If I can't immediately afford to send something for repair, then I keep using it until it completely wears out, have an ongoing worse experience, and ultimately a larger expense later on.
Houses and land have, traditionally, been great equalisers because even the lowest-end house/land is still an asset. Now the poor are unable to buy houses/land again they are forced to be pretty much 100% consumers. That's how you stay poor.
$800 car < "a damn" << $800 cash
Yet, being poor is expensive, so the poor person forks out $800 for a car that isn't worth a damn.
(Reference to "Being Poor": https://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/)
People spend 90% of their wage on: rent, food and basic services. Can you be very smart and hack your way into halving your monthly rent? Can you be very smart and buy a really good potato that will last you for years? Can you be very smart and negotiate a better rate for the utilities you pay? Come on, man.
Of course, planning and spending carefully go a long way, but that metaphor is a joke.
But there is a serious problem behind it.
For example, with food, if you have enough money you can afford to buy large quantities and take advantage of discounts.
For rent, it you have money, deposits won't be a problem, and landlord may be more willing to give you interesting offers. Poor people are at risk of not being able to pay the rent, and landlords have to account for it. You may even buy and not pay the rent.
For utilities, if you have money, you can buy more efficient heaters and appliances, better isolation, maybe even solar panels and stuff like that which may be profitable after a few years.
That said, I don't see why we can't have both (A base level of UBI + a federal jobs guarantee)
Metaphors can be tricky.
If you don't have any money right now you are often forced to make decisions that cost you more money later, which sets up a vicious circle.
AirBnB exists, for example. There have been people who sleep in trains and rent out their apartment in their absence - it’s not fun, but it does reduce rent.
Potatoes can be grown, for example.
You can shop around for a place where utilities are included, for example - and many utility companies will give you rebates to do things that lower your bill.
None of these are really a path out of poverty though.
Yes, by splitting with someone else, or worst case moving.
Can you be very smart and buy a really good potato that will last you for years?
Yes again, by cutting and planting it, or at least part of it.
Can you be very smart and negotiate a better rate for the utilities you pay?
Sometimes, by moving to a lower cost area, or by shedding unnecessary usage and getting cheaper options. Get slow Internet instead of cable TV. Use an older phone on a cheap cell plan instead of the latest flagship on a subsidized plan. Take shorter, colder showers. Turn the lights off.
It is well illustrated by a quote from Terry Pratchett
> The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.
> Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
> But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
> This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.