Why The Poor Are Crazy To Save Money

[jeffrey]

Would you try to save money if for every dollar you saved, they took away $2.60 in benefits from you?

http://www.savingadvice.com/blog/2007/06/07/101519_why-the-poor-are-crazy-to-save-money.html

[Pupart]

Interesting...
My Mom used to have a saying I am sure many have heard....
The rich get richer while the poor get poorer.

I have to laugh sometimes when I think the older I get, the smarter I see Mom was.

[rob62521]

And the gap continues to grow between the "haves and have nots."

[lieweheksie]

this is whht causes many people to defraud the system- people just stop declaring, people get paid in cash which they spend or hide in the mattress ;-)
It almost seems as if the powers that be do not want the poor to uplift themeselves- just not to starve as that would be inconvenient

[poundwise]

Wahhhh.

Cry me a river.

The comments following that article are asinine and show what the real "gap" is in this country. The divide created by those who want to exploit the jealous and the lazy.

The rich get richer. Well duh. If you were rich what would you do? Get poorer? Stay the same? No kidding the rich get richer, they should.

The poor get poorer. Why? Oh, I know because of evil corporate America. Right? Wrong. Because many of the poor are also uneducated. Why is that? Because they dropped out of school. Because they got pregnant as a teen. Because they went to jail. Because they didn't work a steady job. And so on. Why do they stay poor or get poorer? Because they continue to make foolish decisions and live according their poor mindset. They use title pawn and payday loans to have enough money, not to feed their children, but to buy cigarettes, beer, and cable TV. They rent-to-own things because their credit is shot because they didn't pay their bills. They play the lottery because "someone has to win."

Is that all the poor? Of course not. But it is a sizable part. And the other part, those truly unfortunate, those financially decimated by medical issues, those born into poverty, THEY are the ones who are typically working their butts off and earning a living. THEY are the ones who do their best to stay off of welfare, to provide for their family, to pull themselves up. I know of people who came from nothing to be quite successful. How? With food stamps and welfare? No. By working and emphasizing positive values in their life and expecting those around them to do the same. They didn't have time to whine and blame, they are busy.

People want to believe that there is this great unfairness that exist. That the big guy crushes the little guy and there is no hope (except to elect officials that promise to take it from the big guy and give it to the little guy). Since people want to believe it, they do. They hate the rich and think they are all evil while, at the same time, ascribing some great, natural, intrinsic value to being poor.

Here's a plan: Work a job, stop buying crap you can't afford, don't have 10 kids if you don't have a job, stop playing the lottery, quit blaming "the man" or Wal-Mart or Bill Gates or George W. for your own mistakes and shortcomings and do something about your life. And please, quit whining and crying. It doesn't help anything.

Of course, the big irony is, most of "the poor" are not the ones whining. It's middle-class America. Since they "can't get ahead" they want to cry but they know they earn a good paycheck and could be doing better so they say, "What about the poor? We have to do things for the poor!" All the while most of them haven't bothered to ever help a poor person in their life. The middle class feels more like the poor because while they have the education or the well-paying job or were 'born into' the middle-class, they still act like the poor. They don't use rent-to-own but that's because they have 10 credit cards, 8 charged up to the max. They don't buy lottery tickets but that's because they don't have much left after paying the house note and two car payments and/or other things they couldn't really afford but wanted anyway. Yes, in fact, most of the whining and crying about "the poor" doesn't really come from the poor. It comes from those who feel better about attacking the "evil rich" if they compare them, not to their own irresponsible selves, but to the little old lady on food stamps who struggles to buy medicine (whom they do not know.)

A little less crying and little more personal responsibility would not solve everything but it would go a long way.


As for the article itself: Yes, the government welfare system is flawed. Yes, it needs to be changed. People should be assisted by government assistance (what a novel idea) not made dependent forever. People should be encouraged to work, to gain education and job skills, to move forward and up with their lives. Taking away benefits as people become self-sufficient makes perfect sense but taking away benefits disproportionate to their earnings and such is sheer idiocy. It help creates what some politicians want though, a permanent dependent class. Give people an opportunity and some will not take it but others will. If the system rewarded people for working and assisted those who wanted to make something better, financially, of their lives, then more people would achieve.

[Aleta]

poundwise: As a woman was annointing the feet of Jesus with a very expensive oil, his diciples complained that it could be spent on the poor. Jesus's answer was "the poor you will have with you always". There's a bit of truth in there somewhere.

In our country, our poor would be considered wealthy in another country.

[LuxLiving]

poundwise, when are you running for office? You've got my vote!! Well said.

[Pupart]

[QUOTE=poundwise;120676]
Wahhhh.

Cry me a river.

Here's another quote from the Bible which is very true:

Pride comes before a fall!

[poundwise]

Here's another quote from the Bible which is very true: Pride comes before a fall!

Actually, that is not a quote from the Bible, though many people think that it is. The Bible verse actually states:

"Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall." - Proverbs 16:18 KJV

Though I'm not sure how this verse applies here.

I don't consider it prideful to suggest that people who are not poor should quit using "the poor" to push their own agenda or make excuses for themselves.

"Better is a poor person who walks in his integrity
than one who is crooked in speech and is a fool."

(Proverbs 19:1) ESV

[jodi]

A comment not quite related to the above posts, but I thought it interesting to add: In my line of work, I provide service coordination for people with developmental disabilities. Most of my caseload falls into the range of severe to profound mental retardation. They all receive either SSI or Social Security disability benefits. Along with these benefits come a mandatory $139-159 personal allowance benefit each month (cash paid to the individual). These folks live in group homes with all their needs taken care of (rent, utilities, food, furniture, medical care, therapies, etc.). However, they also have an asset limit of $2000 (SSI) or $4150 (Medicaid). If they exceed these amounts, they can lose their cash, medical, and food stamp benefits. So what's that mean? It means that every few months, we scramble to spend their money. These folks are absolutely dependent on Medicaid for their day habilitation programs, for the care they receive in the group home, for their numerous appts., etc. They cannot do without their benefits. So, we buy them lots of nice new clothes, massage therapy in their homes, toys and gadgets, televisions, movies, trips for those who are able. I'm not saying that they don't deserve this - they certainly do enjoy the things they purchase - but I do want to make the point that even buying these things, some of these folks accumulate more money than they can easily spend - yet we have to find a way to spend it or else they can lose all their benefits. Talk about a broken system. This is where the social security money is going.
And yet I worked with another family who made $35k a year working two full time minumum wage jobs and had a severely disabled son who got turned down for SSI benefits because they owned two cars (necessary to get to their jobs - they lived in a rural area) and a small piece of land adjoining their property. It doesn't make sense.

[Coleroo]

The specific point poundwise makes, I agree with wholeheartedly.

I know a woman (she's 39 right now) who was adopted really young, had a child at 16, spent the rest of her teen years partying, and had that child taken away from her at 5 years old. Today she lives in a trailer park - her living expenses is paid for by the governenment, and she gets food from the food pantry. She has no job (although she is not what we would consider disabled..she claims to have a bad elbow but i've never seen any cause and effect to make her unable to work because of it), lives off of other men's money constantly, has direct TV satellite, smokes god knows how many packs a day, drinks, does cocain, and buys junk from fingerhut all the time. She just recently bought a playstation 2 for her (grown) son's birthday.

It makes me angry sometimes (and yes, jealous at other times). I know in my head that my work ethic is good, Im building a great life in the future, etc, but sometimes my emotions get the best of me when Im sitting there on my old handme down furniture, without any cable channels at all, making my own laundry detergent, and thinking of ways to save save save right now ----while she (seemingly) has access to all the expensive creature comforts that I was use to before I got married.


p.s. sorry i needed to vent... it gets to me sometimes when i read stuff like this.

[Aleta]

We had a great article in our Money Section of our Sunday newspaper written by Michelle Singletary. I think most people have heard of her. She wrote about budgets and spoke of her Grandmother. Michelle is an Afro-American and her grandmother raised 5 grandchildren just making above mimimum wage and without the help of state aid which she was entitled to. The interesting thing about the article is how the grandmother had some money automatically taken out of her paycheck. She had a budget which she wrote on the back of an envelope and she had her own envelope system of finances. So, it's no wonder that a great finance person like Michelle came to be because of the actions and teaching of her grandmother. Everyone can save something. We all just want what everyone else has because as a society we've been told that we are entitled. This is evident when you see a poor child wearing a pair of sneakers that costs way over $100. I blame the parents for this. In my house, a certain amount was set aside for school clothing. A couple of times, I told my older son that he could have the designer jeans but he wasn't going to get anything else. It's a good lesson for the young to learn.

[Duchesse]

And the gap continues to grow between the "haves and have nots."

And the poor shall not cease from the earth.