- You’re always in survival mode.
- Your next expensive disaster is always just around the corner.
- No credit can be as damaging as bad credit.
- There is an entire industry devoted to keeping you poor.
- You get charged for using your own money.
This one line from the article (which is quite good) that jumped out at me: “Everything in a poor person’s life is a cash vampire.” Cheap cars break down more often. Cheap clothing wears out faster. Cheap food is generally more unhealthy and less nutritious. Lack of insurance can make chronic conditions into emergencies. If you can’t afford to make a down payment on a house, then you throw money away by renting.
Thank you!!! What I see around these parts is, when the topic does come up, some variation of the self-aggrandizing fabulosity of being a starving artist or activist or academic (if not a combination of the three).
And when I see this attitude, it also lets me know the person doing the romanticizing more than likely comes from a middle-class background or is middle-class aspiring and see being poor as some version of “keeping it real.” Those who know they have access to ending their poverty can afford to be rosy (and self-aggrandizing) about the condition. These are also the same people who’ll get mad at another artist/activist/academic who wants to get paid for giving a speech or showing their work, trying to induce guilt (and stopping the request for payment) by talking about “community” and/or calling zie a “sell-out.”
Hmph.
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