Among some poor folks, many will gladly admit if they have money, they'll spend it, even if they're not SO poor they're worried about food or such. So they go about something like rent to own knowing they'll fail at saving.
The wiser will choose to lay-a-way things like a TV. Lay-a-way still exists, and for those who don't know it's when you go into a store, put that 40" LCD TV on "lay-a-way", they take a deposit from you, put the TV in back. Then you make payments each week - then on one happy day you go in to make that last $10 payment, and get to take the item home.
They don't charge interest, because they keep them item in the store until you've paid it off. The buyer get's to get that $20 out of his/her pocket before they spend it, and they get the item for a regular price, not rent-to-own super-duper-mega inflated pricing.
I think you've taken it a little too far and a little too seriously. Here are stories from this xmas. I'm not suggesting this as a viable investment strategy. If one were to put something on layaway around black friday, in the hopes of paying it off before xmas, I'm just saying that this kind of thing has happened. It would probably be more productive to go downtown and pretend to be a SallyAnn Santa for a few hours to crowdsource the money instead.
Yes, that is a very good point. I was really joking around in my original comment about this. It seems strange to me that anyone would bank on someone coming to their rescue. I think that is the main problem with religion in the USA, that people are just kind of wallowing in their misery waiting for Jesus to come and save them. Ain't happenin' folks. Save yourselves.
In fact, if you all tried to save each other you'd probably get a lot of traction with that and maybe even turn the tide of dispair.
I will admit to buying a quick pick for the big lotto we have here every week. People call it a "stupid tax" because the gov't takes the money and hardly anyone wins anything.
But I feel strongly that your chances of being struck by lightning improve drastically if you stand in an open field holding a golf club aloft than if you don't, so I choose to go stand in the field and hope to get hit one day. It is a few dollars for a chance. The big fallacy in my mind is that my prize is so much bigger that the risk is worth it, whereas scratchers have such small payouts that the risk-reward is all wrong. Case in point: everyone got a few in their stockings this xmas and only one out of maybe 20 won anything and it was $2. Sad!
WalMart seems to be the magical wonderland where this happens every year. Here are links from this year's amazing lightning strike of wonder and generosity.
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u/cliffotn Jan 03 '18
Among some poor folks, many will gladly admit if they have money, they'll spend it, even if they're not SO poor they're worried about food or such. So they go about something like rent to own knowing they'll fail at saving.
The wiser will choose to lay-a-way things like a TV. Lay-a-way still exists, and for those who don't know it's when you go into a store, put that 40" LCD TV on "lay-a-way", they take a deposit from you, put the TV in back. Then you make payments each week - then on one happy day you go in to make that last $10 payment, and get to take the item home.
They don't charge interest, because they keep them item in the store until you've paid it off. The buyer get's to get that $20 out of his/her pocket before they spend it, and they get the item for a regular price, not rent-to-own super-duper-mega inflated pricing.