This Group Is Sharing Painful Truths And Jokes About Being Poor, Here Are 40 Of The Best

I agree totally

The US systems(Health, Education, other public services) are all greedy capitalist systems. Only meant to serve the people at the top 0.1%. As Carlin said "They want more for themselves & less for everybody else".

american could finance great healcare if only they cut their military budget by 5%

I was talking to my father's hospice nurse and honestly just in aw of them and how they dealt with death and grief everyday and said how hard that has to be and thanked them. The nurse said that she handles it well except for the young people. She said they get a lot of young people who could have lived but are in hospice care instead because they couldn't afford treatment. People in their 20s that could have been cured, even had insurance, but she is helping them die slowly instead.

My God, how painful... In ANY OTHER INDUSTRIALIZED COUNTRY in the world, they would have spent almost zero...

terry pratchett is such a good author

Author and witty philosopher. Terry Pratchett was amazing

Sam Vimes, the best Discworld character!

I have an employee who I found out was going to pay day loans every month because she is is always short when rent is due. I own my home and she rents, I don't get a late fee until the 16th, she gets a late fee on the 2nd and every following day she is late. My 4 bedroom house cost me $850 a month, her 2 bedroom apartment is $1,300 a month. I told her I had a line of credit from my bank for if I was short so I could move money over, her bank told her no when she applied for a line of credit. I fought to get her a raise, but the raise ended up being less than the increase for cost of living. It pains me to have an employee of mine that works like hell using pay day loans when our institution brings in around a billion in research funds every year. Being poor is incredibly expensive.

While the above quote is poignant, having grown up extremely poor and no longer so, it’s possible to make tough sacrifices to invest in things like a pair of boots that last a few years that will help pull yourself out of poverty. Imagine the poor person who did manage to save for the boots, could then easily save for the next pair over two or three years and still have more money at the end of the day. When you are extremely poor, either you can blame the system and stay poor or you can find a way to climb up the ladder. I chose to understand early that the system was very unfair, and society was shirking its responsibility, but where there is a lack of responsibility, opportunity blossoms. I took the opportunity despite the hardships. Now apparently I’m an oppressor… 🤦‍♂️🤷‍♂️

So true! Every time I read an article about saving money, I am already doing all of those things because I am poor.

What happens is, middle-aged people (like myself) will go out to a nice restaurant, and we'll look around and say, "Look at all these young people, buying $16 cocktails and $40 dinners. Yet they complain they're broke. I didn't have money to spend on nice restaurants when I was in my 20s!" What we fail to consider is that these people in front of us are the RICH KIDS. The poor ones are home in their crappy apartments they share with 3 other broke people, eating ramen noodles and watching Netflix with a borrowed password. And the reverse is also true. Broke young people look at us and say, "Look at all those greedy old rich people, dropping all that money on their steaks and martinis." Not realizing that the people doing that are the affluent ones. There are plenty of older people who are struggling to pay their bills, and they're lucky if they can afford to go to The Olive Garden on their birthday. Generations are not a monolith.

I'm so tired of these 'savings experts' saying go to a cheaper restaurant and use discount codes and vouchers, making the assumption that I go out anywhere near that regularly (I don't go out at all atm) to dinner that'd it make a big difference to my finances

ANY ONE who assumes how much you spend on the basics is too much should be told to f**k off because they are out of touch with reality. I spend £5 on coffee about once every 2 weeks if you factor in hot water, milk and sweeteners

I'm collecting recipes for meals that cost less than 1 € per serve for the jobless people I work with. But Main problem is: You can't buy and prepare in bulks when you don't own a fridge. They could save so much money and could have cheap but healthy meals if they'd be able to buy in special sales and store it.

We picked a credit union because we made it clear that if we don't have the money, we wanted to be declined. No bank would agree to that but we found a credit union that promised they would not if we signed up for the overdraft protection. They got rid of it a year later without telling us, my husband was 50 cents short and our credit union allowed the cable company to try to run the payment 3 times in one day, meaning 3 overdraft fees of $32 for being 50 cents short. My husband gave a very impassioned speech in the lobby, about how they were their to protect our money and they had left us exposed, etc. Told them that our money was better protected in our mattress. The manager came out, agreed with my husbands logic and set us up a line of credit so if we don't have the funds in our account, it pulls from the line of credit automatically. No overdraft fees in 10 years. Highly recommend if you can find a bank who will set that up for you.

Yes. Yes it is. I loathe how the world has accepted the ideas for fees for overdrafts, higher costs for check cashing, astronomical fees on payday loans, etc. The whole point is the people needing these services don't have money. Why did we accept that they should pay the most fees?

I had never heard of over draft fees before I moved to Canada. They don't exist in Europe. There, if you don't have enough money in you account, it gets bounced. No fees. Here the payment gets processed and then reversed and you have to pay a $40 fee for it. A terrible and unjust system, that should be illegal.

Are used to have an account at US Bank. One weekend I was charged $175 in overdraft fees that added up to me really being only $10 short in my account. The following week I tried talking to someone at the bank and they told me they could not help though I know they just didn't want to. I was poor and broke my account in the negative I closed my account that day and eventually paid them back and every time I hear US Bank I make sure I tell that story. It's been 20 years and I will never stop telling that story.

and what did those fees pay for? Were they punishment?

That's how I think about unnecessary purchases. "Well, this coat will cost me three days work", or renting a movie will cost five minutes work, or and a possible vacation will cost two weeks work or whatever. Thinking about whether an item is worth the amount of work put into buying it really puts things into perspective!

And the 10 bucks per hour is with taxes, so technically it's more than 3 hours.

Exactly the reason I stopped doing holidays, especially Christmas, all together. It's become more about what you can buy. Meanwhile, you want to go see your family and have a nice meal? Do it. Just because it's Friday. You don't need some special date on a calendar to tell you it's ok. As for the presents? I'd rather have experiences. And you getting something as a gift for someone because you feel socially obligated takes all the meaning out of it.

Holiday season is overly materialistic to me. Just being with folks who you enjoy being around is the greatest gift of all, imo.

I think 30 dollars for a gift during the holidays is very expensive to begin with... Those should be to celebrate with each other and should not be about gifts.

Love this! I think I'll go out today and invest in some avocados. I finished my last investment (bananas), and want a change now.