30 Times Being Poor Was More Expensive Than Being Rich
The great irony of life is that poverty is expensive. Take going to the dentist - if you can't afford a filling today, you may end up having no choice but to pay for a root canal later.
1.
Being stuck with higher interest rates because you don't have enough credit to get low rates.
3.
The quality of stuff you're able to buy. For example someone struggling for cash will may pair of shoes for £5 that last for a short period of time and need to be replaced every two months. And someone who is more well off can afford to buy a pair of shoes for £40 which last about two years. Therefore at the end of the two year period the poorer person has spent around £120
4.
Mental health. Or more specifically stress. You will always have stress about future, always making decisions based on your poverty so that it won't affect your situation in bad way.
5.
Biggest one that I always think of for all my fellow Americans is medical care. If you’re poor you put off medical care as long as possible, and it’s extremely expensive by the time it’s serious enough to address.
6.
There are late fees for everything. Overdraft fees at the bank. Sh*tty jobs usually don't have good healthcare plans. If you're poor, you need credit cards just to survive, but interest rates are higher for those with low credit scores (see late fees above). Sh*tty cars are always breaking down, and that's expensive...
7.
I saw a lady coming out of a laundromat, loading her baskets of clothes into a taxi (there is zero other public transport where I saw this happen and only a few taxis).Not being able to put enough money together at one time to buy a car or a washing machine (she probably rented so this maybe wasn't even an option) was costing her a fortune. Just being nickeled and dimed to death.
8.
You can't afford to buy a place and essentially throw the money away into rent instead of paying off a house and being able to sell it after.
9.
You have to buy a cheap, unreliable car, that will inevitably cost you more in repairs, poor fuel economy, higher insurance etc.
11.
If you're ever desperate enough to take out a title/payday loan you'll discover you just stepped in financial quicksand.
12.
In every manner.If you want healthy food, that costs. But eating cheap food, while sustaining, will inevitably lead to poorer health.Bad health will cost you.If you want to not be stressed-and stress is huge when it comes to health-then that means not having to worry is kind of an integral part of poverty.Stress means less awesome interpersonal relationships, means less sleep, means overwork to try to make ends meet.Good interpersonal relationships, getting enough sleep, and not working yourself to exhaustion are things that help you stay alive.Mentally, you now have a running total of how much everything in your life costs. I guarantee you that every poor person knows exactly, precisely, how much milk costs or gasoline, or a bus pass, or the subscription to Netflix that brings them just a little joy and if they can afford it or not. There are no coins in their couches, $5 to discover in an old coat; they need that money and they know where it is.And if not, now they have to spend time (another expense!) dealing with debt collectors, or people at utility agencies or banks or government offices, trying to negotiate and navigate systems that may or may not be willing to help them (regardless of that system's original intent).Poverty is merely the accumulation of expenses that one cannot pay and once you are poor, there is a system in place to ensure that you never, ever run out of those expenses.
13.
The justice system. If you can’t pay a fine, the state will make things more expensive by adding fees on top of fees on top of fees, then they will incarcerate you for not paying the inflated fees. Then you have to pay the parole officer who is keeping an eye on you while you care unable to get a job that pays enough to pay him.
14.
Renting to own anything is really bad. You pay 4X the value of whatever it is you're renting to own. And if you miss a payment they repossess it and someone else might start at the beginning of attempting to pay for it again. Not only that you very well might be paying 4X the new value for a used item. And only low quality items are sold rent to own. Ashley furniture, sh*tty used cars, the cheapest big screen tvs available at wholesale. Houses might be better, but rent a center, and JD Byrider are worse than loan sharks.
15.
There is the phrase, "buy nice or buy twice." It basically means that you should buy the nicer product because you'll need to replace it less often.For those people who can't "buy nice" they are forced to buy an inferior product multiple times.An example is work boots. A $100 pair of boots may last 5 years. A $20 pair of boots may last 6 months. If you can't afford $100 boots then by the time 5 years is up, you would have already spent $200 on cheap boots.
16.
In certain parts of British Columbia, you have to pay a fine if you're caught panhandling. Homeless people literally have to pay money for asking for money.
17.
Can't afford to buy bulk at Costco, so end up spending more and getting less in the long run...
18.
Being unable to pay for education is the most expensive way of staying poor. And don’t come with scholarship and that stuff, it is expensive af and even more if you are like me from a poor third world country
20.
I once had to pay money so I could set up a payment plan because I had no money. Because I was to broke I had a bunch of late fees so a 100 dollar ticket ended up being around 1500 when all was said and done
21.
My car has a leaky seal on the transmission. It'd be about $250 to replace the seal and flush the transmission. I don't have $250, so I keep topping up the fluid and keep driving it because I'll never get $250 if I don't get to work. But, in time, that's going to destroy the transmission, which will be about $1200 to replace.
22.
When bank fees are waived if you keep more than $X amount in your account, but they start charging for the account when the amount drops under the minimum.
23.
If you’re poor you already have no or very little money to invest in yourself, so you have to take on debt to do so. If you want to get technical certifications or degrees. Sometimes there’s financial assistance but a lot of the time taking on loans is necessary.
24.
Food deserts, where everything at the single grocery store for miles around is marked WAY the hell up because its shoppers usually pay in food stamps and/or have nowhere else to go.Laundry. Imagine needing an entire morning/afternoon to load and lug your sh*t to a hot building and feeding machines quarter after quarter after quarter while being tethered to the spot so your stuff won't get stolen.
25.
Low paying jobs can also be physically harmful ie factory work, and you can be treated like garbage because it's cheaper to pay out the occasional law suit and medical expenses rather than resign the factory and make it less efficient to be safer.
27.
Tires! Used tires cost 1/3 price and get about 20% of the life of a new tire. Also you are paying mount and balance every time, plus worry about blow outs. Even a new tire at $80 with a 30K mileage expectancy or a $100 tire at 65k mileage warranty. Over twice the life, little more than 20% in extra charge.
28.
Debt. Basically if you're poor you need to borrow some money to either get a house or buy food and after a while the debt keeps getting bigger and bigger
29.
As an example: buying sh*tty shoes every 3 months because it constantly breaks is more costly than a rich person buying ultra-expensive shoes that will last for the rest of his life.
30.
In every way. You can only afford stuff that breaks, can't afford good health care which will lead to bigger health problems. Stressed about how how you will be able to afford rent/stuff.
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