I've always endorsed the idea that you should be entirely responsible for yourself, that you should work hard to earn your keep, and so on. So this year, whilst self-funding a postgraduate degree, I resolved not to ask for any financial assistance from my family, and support myself completely. It's been difficult - I work ~15 hours per week on top of my uni work, which is about the maximum I can do healthily, and just about make enough money to survive. I never eat out or go for nights out, because I just can't afford anything other than rent and groceries (I'm putting aside £10 each week so that I'll maybe be able to afford a holiday in the summer). The idea that this is a 'character building' experience keeps me going, but to be frank I'm depressed and lonely, partly because of my financial state.
I look at some of the people on my course - privately-educated girls whose parents fronted their tuition fees without hesitation and give them generous living fees each month. They spend their winters skiing and their summers in various incredible locations, they buy expensive lunches each day, they take notes on their brand new Apple laptops, and so on. They're very happy, and what's more they're not at all bad people - if anything, they're far kinder and more friendly than me, because they've not been made bitter/cynical by their circumstances.
So are there actually any benefits to being poor?
>>16787171
You learn how to budget and be disciplined.
Which you can also learn while being rich.
So no.
You may work a job that's very low stress and be poor because the pay is shit. But atleast you're not stressed and working all the time.
>>16787188
Unfortunately, my job is pretty high stress. I work unsocialable hours for no extra pay, am always on my feet attending to one task or another, and quite often get treated like shit by customers because some people like to do that to minimum-wage employees.
Knowing the value of a hard day's work.
(This is complete bullshit, since most millionairs work 80+ hours a week. Shit, most high-educated professionals work 40 hours at work and put in 10-20 hours of work in their downtime, preparing shit)
I think when you are poor, you appreciate the little things more. Its humbling.
You learn that nothing revolves around you. So you expect less from life. Which somehow makes what you have, just a little bit better.
Not particularly. You can make the best of adversity, and sometimes it teaches a humility and discipline that richfags never have to face, but deprivation on its own doesn't really have any upside.
Life isn't fair. Some of us start the race with a ferrari and some of us start with a honda civic with 300k miles on it.
>>16787171
I mean, there's a hunger and a fire that SOME SOME SOME poor people get.
The people that decide they DONT like being poor, so they WORK WORK WORK and become RICH.
Those people make more money than all those trust fund kids you described because they have the FIRE.
Now, 99% of poor people don't have the fire, or the smarts, and you need both
>>16787549
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycle_of_poverty
Most poor people work their asses off to stop being poor. It just doesn't work because poverty is a vicious cycle.
>>16787556
That's nonsense.
The real cycle of poverty is.
Buy Item that will depreciate in price (Net assets go down over time).
To make things worse, the poor will buy this stuff on credit cards- so they have to pay interest on assets that go down in value.
The reason why I'm doing so well is because I saved my money, work hard, made lots of it, and invested it in assets that appreciate.
>>16787556
The other problem here for some poor is
>Put in minimum effort at job
>Have no skills
>Don't do a good job
>As a result, get minimum wage.
If your active revenue stream is low, and you're not rich, you won't do well- that's very simple.
Let's compare two men with IQ of 80.
Jim and Joe.
Jim goes to work at mcdonalds, buys a new TV on his credit card, buys a bag of weed, smokes it.
Jim makes $8 an hour and spends well outside of his means- he spends more than Joe who makes $50 an hour!
Now Joe, also IQ 80.
>Joe works as a welder
>Joe works 80 hours a week, making $40 an hour. So Joe makes TEN times as much as Jim does, 5 times as much hourly, 2 times as many hours.
>Jim spends his money wisely.
>Jim invests his savings.
Jim and Joe are both 'stupid' IQ 80 people.
Jim is middle class. Joe is poor.
>>16787576
I know plenty of people who don't have any money left over to save, not because they wasted it on non-necessities but because they're just too poor to afford shit.
Fiscal responsibility is extremely important, but it's also important to realize that, for some people, it's not enough. That's why we need better social programs and a solid welfare system in the US.
>both of my parents are lawyers
>we go to a food bank every week
>I'm disabled but in treatment trying to be able to go back to school and get a job
I do understand wanting to better yourself, because fuck, that's what I want for myself. I know what I want to do and I'm doing my best to do it. But expecting everyone to rise to an unrealistic standard is... well, silly.
>>16787595
fucked up the names big time but you get the point .
The smarter you are the easier it is to get rich.
Even stupid people can do well if they work hard
>>16787599
read, this >>16787595
I messed up the names. But you get it.
There are two kinds of working class, Joe the welder, and Jim the mcdonalds guy.
Jim usually has a college degree. Joe doesn't. Joe is doing a lot better
>>16787511
I don't even have a car
>>16787171
The benefits are in your own personal triumphs. You will not enjoy material benefits, you wont have fancy trips and toys and holidays, but neither are any of those things a requirement for happiness. You live the harder life of virtue, but at the end of each day you can retire and look with pride at all you do, the stress you handle calmly while others complain, cry, drop out, or do worse. You have MY respect, sir, for what it's worth.
Cleanthes studied philosophy by day and worked as a water carrier by night for YEARS. When he became head of the Stoa, he was offered a full stipend by the city of Athens to teach philosophy, but he rejected it in favor of teaching for free by day, to continue working as a water carrier by night to pay his way.
>>16787643
>You have MY respect, sir, for what it's worth
Thanks, but I don't deserve it. I grew up in a middle-class family where I didn't really want for anything (although we weren't rich either). Next year I'll be looking for a 'proper' job, so I should be on a salary of £20k minimum - I'll hopefully never be this poor again.
>>16787603
Whether college works for you depends on the degree you get.
Jim the McDonald's guy wouldn't be working there if he had a useful degree, like STEM or business or something, rather than a useless one like French literature.
>>16787171
>benefits of being poor
you have a nice "rags to bitches" story for your bio, but if you're pursuing a postgrad degree I truly doubt how poor you actually are
that schedule/budget works, but you have no wiggle room. what happens if you get sick? robbed/stolen from? car gets hit? public transit raises their fee?
I'm not the OP, but from what I'm reading in this thread there is not even a fucking small good thing about being poor.
>>16787995
Yeah I'm not really poor, as I say I grew up in a relatively middle-class home. If my financial situation ever gets too desperate then I can simply ring my parents and they'll be able to help me out. But I made a resolution not to do that, and I'm trying to stick to it as closely as possible.
As it happens I did get stolen from - I left the window of my room open and when I came back a couple of hours later my laptop had been stolen. I had to take lots of extra hours over Christmas to be able to afford a new one. Again, it's difficult. I feel a lot of sympathy for people who live this year in year out - at least I know that my situation will have changed by this time next year (barring a huge change in fortunes).
