Now that we've all had a laugh and agreed that being poor is expensive, let's take a look at my next article focus - the poor and stupid habits.
The article I chose for this blog was also found on Cracked.com and is titled The 5 Stupidest Habits You Develop Growing Up Poor by John Cheese. (I might have a literary crush on this author and website. Something about it really pulls on my humorstrings). I really like this article because it is funny, and sheds light on a few habits that people who haven't grown up poor have probably never considered.
#5: You Develop a Taste for Shitty Food
Cheese makes the point that when you don't have very much money, you're not exactly purchasing food based on quality, per se. You're buying foods that are cheapest and have the longest shelf life. Well, unfortunately, those two criteria are setting the bar pretty freaking low when it comes to health food standards. The point is made that when you're really poor you're more than likely doing your grocery shopping once a month whenever your food stamps are renewed. This is because taking multiple trips to the grocery store wastes money on gas or bus fare. So, think about how many times you've thrown away fresh produce because it has gone bad. A bag of lettuce here, an apple there, a few tomatoes, and that bag of potatoes that you left under the sink that has practically sprouted legs and tried to run away on its own. When you're poor you don't have the luxury of throwing away rotten produce. (Glamorous, right?) You're buying canned foods because they are MUCH cheaper and will expire exactly one day before never. You probably didn't realize what a fancy-pants spinach eater you were when you unloaded your last bag of grub from the grocery store.
Well - here's a fun fact that Cheese points out. He says that people who have never been poor love to point at overweight people and sarcastically talk about how they are clearly not missing any meals. So, I like to make fun of fat people just as much as the next guy, but for giggles lets look at the facts about eating cheap unhealthy food and try to figure out it's connection to obesity. TV dinners, fast food, canned and boxed goods tend to have a way higher amount of processed ingredients, salt, sugar, you name it. If the doctor said that you should cut back on your intake of it, it is probably one of the main ingredients in the affordable meal you are about to partake in. Well, poop. Even better, after you grow up eating this crap, making the transition into fresh food isn't that exciting. It's not that the food is bad, it's just different, and doesn't bring back the nostalgic taste of the culinarily exquisite experience of a good old box of Kraft Mac & Cheese.
So, folks. What to do, what to do. Well, let's start with people who can't afford food. Food stamps will get you some groceries, but it is in fact a supplemental program. They actually don't even call them food stamps anymore - they are called SNAP benefits, which stands for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Supplemental implying that the purpose is to supplement your assumed already existing supply of food. If you don't have this supply already in stock, then you are really forced to make those dollars stretch. Well, hit up some food banks! That's what they're there for! Yes. True. But when is the last time you visited a local food bank? I'll give you a few guesses what kinds of foods are available at your local food bank.
Oh come on. If you didn't guess the answer then you are really missing the point of my sarcasm. The answer is canned food, boxed food, frozen food, and other not-so-nutritious yet FDA deemed edible foods. The same cheap foods that have a really long shelf life that people in poverty are buying in the first place. It's a vicious cycle. What will it take to break the cycle? Money, probably. But in lieu of money, what can we do to increase the amount of healthy foods and fresh produce to the impoverished communities? There are a few programs out there that provide some produce to welfare recipients when it is in season. These programs are awesome! But they are only going on during the harvest season, and barely available in the city, so if you live in a rural area and don't have access to a car - forget it. Canned peas for life!
#4: Extra Money Has to Be Spent Right Goddamn Now!
The next segment addresses the fact that when you don't ever have extra money, you're not exactly sure how to use it when it does fall into your hands. Instead of saving or investing, there is this feeling of non-permanency that if the money isn't spent now, it will disappear in some other way without you having anything to show for it. So, instead of getting a leap on rent and bills, you now have a new TV and a bobble-head of your favorite childhood pet. Because hey - the rent is paid this month baby and these former presidents can only high-five each other in my pocket for so long... they want to PARTY!
So, what are we going to do about it? What is a good way to kick these nasty spend-it-right-goddamn-now habits to move everyone into a more financially stable future? Well... let's start with budgeting. How many people are really good at budgeting their money? Here's a hint - if you run out of money every single month, you are probably not good at budgeting. But, here's the thing about budgeting - you need money to budget. I know. This vicious cycle crap is pretty vicious. And cyclic.
I think that out of all the useless classes I took in high school, budgeting could have probably replaced a whole bunch of them and I would have probably had some money to my name at age 25 that didn't have a negative sign in front of it. Simple skills could be taught like balancing a checkbook. (I still don't know how to do this. I blame online banking.) How about learning how to break down your budget using a simple budgeting tool to really project your expenses over a month? If you've ever done this, it is depressing. Depressing and USEFUL. If you can see where your money is going, then you can most likely prioritize where you money needs to go before you start spending your money on luxuries like fresh produce and a bobble-head of your favorite childhood pet.
#3: You Want to Go Overboard on Gift-Giving
The next part of this article talks about when you grow up getting very few gifts, you remember how bad that felt as a kid. So, you try to justify your own feelings on gift giving by going overboard for your own kids. This also fits in the scenario where you might be the crap gift giver to your children because you are poor, but the second you are slightly less poor - you're out to make it right and buy ALL the presents. Fair enough. I totally understand this. It makes a lot of sense that you felt beneath all of your friends as a child when they were shoving their super awesome toys in the back of their closets after Christmas to make room for their more super awesomer toys in the front of the closet, while you nervously brag about the even more awesome toy that your parents bought for you that you can't show your friend because it is imaginary. This leads to feelings of inferiority, which is a recurring theme in my blog and the general consensus is that it sucks. Feeling like you are less of a person than someone else for any reason, especially financial reasons, just feels terrible. So, why not take every opportunity to nip that nasty little feeling of sucky-ness in the bud and WAY overspend to make sure that the little shit next door with his little shit parents and his big shit toys aren't making your kid feel like an even smaller little shit this year.
So how do we kick this spending problem? It seems easy, right? Don't spend more money on gifts than you can afford. Well, easier said than done. It's not so much a financial problem here as it is a psychological one. Feeling inferior or fearing that your children will feel inferior is a real concern, and one that any normal loving parent would never wish upon their spawn. I don't have a good answer for this one. My best suggestion would be to set a spending limit and choose wisely. However, I don't have children and I had some pretty awesome toys growing up, but that was way before Santa sold out and Apple merged with Christmas.
#2: You Become an Obsessive Bean Counter
On the flip side of points 4&3, your habits could be that you are very obsessive about counting the money that you have because you are always worried about going negative in the bank. And going negative in the bank only leads to bad things. It could lead to you getting your utilities shut off, a potential threat of eviction, and not being able to eat. Cheese's argument here is that even once you cross the threshold where you can stop counting pennies in the bank and roughly round off and know about where your finances are, you still worry. Constantly. It becomes a bad case of permanent financial anxiety. You know your bills are paid, there is food in the fridge, but you compulsively check your bank statement. You are probably suffering from PTSD (poor traumatic stress disorder). The side effects include bad dreams of time machines sucking you in and landing you exactly in the center of a poverty sinkhole. So, you wake up sweaty, fearful, and furiously rummage through all of your finances and start counting and saving EVERY PENNY. Once you reach the full effects of poor traumatic stress disorder, you eventually get to the point where you are really resenting those super generous always tipping 5% stingy jerks that are insistent on making you and the other people in your PTSD anonymous group feel cheap. How dare they.
So, how are we going to make this habit better? I'm not so sure that worrying is such a bad habit. However, over-worrying is definitely a bad thing. And money is stressful. I'm going to come back to my idea about budgeting classes and the basics of financial planning. I think it is an extremely useful skill-set that isn't as readily available as it should be. And when I say readily available, I mean that everyone who has access to any money or plans to have access to future money should learn how to budget it. So, in essence, my target demographic is the entire population. I think taking some valid information around financial planning would result in a lower stress level about your finances. If times are tough, it's going to be tough no matter how many planning tips you have saved away in the bank. But, knowledge is power and powerful people are usually rich.
#1: You Only Spend with the Short Term in Mind
In the final portion of this article, Cheese discusses the spending habits of people who grew up poor and how they trickle into adulthood and feed into the poverty cycle. Because there isn't a whole lot of money to spare, people are buying the bare minimum of what they actually need. Instead of buying the 2 pack of soap or deodorant, to save a extra couple bucks in the long run, they are only looking at prices and seeing either a $3 purchase or a $5 purchase, and 3 is less than 5, so the $3 purchase wins. This is true for all kinds of things, even things that you are going to eventually use like toilet paper, laundry detergent, and other necessities that don't necessarily have a shelf life. This is also true for larger, more expensive items. Cheese uses the example of a dryer, and how someone who doesn't have a lot of money won't go out and buy a dryer when they are having a clearance sale, because their dryer is still working (even if it is on its last leg). So, they wait until they have a dryer that doesn't work at all to go out and pay a premium price because they need a dryer and they need it NOW.
There is very much a revolving theme to this article. And it's fitting that there is a photo of a money-hungry drying machine pictured here because it's pretty spot on in my comparison to vicious money sucking cycles that dry out your finances. (see what I did there?) If someone has enough money to buy in bulk to save in the long run, then they save in the long run. Ta-da! BUT, what if the person doesn't have enough money to do that? The smaller in size you tend to purchase things, the higher the price of the item per what you are actually getting. So, your bill might be smaller in the checkout line, but in the long run you are losing money. Again, I revert to financial planning and really knowing the ins and outs of budgeting and spending money. But what do I know? My greatest success this far in life is managing to supercede all of my ancestors in the race of who spent the most on their education, and if that wasn't a big enough win, I'm also the projected winner in the race of who's going to take the longest to pay off their debt. But I did stop at the store today and bought a tube of toothpaste, one stick of deodorant, and precisely two rolls of toilet paper for only $10. So suck it, person who now has 12 rolls of toilet paper, two tubes of toothpaste and three sticks of deodorant for $22. I spent $12 less than that you, so I've got that going for me. Suckers.
Again, thank you for reading. I look forward to your comments and ridicule.
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