On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

Re:On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't by pflenker on Sunday October 15, 2023 @07:38AM (#37888919)

One thing I didn’t find adequately reflected in this article is how expensive it is being poor. If you can’t afford the more expensive, but more durable version of X, where X is something you really need, means that over time you will spend much more on this than you would have if you could have afforded the more durable option.

At one part of my life I could only afford the cheapest pair of shoes for 10€, and since it was the only pair I owned I needed to buy a new pair every few months. Of course, I quickly paid more on shoes than I would have if I’d been able to afford one good pair of shoes.

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Re:On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't by f1shy on Sunday October 15, 2023 @07:51AM (#37888982)

So much this. Also having money means you can buy in advance, or in quantities -important for a relatively big family-, also have a car, for example, and can go further to get better deals in X.

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Re:On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't by pvik on Sunday October 15, 2023 @08:14AM (#37889112)

Popularized as the "Boots" theory of socioeconomic unfairness by Sir Terry Pratchett

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory

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Re:On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't by tonyedgecombe on Sunday October 15, 2023 @08:19AM (#37889148)

I always assume the bottom 10% in any market is going to be garbage, whether it's shoes, jeans, food or anything else. Of course knowing that doesn't help if you are really destitute.

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Re:On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't by badpun on Sunday October 15, 2023 @09:54AM (#37889733)

Lots of people make the same assumption, and companies take advantage of that. E.g. if they want you to buy a bottle of wine at $10 a bottle, they'll place plenty of $10 bottles on the shelves, as well as some $7 bottles, with the assumption that you'll regard them as bottom of the barrel crap.

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Re:On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't by naveen99 on Sunday October 15, 2023 @08:46AM (#37889291)

Wholesale also gets a volume discount.

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Re:On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't by simonsarris on Sunday October 15, 2023 @09:03AM (#37889388)

This gets repeated a lot especially for clothes (eg boots theory) but it hasn't been true for decades. We are ridiculously far from 1900 levels of material comfort. Clothes are so rock bottom cheap that we are swimming in them, and charities are too. Too many clothes to know what to do with.

In places like NYC anyone can get free clothes if they want them. There are hundreds of charities and gov orgs (eg [1]) for precisely this reason. Shoes are free if you are not picky. Zero dollars. That's way cheaper than "shoes that last" regardless of price.

[1] this is aimed at people on probation but is open to the public, no questions asked https://www.nyc.gov/site/neon/programs/clothing-closet.page

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Re:On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't by dan-robertson on Sunday October 15, 2023 @11:15AM (#37890433)

When you were buying cheap shoes for 10€, how much would a good pair of shoes cost? How long would such a pair last?

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