To think some cash-poor people actually spend more than wealthy people because they chase comfort instead of stability?

[SpendingForSoothing]

It’s not judgment, it’s psychology.

What is with all the treads about less well off people spend their money? Or threads about how they get tattoos etc instead of saving money.

I think some people are too invested into how other people spend their money.

Exactly.

Nope, poor people spend more because being poor generally costs more than being rich.

As per my namesake

"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."

You mean like spending proportionally more of their income on the heating for instance?

Generally poor people do spend more of their income.....

Define stability and comfort

As someone who has been there, I agree. When you are plodding through the worry of having very little, sometimes you just want to take the kids to the cinema and have some popcorn and feel normal. The economy needs people to spend money to keep it going, which is why I am in favour of the welfare state from an economic point of view. However, we have lost how to support people out of the safety net and into making more money to better their lives and that's a problem.

Its a bit more complicated than that.

The less you feel you have to lose, the less the payoff in protecting it. If theres no chance in hell of you ever getting on the property ladder for example, then why not just spend what you have when you have it?

Re the boots example, I have experience of an ex who followed this pattern quite literally. He was self employed in a manual job and just never had the cash available to shell out on £££ work boots. Instead he had to buy a new shitty pair every year.

The stereotype is that a lot of people have given up on ever owning a house or flat, and spend their money away on holidays or little luxuries rather than saving up for something that will never happen anyway.

It's a stereotype which I can easily believe and find very understandable.

It is not judgemental to recognise that less well-off people prioritise “How can I be OK now?”, whereas comfortably well-off people prioritise “I’m OK now, how can I be sure I’ll be even more OK next year?”

I would also say that our ideas of what is frivilous or luxury have changed. The miners use to have thriving brass bands, all these working class people owning brass instruments and learning to play. Now learning an instrument is seen as a middle class educational pursuit, and instruments are so expensive that many parents rent them rather than buying. Now, the frivilous purchase could be a branded t shirt that gives absolutely no satisfaction beyond wearing it, or a holiday where you feel like a celebrity for a week. It's a very commercialised form of frivolity.

It's because they draw a lot of responses. They're not real, they're written by mumsnet to drive traffic which increases their revenue.

beat me to it!

❤️❤️ Pratchett said it best.
It is incredibly expensive to be poor. Whether it is food deserts, ATMs which charge you or key meters, it all adds up.

I think people who are cash poor spend more money because it’s more expensive to be cash poor.

But yes, of course, if you have very little and life is hard, you are going to spend money on making now nicer rather than investing for a future comfort. That makes a lot of sense, but it’s not the real cost of being poor. Being poor is just expensive.

I’m not at all cash poor and life is a lot easier for me because I get tax incentives, I can buy in bulk, I can purchase things pre-tax through my business (toilet roll, for example!) that inevitably gets siphoned off for family use. Life is a lot easier for me because I’m not cash poor and I don’t have to make decisions for the here and now. Surely, this is not rocket science. 😂

Perhaps they’re just living their lives instead of it revolving around money.

It's funny I've seen this because I was just saying this yesterday. An acquaintance was complaining that she has very little money and was struggling, than went out to an expensive event yesterday because she had a bad week and thought fuck it.

I could afford to go, but wouldn't because I'm always trying to save and this would have to be a big treat for me. This thread explains the reasoning better than I have, but I get it. And as a PP says, perhaps she's right for not letting her life revolve around money, whereas I'm always worrying about future uni fees, even retirement etc.

To be honest we have to be greatful that some people choose to spend or many towns would be even sadder and unemployment even worse - if they were all like our great uncle who has hundreds of thousands in bank but goes nowhere, does nothing it would be a blooming dull existence for all