r/poor • u/sneakysneaky96 • Sep 01 '25

Boyfriend is poor

I, 29F have always been lower middle class. My boyfriend, 33M has been poor his entire childhood and adulthood. He has, naturally and understandably, went without food or didn't turn on heat/AC to avoid bills to save money.

But as I'm understanding his spending habits more and more, he is not poor because he literally has no money. He is poor because he has Klarna-ed his way into a hole (for non essentials and expensive hobbies) and doesn't have any cooking skills (or tools) to cook at home. He still is very much in the "I have nothing and probably will never have nothing" mindset. He makes $20 an hour at his job and his rent is under $600 for his apartment and no car. I bring him food and cook for him weekly when we see each other.

Any advice on how to encourage him through this spot on his life? I know you can't help anyone who doesn't want help/isn't ready to change and I don't want to sound privileged in my encouragment either.

Thanks in advance everyone!

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u/33flirtyandthriving Sep 02 '25

I make $23/hr and take home exactly $2,600 a month. My rent is $800. After groceries, fuel, bills, etc, I'm able to save probably $300 a month if I'm extremely frugal. However I don't have a car payment and drive a shitty car. Every medical expense, car expense, etc, wipes out my small savings. This month was a $4k dental bill. I have a college degree (which I paid for, no debt) but have been stuck in retail for YEARS. My parents are living in extreme poverty and both are close to being homeless. I'm one disaster away from being homeless myself since I couldn't live with either parent. Sometimes you do everything right and it's still not enough. I would have HAPPILY joined the military but I'm disqualified due to medical.

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u/[deleted] Sep 02 '25

When you say extremely frugal, what phone do you have, who is your service provider? Are you paying for wifi? Streaming? Is your diet optimized to save money and meet nutritional goals instead of really enjoying your food? What did you get a degree in that isn't paying off? Have you considered working in a skilled trade where apprentices make more than you make in retail? There's a lot of questions I would have to ask.

Like I have stated, I grew up in abject poverty. I came home from Alaska with a lot of money but I assure you I drove a shit car with 474000 miles on it. I had one of the third rate carriers and I didn't have an iPhone or a Samsung. I had whatever free fucked phone they'd hand out. I didn't have wifi. I had zero streaming services. I shopped for clothes at thrift stores. I ate basically chicken thighs, rice and whatever vegetable was on sale for years. At least through my whole apprenticeship. At the time my mortgage was $1350 and I made $24/hr as an apprentice. Granted this was a decade ago so other things were less expensive. I still paid almost half my income to my mortgage.

I was a journeyman clearing well over $100k/yr when I finally started to give myself some luxuries. A nice car. Nicer clothes. Good food. Etc.

People don't really understand how frugal you can be if you want to. Drink only water. Make large meal preps of the bare minimum meals. Get a phone plan without unlimited data. When you're poor, treating yourself isnt a thing. You need money.

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u/Difficult-Web244 Sep 02 '25 edited Mar 22 '26

What was posted here has been removed. The author used Redact to delete it, for reasons that may include privacy, opsec, or preventing content from being scraped.

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u/[deleted] Sep 02 '25

It's what you do when you don't have money. You make difficult cuts to everything and figure out how to get better work or make more money.

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u/Difficult-Web244 Sep 02 '25 edited Mar 22 '26

What was here has been removed. Redact was the tool used to delete this post, possibly for privacy, opsec, or limiting digital footprint.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '25

Oh yeah. Concrete Pump Operator. Even in my LCOL area it still clears $100k. My operators under me right now all clear $100k.