How poor are you?

Differences of view on life.

Published on January 23, 2006 By XX In Life

I posted this in reponse to person in other blog...

"I live on much less than that. I get about $6,000 a year plus about $3000 in college fin. aid. I don't feel like I'm poor at all. In fact, I got a nice laptop, computer, car and good place to live. My total monthly bill is just $600 including gas and food. Rest is spent on college bills.

The more stuff you have or want, the more you have to pay in order to support your higher standards of living. I live in little more than a room and have a good but old car that is fully paid off.

If you consider having your own apartment, car and just basic needs met such as food poor, what is bums? worse than poor?? I remember the days of living on $350 a month, in an 3 bedroom apartment with 5 other adults. I had to use bicycle to ride to store to buy food. I remember having my back hurt by hauling heavy food in the backpack and using bicycle handles to hold bags with milk jugs in it.

Considering that, I am definitely not poor now. Your standards of "poor" is much, much too high."

It's funny to me that there is such a major difference in standard of living. I have been poor most of my life. I don't consider myself poor lately, although, some (or many?) people would consider me to be very poor based on my income of just $9000 a year. That's not even 5 digit income a year.

I suspect that "poor" definition depends on person's own experence of living standards. People getting $20,000 a year may have higher standards of living and would consider owning 20 year old used car to be "poor". I may own a 20 year old car, but it runs very well and is very effective (for it's age) mileage per gallon. It's about 25 to 30 MPG, depending on weather.

It's same as place to live. I just live in a room. It's all I need to have at this point of living. I certainly will need more if I ever marry and have kids. Right now, It's all I need.

It, of course, don't mean I'm purely happy to stay at this level forever. I want improvement. I want to have a better standards of living, but that's why I'm going to college.

What do you consider poor? Why?

Comments (Page 1)

Texas Wahine

on Jan 23, 2006

You have to consider that you are only supporting 1 person on that income. If you were the head of a household of a family of four and you had $9K for each person, you'd be making $36K which is definitely NOT poor.

I agree with your premise, though. I've also noticed that once you raise your standard of living it's very hard to go back down to a lower standard if for some reason you begin earning less money.

The standard of living for Americans, even "poor" Americans, is very high (and that's a good thing, in general).

To me there is a difference between poor and poverty. Poor is struggling to pay bills from time to time, but doesn't rule out a small bit of discretionary income. This describes lots of people, and it's not a bad thing. People can live poor and content their entire lives. And of course, if they don't like that standard of living, there are opportunities for them to become a higher wage earner.

Poverty, true poverty, is not being able to obtain food or shelter or proper clothing. In our generous nation full of opportunity, it should be almost impossible to find someone who fits this description.

At our lowest income my family (3 people at the time) lived on a little over $8K, but we lived in a home owned by our church (no rent) and we had one car (no payments as it was a gift to my husband from his parents when he was a teen).

Honestly, we did just fine. We had A LOT lower standard of living than we do now, but we never went without food. We just didn't buy a lot of crap or waste money.

We were a lot wiser with our finances back when we lived on $9K than we are now that my husband makes several times that.

Amitty

on Jan 23, 2006

I agree.
I was making 14,000 a year last year, and still had a lot of money to spend. It is all about how you live and how you spend. I used to be horrible, wanting everything. Now I make careful purchases and don't try and spend every penny. BTW, that is 14,000 CND

EmperorofIceCream

on Jan 24, 2006

Poor would be not being able to get drunk n stoned on a regular basis.

EmperorofIceCream

on Jan 24, 2006

Work... the curse of the drinking classes.

Tova7

on Jan 24, 2006

My family is so poor, when a friend came over and stepped on a cigarette my husband shouted, “Hey, who turned off the heater!”

Tova7

on Jan 24, 2006

Yo mama's so poor, the mat on her front porch says "Welfare."

Tova7

on Jan 24, 2006

Yo mama's so poor, she has to do drive-by shootings on the bus

Tova7

on Jan 24, 2006

Yo mama's so poor, when I saw her kicking a can down the street, I asked her what she was doing, she said "Moving."

Tova7

on Jan 24, 2006

Yo mama's so poor, she watches TV on an Etch-A-Sketch.

Tova7

on Jan 24, 2006

Yo mama's so poor, they put her picture on food stamps

Gideon MacLeish

on Jan 24, 2006

Poverty, true poverty, is not being able to obtain food or shelter or proper clothing. In our generous nation full of opportunity, it should be almost impossible to find someone who fits this description.

And it is. When 98 percent of Americans have at least one television set, it's pretty clear they're living with SOME level of comfort!

garsgolfer

on Jan 25, 2006

I use to volunteer to provide Xmas presents and food for one family per Xmas, and had someone else deliver the gifts. This one year I decided to handle it myself, did the shopping even dressed up as Santa when delivering the gifts.

The charitable service always gave me a large family, ages and sexes. This year was no different, they sent me a file on a family of 7 where the father and mother didn't work. When I arrived, I sat outside for a few moments to gather myself. Then knocked.... walked into a decent house, both parents appeared healthy, the house was in disarray a bit but each room was filled with reasonably nice furniture, TV's in 4 rooms, electronic games setting out, toys spread about the rooms, and as I walked out, two older cars in the driveway out back, one supposedly wasn't running....I was shocked!

I took my time to help what I thought was a family in need, by providing lots of food and gifts. Poor to me means no TV's or maybe one, limited number of shared toys, limited furniture, no transportation or one broken down old car, hand me downs with holes, a home that needed repair, very limited money and food from welfare with one person working pt and both looking for jobs.

Not remotely close. They appeared as many low income family's. They had almost everything and they were claiming to be poor, asking for help. Not remotely close to what I experienced as child of a poor family. Distrubed me so much haven't done it since.

Tova7.... great jokes, I needed a good laugh.

on Jan 25, 2006

That's true. You DO need more money to support a family, but main things that you need to have to support a family is a roof, food, water, electricity, and good life. You certainly don't need a NEW car or big house. Yet some people seem to think that way.

And it is. When 98 percent of Americans have at least one television set, it's pretty clear they're living with SOME level of comfort!

A few years ago, I would have agreed, but nowadays you can have a new 20 inch tv for less than $100. Way less if used...

TitanI9, that's a great story. It may be because they think themselves to be poor?

The rest, Thanks for funny jokes!

Gideon MacLeish

on Jan 26, 2006

A few years ago, I would have agreed, but nowadays you can have a new 20 inch tv for less than $100. Way less if used...

And you could buy a hell of a lot of clothes at the thrift store, or food, or gas to get to work with that same $100. Trust me when I say that, if you're TRULY poor, $100 is a LOT of money.

When we moved here, we had enough money to buy what we needed for the month...but moving on a Greyhound bus means there are a lot of household basics to get: furniture, household appliances, spices and staples for the kitchen that you usually replace one at a time, pots and pans, dishes. We prioritize. Because of that fact, we were here almost six months before we purchased a TV and DVD/VCR combo.

I would be interested to know how many "poor" families have cable, satellite, or larger screen TVs (ours is a 19 inch because in evaluating our energy load to hopefully put up wind or solar in the future, we discovered that a 19 inch TV uses HALF the power of a 25 inch). I've lived poor and I've watched firsthand as families in our poor neighborhoods would squander their money on cigarettes, alcohol, lottery tickets, and/or expensive electronics that they couldn't afford.

Caracarn1

on Jan 27, 2006

The more you make, the more bills you have to pay.

In college (1and 1/2 years ago) I could live off 20 bucks a week. Food and beer, that was it.

Now I make over 50k a year and it seems like I have a harder time financially then I did in college. More bills, I bought a house, gf likes money, ect.

Id say, poor is only how you feel about what you have. A millionaire can be poor if it is not enough to cover his lavish lifestyle.

Welcome Guest! Please take the time to register with us.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:

Richer content, access to many features that are disabled for guests like commenting on the forums.
Access to a great community, with a massive database of many, many areas of interest.
Access to contests & subscription offers like exclusive emails.
It's simple, and FREE!