the poverty trap.
What isn't needed is blaming the poor for being poor. Sure they make mistakes, but so do billionaires and middle class folk - they just have a bit more leeway. You also have no idea of how difficult it is to get out of poverty these days.
People doing hard physical labor 40 hours a week and still not making enough to put a roof over their head and food on the table buy a big screen TV because that is their entertainment budget for years to come. AND if they don't spend that money before the next evaluation cycle any assistance they have is cut to compensate it so they don't have it anyway.
It's going to take a change on the scale of the New Deal to make anything work. People need to believe there REALLY IS A WAY OUT. Because right now, IF you aren't in the top 20%, then the slice of America's wealth available in the present system isn't enough for 80% of the people to make ends meet anyway.
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
Why combine it with solar and wind technologies? First reason is very practical. If we can eliminate their energy costs, then that is one less thing to pay for with limited cash. And if you take any of this global warming shit seriously, then we really need to go green in the next 30 years or so or die of fossil fuel addiction. So use the extensive resource of poor people needing to work and earn to flip our economy over into a different lifestyle. Americans thrive on a challenge when they are given a way to work together to meet it.
Why go urban garden? Again, practical reason, poor people have the worst diet choices on the planet if they can't get fresh food and even someone like me who hates to cook, will eat fresh veggies and fruit if they are available and affordable. I earn a good enough wage that that is the case but when I've gardened it's been even more rewarding. Fresh spices makes cooking more worthwhile too. I do cook sometimes.
Why do the whole communal resource deal? Obviously economy of scale aids purchasing power without having to deal with the Wal-Marts of the world and the ability to share resources without each person having to go out and purchase them is an advantage too.
ALSO because when people need to make big changes sometimes a bit of "base camp" mentality where everyone is looking at the summit trying to plan how to get there creates an energy to get the job done. AND people with different skill sets can meet and barter. Hate to cook? Well Joan hates to wash dishes, show up at her place, bring veggies, share a meal and pay for it by cleaning up the mess. Hate to drive? Well Bob has the electric shuttle in an hour or so and you can ride with him and help load a bunch of supplies he's picking up.
I'm looking at changing a large segment of the population from a consumer mentality to a saving and planning mentality. That takes a lot of structure. It isn't rocket science, but it does require some sort of mission control to keep it on track.
duffyduff
(3,251 posts)about the worsening economic situation in this country. Nobody will do it because they WANT everybody to be poor.
There aren't enough jobs for everybody who needs them. You can talk all you want about "skills" but what's the point if nobody will hire you?
Blue_In_AK
(46,436 posts)...using my index finger to wipe all the egg whites out of the shell. I still do that to this day.
I was paycheck to paycheck for a great part of my life, so these old habits that they talk about in this article really ring a bell.
and I learned how to can from my grandmother. My sister can't cook a thing (she had dusty pots when I went to cook Thanksgiving dinner at her house). She and her entire family have weight problems because they eat from McDonald's all of the time. She shocked me when she actually learned how to cook scrambled eggs. That was a significant achievement for her and her family.
Complain about people eating canned vegetables all that you like, but it is far better than eating from a fast food outlet at every meal!
ConcernedCanuk
(13,509 posts).
.
.
But I do so get the eggshell thing -
OH - Do you save the egg shells and use them for garden fertilizer?
Nary a shell has hit my garbage pail since I discovered the value of egg shells as fertilizer.
Back to the OP:
From the link in the OP
"Being poor is a mindset. And it's one that, if given the chance, will make your ass poor again."
Read more: http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-5-stupidest-habits-you-develop-growing-up-poor_p2/#ixzz2lrtdMFmW
_____________________________________________________________________________________
I've had a different life:
My parents were affluent enough to afford 2 vehicles (never more than 3 years old) since I was 11 ( that's 52 years ago), afford to buy their own homes (we never rented), and leave us with babysitters regularly so they could go out on the town.
We lived in good neighborhoods, went to good schools, ate good meals, BUT our parents were so frugal with their money on us kids that we were thought to be "the poor family" down the lane . . . .
Almost all our clothes were second hand or hand-me downs (there were 6 of us), so we were forever "out of style";
many kids got lunch money for the cafeterias while we all had was paper bags or box lunches, tiny allowances compared to our peers, and so on . . .
So pocketwise, socially, I was "poor".
And young teenager eager to be accepted into the "group" is desperate to NOT be "poor".
Moving ahead to gainful employment, good credit when I was 19 years old.
WOW! right? Cars, stereos, dates for dinners and movies, travelling thousands of miles just for the heck of it cuz I had the $$
BOOM . .
Job gone, divorce impending, miserable and broke ( like less than $100?) at the age of 29.
Bounced around from place to place job to job - ending up living in a 17 foot trailer without proper facilities at the age of 56.
Got very frugal living on 500 bucks a month for almost 6 years.
Also was falling into despair.
Really falling . . . .
BOOM . . 
Inheritance (unexpected!) allowed me to buy my own home of 28 acres in the bush - paid in full;
put enough in trust to make sure I don't blow it all (not very much really - but will guarantee me a comfortable, albeit modest lifestyle);
do some needed repairs/upgrading on the house/property;
And stuff my cupboards, fridges and freezers with about 4 or more months of food.
Only clothes I bought were new sox and underwear.
I sure do not intend to repeat my past behaviours.
There is a lot of truth in the OP article with the statement:
"Being poor is a mindset. And it's one that, if given the chance, will make your ass poor again."
Yep - I been there . . .
CC
Blue_In_AK
(46,436 posts)in the summer at least. Unfortunately, my compost bin is frozen and under about a foot of snow now.
Your life trajectory is really quite similar to mine. My folks were really frugal, as well. We couldn't believe when my dad and then my mom passed away that they had squirreled away so much $. My brothers and I got a pretty nice inheritance, too - not huge, but enough to dig me out of some holes 13 years ago and, like you, put away a little. I guess all that eggshell-scraping paid off for them.
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)Unfortunately that is why they remain poor and teach the kids the same habits which ends up like what we have today. An epidemic that has no end in sight. I know people find this demeaning, but what about getting them mentors on how to live correctly. Sure it may be demeaning to the parents, but the kids would learn a great deal and parents normally want to see their kids do better then they did. Most often that does not happen with the poor unfortunately.
Tigress DEM
(7,887 posts)IF they saved the windfall from taxes, it would be counted against them.
My sister pays her car insurance and back bills and buys Christmas presents in advance.
It took working 3 jobs and having a boyfriend with a living wage job to get fully out of poverty myself. A lot of the programs I used aren't the same today. Get a 25 cent raise and you loose your childcare.
STILL I think people can be brought in to help salvage the country by learning green skills just the way people got on board to build and maintain the infrastructure. BE a part of a great change. Lead the way.
It IS demeaning to tell people, "You don't know how to live correctly." The difference between the poor and most of the rest of us is credit. Tell them instead that living on what you are required to live on requires financial planning and let's line that up for you, help you get out of the poverty trap forever.
duffyduff
(3,251 posts)God forbid you wind up losing your job and everything else in this sinking economy.
I thought I was invincible too--until I wasn't.
We don't need insulting, patronizing advice telling "us" how to "live correctly."
BTW, the chances of people ever rising from the economic status they were born into are almost nil. The ladder has been kicked out from under people.
Where have YOU been the last thirty-five or forty years when neoliberal politics just started taking hold in this country?
bhikkhu
(10,715 posts)still own my house, still working, family intact. Any number of things beyond my control could have sent it all in the wrong direction easily.
Capt. Obvious
(9,002 posts)That will end all poverty when the parents die.
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)Well who would they give the kids to? Rich and successful parents who live correctly? Not a perfect idea. Your idea would not sell at this point in time.
therehegoes
(37 posts)Once I get out of prison.
Say a prayer for me that justice will prevail and my story will get out.
See my story and how screwed you can be if your drug addicted son makes a bogus 911 call after he's been threatening you all week.
www.friscopaul.blogspot.com
TBF
(32,055 posts)I grew up with parents who worked in factories. We did get fresh vegetables/fruits from my grandfather's gardens and at least the canned fruit was freshly canned (also from trees on the property), but we also ate a lot of generic mac & cheese, spam, tombstone pizza. I still "like" those foods because you get used to whatever you eat a lot and learn to like it if there aren't other choices. The grandfather who farmed would give my parents a check at the holidays - usually like $500 or so (this was the 70s). My parents saw it as a windfall and would get tires for the car, new tile for the kitchen etc... It wasn't like it went for the latest iPhone but it wasn't something they put in a savings account either. There are definitely so many ways you can live more comfortable (and with healthier habits) if you have better life skills. Sadly it's hard to develop them in that type of environment. And, really, I am not complaining with this post. We actually lived better with little money than many do today - at least the factories paid a decent wage and you weren't hit with usury fees for this & that like you are today.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)But what is wrong with canned vegetables? Frozen are better, but I actually like canned green beans and instant mashed potatoes. Am I privileged because I don't mind eating such foods?
I eat beans & rice, too, and enjoy them. I guess I'm blessed by liking simple foods that don't cost a fortune. Or maybe I'm blessed because I was taught how to cook, which seems to be a skill that slips away every day among young people.
tkmorris
(11,138 posts)You say "I'm blessed because I was taught how to cook", and you also say "But what is wrong with canned vegetables? Frozen are better, but I actually like canned green beans and instant mashed potatoes. Am I privileged because I don't mind eating such foods?".
Nope, does not compute at all.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)Canned green beans are a valid food item and a shortcut to making a meal when you are in a hurry. Old-fashioned canned green beans, canned in a jar, are certainly an art.
What doesn't add up there?
Instant mashed potatoes might certainly not have the texture of a batch of homemade mashed potatoes, but they are a heck of a lot better than fries through the drive through.
What doesn't add up there?
My Grandmother and Aunt taught me how to can. Extremely useful life skill.
OmahaBlueDog
(10,000 posts)Personally, I hate canned veggies, but I eat frozen all the time.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)Heaven forbid people consume vegetables any other way than as dictated by the Arbiters of Acceptable Produce™.
left on green only
(1,484 posts)The problem with most canned foods, as well as processed "instant" food is that sodium is used to preserve them.......lots of sodium. When you stop and added up your sodium intake for a day when you are eating these foods, you realize that you are consuming waaaaay more sodium than is good for your heart. I mean, if you are a heart patient, it is enough to literally kill you.
Recently I was faced with this delima when I was diagnosed with a heart EF of only 30%. I was put on a low sodium diet but contrary to that, the only food I had available to eat was canned food and processed food that was given to me by the food bank. I almost didn't make it, but luckily all of a sudden they decided that I qualify for food stamps that allowed me to purchase more healthy food to eat, while at the same time the meds they prescribed for me allowed my heart's EF to come back up to normal.
Putting taste and economics aside, fresh food is always more healthy for you to eat. I hope you don't think I am a snob for saying that.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)and I think that you underestimate canning techniques used to preserve food under just pressure and hot water.
Low sodium varieties of everything are becoming available, but none of it matches home cooked food, and none of it has to be difficult. You can do low sodium, good tasting beans and rice on a budget, just like you can steam broccoli in the microwave on a budget without the salt.
We all have the same goal, good food without paying a price in either cost, or health.
left on green only
(1,484 posts)...is buy the broccoli crowns when they go on sale. Most of the time they are $2.40/lb around these parts, which is out of my range. But when they have a sale, I can get them for $0.99/lb. Then I buy a potato and bake it in the microwave, adding a bunch of cheddar cheese on top, after it is baked. Then while the potato is cooling and the cheese is melting, I cook the broccoli crowns in the microwave. When the crowns are finished, I add them on top of the potato and the cheddar cheese and then I put the whole thing back into the micro for an additional 1 minute. And when it is done, I have a great tasting (at least to my taste buds), complete, low sodium meal!
I will admit that I lifted the idea from one time when I paid $7.98 for the same thing at a Marie Callendar's (but that's OK because eating good food at a restaurant is one of my greatest pleasures in life).
I am among the culinary impaired, but I figured that I could at least do that much on my own, and I was right!
Aerows
(39,961 posts)Thanks for a new recipe
Capt. Obvious
(9,002 posts)is another's person who was educated on nutrition.
Tigress DEM
(7,887 posts)I don't know how to cook. Well, I sort of do, but only during inspired moments.
I don't know how to can either. That would be a skill taught at the Commonwealth Resource Centers as well as gardening and menu planning.
I am thinking a lot of URBAN Gardens even if they have to go hydroponic. Let's have an abundance, a wealth of veggies going to the neighborhood and even vouchers for food shelves.
I like fresh food because it tends to have more fiber, takes longer to eat and has less calories. AND I DON'T HAVE TO COOK IT!!! LoL fruit and cheese plate, veggies and dip and some crackers is a good lunch for me & my hubby.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)One of my favorite snacks that fills you up and is full of protein, quick and easy to digest.
I have experimented with different ideas to make it at home, but none of them have turned out right. I'd probably have to have a cow, and that just isn't practical LOL.
Canning is a whole lot easier than most think. A good tall stew pot, some Ball jars, and sealing wax is all that you need to stock some great vegetables and beans (black-eyed peas!) for a quick meal.
Beacool
(30,247 posts)I'm afraid to not do it correctly and end up with people getting sick with botulism. Although I do like to cook and have a vast collection of cook books.
As for the canned veggies, I usually avoid them. I prefer fresh, although I do buy canned beans. I use them in soups and they are faster than the dry variety.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)but no, it isn't for anyone that doesn't have a sterile environment. You boil everything, sterilize lids, containers and food, then boil it some more so that it doesn't give you botulism. Then you put it into glass containers, seal them, and boil them again. Pretty simple.
Retrograde
(10,134 posts)*Some* vegetables - high acid ones, like high-acid tomatoes - can be canned with a water bath. Others require pressure canning, which although it isn't really hard requires a pressure canner and rigorous adherence to canning guidelines. I can meat stocks regularly, and even though I've done this every 3 months for a dozen years I always re-read the USDA guidelines beforehand and follow them to the letter. I've never seen sealing wax (aka household parrafin) used with anything other than jams and jellies, which have enough sugar to discourage microbes.
If you want to make the investment, canning's a great way to preserve the harvest, but you need to be scrupulously clean, and follow the guides for processing times. And if you're using Ball or Mason jars, the lids aren't reusable, but since they're about $0.10 a pop it's not a big expense.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)it isn't that hard.
Or did I miss something?
Retrograde
(10,134 posts)But the original discussion was about the affects of poverty on one's lifestyle. For canning, there's the initial investment in materials - canner, jars, rings, lids - and a small ongoing expense with lids. If you're living from paycheck to paycheck, this may be a major outlay (and I don't know how easy it is to find lids in the middle of a food desert). Then there's the investment in learning how to do it so you don't end up with poisoning yourself or your family, or blowing a hole in the ceiling. Not hard, but it requires time and attention.
Lastly, you need something to can, and that means fresh food; you could can soups and stews, but if you're counting pennies it may not be cost effective. Even then, you need access to a generous amount of food at once, since it's not efficient to process one or two jars at a time.
So, not hard (once one gets over one's fear of the pressure cooker), but requiring enough resources - including time - that it's not a solution for many people.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)It's pretty much how most things shake out. Is it a solution for some? Yes. It is a solution for all? No.
Every option that is a "yes" to help people is good by me, though. I fully admit that we fail our society too often with "no", or "don't give a crap". That needs to change.
Hestia
(3,818 posts)of what you are talking about, but obviously not the commons and the green tech.
A city kid can even join 4-H - in doing so, sticking with the program, they can go to college/university for free.
Cooperative Extension Services teaches budgeting, gardening, canning, childcare, etc. (but no birth control) through their Homemaker Services. (Yes, the name is outdated, but trying to get something changed with the gov't ) All of these skills were thought in Home Ec, so I don't see why people are so bothered about anyone being taught these skills. Not everyone is born with financial literacy. Cooperative Extension Service Managers & Supervisors are the old Home Ec teachers. Yes, I know not everyone took the classes, but these classes were considered part of your General Education in Middle & Jr. High.
If you start there with all those tools they have available - classes are free to $10 depending - along with their free publications - you wouldn't have to reinvent the wheel, but have a starting platform.
Generally, Cooperative Extension Services are on a bus line and and are in the county seats so even rural areas know where they are.
I like ideas you have about a Commons community type of living arrangement. I am wanting to start a business and at first, before it is a smashing success, I will have to pay minimum wage to employees. I have already thought out a type of payroll savings plan to help them out, along with helping them buy savings bonds. Financial literacy really isn't taught anymore so I feel that as an future employer I can sit down and talk to them about savings.
Talk about a great tool for long term planning - out of sight out of mind - I wonder why they aren't pushed like they used to be. We used them for closing costs on our home this past year. I had automatic debit out of the checking account every payday. They sure as in the hell beat savings accounts. I also paid the interest every tax year so I wouldn't be hit all at one time. We generally paid around $300 per year in taxable interest on the savings bonds, because that interest really does pay out in the end. You can use savings bonds interest free for college. It's why so many grandparents back in the day bought them for their grandchildren - to help out with college costs. The kids will have something so show for it at 18 instead of bunch of broken toys or toys sold in garage sales.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)when I was actually being serious.
Heaven forbid that Southern people contribute to poverty awareness. It's not like they have ever been aware of it their damn selves.
Tigress DEM
(7,887 posts)My beginning thought was that rethugs are always trying to balance the budget on the backs of the poor, what if we gave them the tools to get the job done?
The big idea with the Commons Community and pretty much a ghost economy of vouchers is to do some give and take with participants in the program working and getting credit for it and the government getting in effect "free labor" or at least being able to defer the payment until enough money has come into the new system to start graduating people off and moving them back into the real world with some equity and a buffer zone of 1 years worth of expenses. PrePaid Credit. I wanted something no one could claim was a hand out. Something people work for and save away to solve their own fiscal problems, leading the way for the rest of the economy.
llmart
(15,536 posts)I learned how to can by reading the Ball book back in 1971. It really isn't that difficult. The initial investment of a canner, jars and lids pays off in the long run. We had an apple tree in our yard when my kids were little and every year in September I'd spend a week canning applesauce, sliced apples, etc. We also had a little garden and canned tomatoes, stewed tomatoes, catsup, etc. Did peach and strawberry jams.
Gormy Cuss
(30,884 posts)It's the main reason canned vegetables aren't good for you. Yes, there are low sodium varieties out there, usually costing more and not having the flavor that people who are used to can vegetables expect. Canned vegetables have nutrients and they're cheap, both points in their favor.
What the Cracked author was talking about though was not having a taste for less processed vegetables even when one can afford them. Same deal with fruit: canned fruit tends to be sweeter and softer than fresh. If you're used to cling peaches in a can, the fresh ones with the furry skin may be foreign to you.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)cost exactly the same thing as regular ones in my grocery store - $.48 a can. Turnip greens, low sodium 32 oz. can, $.96 a can.
Canned beans, greens and vegetables by people who love you? Much cheaper and nutritional than commercial frozen. And canned by people that love you .
Gormy Cuss
(30,884 posts)because bluntly, most of the flavor in canned vegetables IS the salt.
Canned vegetables from supermarkets are what most low income people are buying. Auntie's dilly beans are available to only a few.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)No, not everyone knows how to do it, but everyone should. Everyone should also learn how to soak beans and cook them, too. Easiest, and most nutritious food on the planet to cook. Tasty, too.
I'm not asking anyone to make their own salt, tea and coffee. I'm suggesting that learning to cook isn't a bad idea so that cooking good meals isn't out of the range of any family. It shouldn't be, and it isn't.
pipi_k
(21,020 posts)Are usually loaded with salt
You can buy low sodium veggies, but, ironically, they cost more
Then there's the matter of other preservatives in them, and the cans themselves
Taste wise it's a whole different ball game
For example, I never knew how great fresh beets could taste until I grew some of my own...never knew that asparagus wasn't meant to be mushy...or that green peas weren't meant to be a sickly gray-green color
So anyway I live some distance from grocery stores, so frozen veggies are as good as fresh
Aerows
(39,961 posts)they are just better than eating junk for dinner. Grandma recipe canned is even better. Low sodium costs the same as regular here, so it is unfortunate that your area has that problem.
pipi_k
(21,020 posts)to this...
http://www.fitday.com/fitness-articles/nutrition/healthy-eating/3-reasons-to-avoid-canned-vegetables.html
...then commercially canned vegetables are junk.
Grandma's home-canned vegies are probably a way better choice.
alarimer
(16,245 posts)Maybe not as much as fresh, but, aside from probably too much salt, there's nothing wrong with canned.
Capt. Obvious
(9,002 posts)All the vitamins, minerals and what not are in the can water - unless you're drinking that water, you're not getting anything good out of it. You are getting all the sodium and preservatives and whatever else they're using to make sure the canned goods survive the nuclear fallout.
RobinA
(9,888 posts)reality based community, one goes about assisting people by starting where they are. When trying to teach people about healthy eating who are three generations removed from anyone with knowledge of good nutrition, you take what you can get. The first step is to get people to substitute every third fruit roll-up meal with a canned vegtable meal. Because they have access to canned and their food dollar goes further with canned. You go from there at the pace that works for the person you are trying to teach. Growing their own is the nutritional equivalent to a moon landing. Fresh is usually unlikely, but something to shoot for down the road. If nothing is worth teaching except that they should eat fresh, the teacher needs to be in a different line of work.
Capt. Obvious
(9,002 posts)frozen vegetables are a very close second to fresh vegetables in nutritional value.
Canned veggies are bad for you. Nothing to do with snobbery or living in a different reality that you think you inhabit.
However, make sure you teach those poor folk to drink the can water if there going to replace their fruit roll ups with green beans in a can.
duffyduff
(3,251 posts)It is NOT--repeat NOT--a result of personal sloth or lacking "life skills."
Tigress DEM
(7,887 posts)It doesn't STICK on rich people no matter how much money they throw down the drain. REAL people couldn't get away with that.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trump-filed-bankruptcy-times/story?id=13419250
Donald Trump's Companies Filed for Bankruptcy 4 Times
snip>
A business declaring bankruptcy is nothing new in corporate America, where bankruptcy is often sugar-coated as "restructuring debt." But it might seem alarming to everyday Americans who can't get a bank to restructure their home loans. If you want to get Donald Trump hot under the collar, accuse him of declaring bankruptcy.
Doug Heller, the executive director of Consumer Watchdog, said Trump is the "most egregious, almost comical example" of the disparity between what the average American faces when going through bankruptcy and the "ease with which the very rich can move in and out of bankruptcy."
"Under the American bankruptcy laws, if you end up in bankruptcy because you're struggling with divorce or medical payments or a sudden change of income, it's a disaster. If you fail miserably with huge dollars involved then you just need some accountants to rework your books," Heller said.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)There's a difference. When a 1 percenter like Trump declares bankruptcy, he gets to keep his limo and private jet and stuff. He never has to shop for groceries at an outlet store, or any store, for that matter.
Tigress DEM
(7,887 posts)Boggles the mind at the differences between rich and poor mentalities.
spinbaby
(15,088 posts)Hoarding. My husband grew up poor in rural West Virginia and can't break the habit of saving everything that might possibly be useful ever.
bhikkhu
(10,715 posts)a couple of times when I was younger and came into a little money, I was more stressed about it than when I was broke. Being broke was pretty comfortable and normal; you get your paycheck, you know what you can afford and can't afford, and you know how to stretch things out until the next one. Budgeting and restraint are beside the point, you just have get what you can and that's that.
When I had some money in the bank suddenly I had to figure out how to keep it, and constantly argue with myself over things I wanted but might not need, and how "loosening the belt" a bit might lead right back to poverty. Of course I'd lose the battle soon one way or another and be right back to comfortably broke...I do a little better now, but not much. I've got some money now, but wind up spending more than I make pretty easily, and just recently decided to keep a set of account books (as I studied old-style accounting years ago) to keep better track of things. Maybe it can all work out sensibly without all the angst, now that retirement is not too far off the horizon.
pipi_k
(21,020 posts)Living in crisis mode, even though it's uncomfortable, becomes "normal", and when you don't have to live paycheck to paycheck anymore, it's really weird.
And uncomfortable.
Takes a long time to get out of that mindset, but it is possible, for the most part.
Same here.
Phlem
(6,323 posts)I put myself through school, got a decent tech job for about 10 yrs only to have it shipped over seas. Now I'm slowly winding back down to square one. And when I can find a steady job for what I do, it's either minimum wage for 40 hours, or a really good salary with no life.
I still love what I do (3D artist) but good luck, if the kids aren't undercutting you and are able to stay up till the next day, then off shoring will kill you. As a 50 yr old I just can't fucking pull all-nighter's for weeks on end anymore so I'm especially looked over and passed.
I have been struggling for the last 5 years, this year I made $ 3000 + and the + is on the low hundreds, living mostly on my savings which is shrinking.
What do you tell your wife and child?
-p
ErikJ
(6,335 posts)I think its a good idea.
Switzerland’s Proposal to Pay People for Being Alive
By ANNIE LOWREY
Published: November 12, 2013
This fall, a truck dumped eight million coins outside the Parliament building in Bern, one for every Swiss citizen. It was a publicity stunt for advocates of an audacious social policy that just might become reality in the tiny, rich country. Along with the coins, activists delivered 125,000 signatures — enough to trigger a Swiss public referendum, this time on providing a monthly income to every citizen, no strings attached. Every month, every Swiss person would receive a check from the government, no matter how rich or poor, how hardworking or lazy, how old or young. Poverty would disappear. Economists, needless to say, are sharply divided on what would reappear in its place — and whether such a basic-income scheme might have some appeal for other, less socialist countries too.
Enlarge This Image
The proposal is, in part, the brainchild of a German-born artist named Enno Schmidt, a leader in the basic-income movement. He knows it sounds a bit crazy. He thought the same when someone first described the policy to him, too. “I tell people not to think about it for others, but think about it for themselves,” Schmidt told me. “What would you do if you had that income? What if you were taking care of a child or an elderly person?” Schmidt said that the basic income would provide some dignity and security to the poor, especially Europe’s underemployed and unemployed. It would also, he said, help unleash creativity and entrepreneurialism: Switzerland’s workers would feel empowered to work the way they wanted to, rather than the way they had to just to get by. He even went so far as to compare it to a civil rights movement, like women’s suffrage or ending slavery.
When we spoke, Schmidt repea.....................
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/magazine/switzerlands-proposal-to-pay-people-for-being-alive.html?_r=0
Nine
(1,741 posts)I think there are two categories here. One is poor people making "choices" that cost them more in the long run but are necessary in the short run because they are always so cash poor. The book Nickel and Dimed covered this very well. The author describes a coworker who needs shelter and is considering moving into a motel at $40 to $60 a day. An apartment would be cheaper over time but she doesn't have the down payment and first month's rent she would need. Microloans would do much to help people who are constantly trapped this way.
The other issue is poor people making choices that are unwise, that they actually do have a choice about. The Cracked and Alternet articles offer a glimpse into the mindset here. I think it can be summed up as people losing hope, not seeing escaping poverty as a real option, and just living for moment-to-moment small pleasures. Poverty is depressing. I think it's analagous to women staying with abusive partners: technically, they have opportunities to escape if they would just seize them, but realistically, they develop a mindset that blinds them to these possibilities. How do we solve this problem? I think "education" is the easy answer, but not necessarily the correct one. People need to regain their hope, and I think you need big societal changes for that to happen. Even the middle class feels rather hopeless these days. We need progressives in office who will work to rebuild the infrastructure that once made the not-rich feel like they had real opportunities to achieve comfort and security in life.
edited to add excerpt from Nickel and Dimed:
It strikes me, in my middle-class solipsism, that there is gross improvidence in some of these arrangements. When Gail and I are wrapping silverware in napkins - the only task for which we are permitted to sit - she tells me she is thinking of escaping from her roommate by moving into the Days Inn herself. I am astounded: How can she even think of paying between $40 and $60 a day? But if I was afraid of sounding like a social worker, I come out just sounding like a fool. She squints at me in disbelief, "And where am I supposed to get a month's rent and a month's deposit for an apartment?" I'd been feeling pretty smug about my $500 efficiency, but of course it was made possible only by the $1,300 I had allotted myself for start-up costs when I began my low-wage life: $1,000 for the first month's rent and deposit, $100 for initial groceries and cash in my pocket, $200 stuffed away for emergencies. In poverty, as in certain propositions in physics, starting conditions are everything.
There are no secret economies that nourish the poor; on the contrary, there are a host of special costs. If you can't put up the two months' rent you need to secure an apartment, you end up paying through the nose for a room by the week. If you have only a room, with a hot plate at best, you can't save by cooking up huge lentil stews that can be frozen for the week ahead. You eat fast food, or the hot dogs and styrofoam cups of soup that can be microwaved in a convenience store. If you have no money for health insurance - and the Hearthside's niggardly plan kicks in only after three months - you go without routine care or prescription drugs and end up paying the price. Gail, for example, was fine until she ran out of money for estrogen pills. She is supposed to be on the company plan by now, but they claim to have lost her application form and need to begin the paperwork all over again. So she spends $9 per migraine pill to control the headaches she wouldn't have, she insists, if her estrogen supplements were covered. Similarly, Marianne's boyfriend lost his job as a roofer because he missed so much time after getting a cut on his foot for which he couldn't afford the prescribed antibiotic.
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)People's pride enters into many of these things.
If you tell a non-wealthy person (because I think poor is a slam) that they should sell their old Explorer to buy a Hybrid, they'll just clam up. So you have to allow them to understand that just getting a standard Civic or Corolla, plain gas, is about as good, then they'll do it.
People are proud, they don't want to look weak and powerless. Rich people don't give it much thought.
Poorer people end up going WAY out of their way to not look needy, and end up in greater need as a result.
We need to support them and fight that sort of thing.
alcibiades_mystery
(36,437 posts)1. My wife always notices that I feel uncomfortable in retail stores. It's not just minorities who feel like sales people are following them around to make sure they ain't stealing shit. That's poor folks impulse. I still feel it, really acutely at times. Meanwhile, I can buy near anything in the store at a whim now. That shit never goes away.
2. Everyone around you is richer than you - This is a poor folks belief. Everyone has more money than you. Period. Everyone. You are the poorest person around. I still feel that one, even though I KNOW it's not true. But when you grow up poor, you think everyone has more money than you. That shit never goes away either.
pipi_k
(21,020 posts)I've been poor, and I've done all of those
Strange thing, though...it's been many years since I didn't have a pot to piss in, but I find I still do some of those things
Except for squandering money. I have learned how to save
But I still feel guilty buying new clothing. Mr Pipi has to get after me to buy clothes most of the time so I won't look like a bag lady. He would buy them for me but I'm a pain to buy for
Still have a thing for boxed Mac and cheese too...
hibbing
(10,098 posts)This is an interesting thread and some thoughtful posts in it. I was trying to figure out where I fit in.
Peace
Cha
(297,171 posts)"poor" and spend all my money on good healthy food. Glad I learned things along the way.. about how important it is and what a good investment.
Trillo
(9,154 posts)Everyone should be "smart", like an Rmoney!
/sarcasm
Populist_Prole
(5,364 posts)Poor but reasonably sustainable. I work in manual labor and I injured my lower back several years ago and after the initial 3 month recovery before returning to work I still have chronic pain. In spite of my efforts to favor or take it easy I often end up in agonizing pain at the end of a "heavy day". Where I work they allow us to shift trade with another person and so I have someone work one of my regular days. This results in a 20 percent loss of income but my back can't take a 5 day week. I just lowered my spending habits accordingly and it is allowing me to heal; albeit very slowly. I know I can't do this forever but I have to have a long view because I'm at least 15 years from being able to retire and I hope my body holds out.
magical thyme
(14,881 posts)I don't have your specific health issues, but my own health issues. I try to keep my work at 4 days/week to protect my health, and am looking now for a way to cut back to 3 days/week without cutting my income further.
I could have taken the 26/hour week night shift in my hospital lab for $3.50/hour more, but I can barely get through an 8 hour shift, never mind 13 hours or overnight (not to mention both at once).
So they hated me at the lab for not applying for it, and hired someone I'd been through school with instead and showered her with attention. Now, 2 years later, her body is already breaking down. And she's a good 20 years younger than I am.
Jamaal510
(10,893 posts)people have different tastes in food. What is "shitty" to one person may be delicious to someone else. Personally, I'm OK with TV Dinners. I'm fine with things like pot pies and fast food. Instead, a more suitable subheading would have been "you develop a taste for unhealthy food".
With regards to how many calories, sodium, etc. are in frozen foods, one way to solve that problem is to eat smaller portions; people who are concerned about calorie-counting don't have to eat an entire TV Dinner in one sitting. That applies to other foods, as well.
Coyotl
(15,262 posts)I'd like to introduce you to some poor people who wish they had that much for the year.
renie408
(9,854 posts)I used to do taxes in a poor neighborhood and many people received that much or more.
Capt. Obvious
(9,002 posts)Rec
Capt. Obvious
(9,002 posts)Also spot fucking on.
Same with the clothes and the bean counting.
I've gotten better with the bean counting - I only check my account every couple of days.
Quantess
(27,630 posts)This was on the DU at least a year ago, and it was only kind of good.
ConcernedCanuk
(13,509 posts).
.
.
Ind I read the whole article at the link.
I related.
CC
raging moderate
(4,300 posts)I could detail how the experience was different before computers and food stamps and earned income credits, but why depress us all even more? Basically, poor people want to participate in society as much as anybody else, and failure to do so makes others think you are crazy or stupid. When we didn't have a working TV, people didn't say, "Oh, how discrete and judicious those poor people are." No, they said, "She is the dumbest girl around. She never knows what to say in a conversation, she wears her skirts too long and doesn't know the latest dances." etc. Yes, my family mostly did it the way all these poor-people bashers say you should, except that we did spend windfalls on "luxuries" like beds for everybody to sleep in and a couch for everybody to sit on. Good grief! it was a bitter experience, and I do not blame those who just can't stand it and go out and get that new TV or computer that might actually (gasp!) work well enough to let you concentrate on the information content and social conditioning that will make you look normal to those around you.
ancianita
(36,037 posts)Back end costs of bad eating -- sickness and lost school and work days, medical costs, lower health levels, lower energy and eventual degenerative diseases -- always cost more than front end quality food spending.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)KamaAina
(78,249 posts) Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Mainly because they declare dependents to increase their weekly take home pay.
The refund isn't in the thousands. It's more like the low hundreds.
pipi_k
(21,020 posts)when the people making low wages make the choice to get more money NOW...each week...rather than looking forward to tax time for the huge refund.
My daughter and her husband work it that way. This past tax season they got (combined Federal and State) refund of over $6000.
And when I was a single mom with two kids, I also got that sizeable EIC (more than just a few hundred dollars) by waiting till tax time to claim my kids. Yeah, it was hard during the year, but that big check made up for the extra couple of bucks each week I could have gotten had I claimed the kids as deductions during the year.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)The majority is no longer married with children.
They're single or married but deciding to not have kids.
That's why the classic political buzzword "Family" makes most voters tune out.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)Unwarranted, counterproductive, but nibbled to death by our own insecurities all the same.
I've seen it time and time again. After a while, we turn in on ourselves, and beat the shit out of ourselves for failure, when it is often the game is rigged against you and you can't even see it.
Tigress DEM
(7,887 posts)I was poor at one time and had to be taught to value a lot of what isn't financially valued to see more of my real worth. It led to bartering child care for one, which helped me keep some costs down and my son has some friends he's known since he was in diapers as a result.
I learned that making change in a community that is also headed in the same direction multiplies the efforts of all involved. Even if it's only a community of several friends and neighbors. Not being alone and being able to remind each other of the end goals is a key factor in getting out of the poverty trap.
grilled onions
(1,957 posts)Many mean well. Many want those on food stamps to be able to eat well,eat nutritional foods and see the children well fed when they go to bed at night. But reality barges in and epic fail is everywhere. They start by giving them menus of what to cook, how to cook it, practical, common sense advice. However many who look at these hints and recipes do not have half the appliances they mention like blenders,toaster ovens,mixers etc. They do not have a wonderful grocery store if they live in or near a food desert. Most have poor transportation--bus if they are lucky,by foot if they aren't. They have to think cost as well as heft when they buy a bag of food. They don't have spices beyond salt or pepper for the most part. Unless you see their bare cupboards you have no idea what a bare cupboard really looks like!
They rarely are taught of how to manage any windfall of cash they might get. For one thing if you keep wishing for months for one item and finally see that green around the bend you,by nature, will get it, knowing that you will never get that chance again. Those with so much cash always can get whatever they want. They would never have a wish list--they don't need one. But if, say, are one of the working poor you see every day what others have and you would so much like to have things from a warmer winter coat to a special toy for your child. You want so much to share in this "American Dream" that they keep hearing about. Yet some think it's a crime if they "blow that windfall" by getting something new,pretty or even silly to the eyes of the well healed. No one thinks anything wrong with the mega rich having homes scattered all over the world knowing they can only live in one at a time but if a person is known to be on food stamps or aid of some sort it's almost a sin for them to buy something "beyond their means". That kind of thinking is really sad. Why should a person be punished in this way simply because they were not born into money,work at poverty wages or have a chronic illness that prevents them working at all. They do not want to live like millionaires. They just want to live a normal life,be able to pay their bills,feed their kids and live somewhere safe.
bvar22
(39,909 posts)Where DID all the Reagan Democrats come from?
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)based on the actual life of a (formerly) poor person.
murray hill farm
(3,650 posts)Interesting read! When I finished the last paragraph...all I could think was how I wanted to read more. It seemed such an interesting backdrop for a novel.
bvar22
(39,909 posts)"Welfare Cadillac" meme.
It takes a few anecdotes and stereotypes,
and broad brushes a large (and growing) spectrum of our population.
..and then there are the "I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps, so "they" should too" handful who don't want to face the reality of how LUCKY they have been in their lives.
There are a THOUSAND elements of LUCK involved for those of us who make it out of poverty. Life IS a Crap Shoot...and some are gifted with loaded dice, though they rarely want to acknowledge that fact.
But there DOES seem to be a division between those who KNOW they have been LUCKY,
and those who , out of misguided arrogance, wan to hold themselves up as an example of why EVERYBODY should be like THEM!
I was also born to "humble" parents,
and I now enjoy a comfortable life,
but every single day I thank my lucky stars,
because I KNOW and appreciate that it wasn't all ME.
I also fear for the youth of today, because some of the LUCK I enjoyed was being born in an era where it was EASY to find a good job with benefits for someone who was:
*born with a decent IQ
*born to White Parents
*born to healthy parents
*born to good looking parents
*born to parents who were reasonably slim and fit
*born to parents who realized that however "hard" they had it...they were LUCKY,
and made sure to pass that along to me.
(A picture of FDR alongside Jesus hung in our kitchen)
*born in a region that offered widespread good paying jobs to anyone (white, good looking, male) who could physically put in a days work (Gulf Coast Oil Fields)
*born in an area that offered decent Public School educations
*my first girlfriends didn't get pregnant
* born with an innate skill to project confidence and competence, even if I didn't have the first clue, I could bullshit and make people feel comfortable.
THAT is the VERY FIRST priority in getting a good job and making your way in the World.....and it can't be taught or learned.
...so for everybody who wants to pat themselves on their back for Making It out of poverty, and blame those still mired in that hell.....
I suggest they compile a LUCK list for their own lives before attacking those who buy a TV with their Tax refund.
This OP, and many responses in this thread is One Step Away from advocating Tough Love for the Poor, because its their own damned fault.
Sincerely,
bvar22
Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)dominated by the usual bootstrap crown. I wonder how many of them have ever actually searched the origin, or even noticed the absurdity of what that phrase means and describes?
C_eh_N_eh_D_eh
(2,204 posts)Everyone needs to remember this one, too.
http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-things-rich-people-need-to-stop-saying
devils chaplain
(602 posts)Thankfully in my mid-twenties I had a girlfriend who introduced me to the wonders of real fresh food and I haven't looked back since. A "TV Dinner" like the one pictured in the article used to be an extravagant delicacy to me but now looks pretty damn sad. I wish we could make our food stamp programs large enough and tilted towards fresh food.
And now I'm thankful for a Thanksgiving dinner with real green beans and mashed potatoes instead of the slimy canned ones and potatoes from powder. I hope all of you have the same. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)And I delurked right after Nineleven(TM). Thanks!