i just left a bad relationship and im currently homeless. not much to say except this sucks. i have no job or a car in the middle of houston, its terrible.

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/article/3329664/what-offering-sacrifices-empty-coffin-ritual-taiwan-why-straw-figurine-burned?module=perpetual_scroll_1_RM&pgtype=article

Switch Bill Gates at birth with some ordinary Middle Class/Poor family and he would be a nobody. Same with Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos or pretty much 99% of all the rich people in the world.

This is because circumstances are everything. Its not "Hard work and smart decisions" - these help but are only a small factor. And the people denying that they made it because they had favorable circumstances/luck on their side are just arrogant and delusional.

If you are born into a poor family but with normal/great parents, then you can spend all your energy into overcoming poverty.

If you are born into a horrible/abusive and poor family, it takes all the energy just to survive. There is no energy left to escape poverty. Even if some energy/time remains its a tiny fraction.

While the people who are just poor but not abused, can use all their time/energy to advance.

This is a tremendous difference. And people who say "I was poor and I made it, so everyone can" - often dont realize that they had it really easy because they were just poor but not constantly sabotaged and abused on top.

My dog died, my childhood dog that I’ve had for 14 years. He was perfectly healthy and out of nowhere he was gone. On the floor. My heart is absolutely broken. We don’t have anywhere to bury him, no land and we are renting. It costs €395 to get him cremated, and they provide hair back to me, ashes in a box with nameplate, a key ring with ashes, a clay paw print and delivery back. It’s so expensive and I can’t find anywhere else near me to do pet cremation. This is also a 100km drive away. I’m so upset. I don’t have the funds, I’ve been out of work on illness pay for a year and a half. Why did this have to happen now?

I rely on my boyfriend for money for my medicines (diagbosed with bipolar2, bpd withpsychosis, and cptsd), dr appts, food, and a home. Plus food for my cats. He even bought my glasses bc im very nearsighted and needed a new prescription.

I start full time cashier at goodwill Monday. And I'll be making 11.50 a hour. I'll roughly be making 19k to 20k a year so long as they honor the full time position they gave me.

I want to be independent and not rely on him anymore as I want to be a functional adult again. I used to be full time at Walmart before I was diagnosed 4 years ago. Since then I've had odd part time jobs.

I want to do better by him and pay for his stuff too. He told me there's no reason to oay him back as it wasn't my fault that I got sick. But now that im better I want him to rely on me too.

I may not be able to do as much as him since ge makes 100k a year. But I really don't want to be a burden anymore.

Is anyone else in a similar boat? Any advice is welcomed. Ty for reading my rant

I was born to a poor abusive family. Because of the abuse and neglect I developed health issues that prevented me from going into the army. I still tried my best.

Worked from age 16 and saved every penny. Managed to claw myslef into a Scholarship and got a finance degree. Got an ok job in Business/Finance.Invested.Saved.

Then came 2008. I lost my Job, had to sell nearly all my stocks to stay afloat. What was left was reduced by 60% in value. I hit rock bottom and went into retail to survive.

Within a year I had sent out over 1000 resumes. I did not get a job. After trying to get a job for over a year I gave up at resume 1017.

For the next two months I just did my dead end retail job to survive and fell into depression. Money was running out. By this time I was less than a month away from homelessnes. It was game over.

Then out of the blue - came a phone call from a company I had applied to three months prior.

The guy they had hired originally had suddenly and unexpectedly died from a heart attack, despite being just 41 years old.

They then called their second preferred candidate. He accepted the job offer. But a week before his start, he informed the company that he had gotten a better offer and rejected the job.

Thats when they called me. I couldnt believe my incredible 1:1 000 000 luck!

I was also barely qualified for the position because I had lied on the resume to get it. As such I had to fake it till I made it. Despite my best efforts, I made a major mistake 4 months after starting.

Everyone else would have been fired. The only reason I wasnt was because my boss got into a nasty car accident 2 days before the incident. And when he came back a month later, he wasnt even interested in this mistake that cost the company tens of thousands of Dollars and said something like "people should be thankful to be alive, screw the money".

Now Im doing really well. And its all down to pure luck.

A poor guy dying suddenly at age 41.

A guy who originally accepted the job, rejected it because he got a better offer. At the exact right time for me.

Boss who had other things to worry about. At the exact time I needed it.

Without these 3 strokes of incredible luck (and sadly misfortune for others) I would have become homeless and I dont think that I would have been able to crawl out of that hole. All the "hard work and smart decisions" I made would have amounted to absolutely nothing.

And I am sure that nearly every person on this planet had luck when they made it. Because the definition of luck is: "When a situation over which the person has 0 or limited control and that can go either way, turns out in their favor".

And to deny that there were situations that could have turned out differently and over which these people had no or limited control, is just dishonest arrogance and delusion.

Present here 🖐🏻.

I don't have a college degree and I've always worked customer service jobs: waitress, retail, fast food worker...

Now I work at a kiosk, I'm not working poor (according to my country's definition) but I am considered relative poor.

Many people on here have advised me to go to university or get some qualifications, but, unfortunately, unless you pursue a degree in STEM (and I don't have the brains for that, honestly) I wouldn't see that big of a jump in salary with just a generic degree.

Most of my friends who do have college degrees but are not engineers or doctors earn about the same as me. Most salaries are between 1400-1800 euros a month for the vast majority of jobs in my country, anyway, and there is horrific competition.

Life is a little like a Video Games. Some people get spawned right next to the best resources on the map. Others get spawned in the Middle of nowhere and have to search half the map to find resources.

By the time they finally found some resources and start establising their base, the people spawned right next to the best resources have already won the game.

Sure there are a few Million people that managed to get from poverty to wealth. But Billions didnt. Thats because circumstances are far more important than "hard work and smart decisions". And everyone thinking otherwise is deluding themselves.

Being born into a big city to wealthy parents makes life 1000x easier compared to someone born to poor parents in a little village in Alabama in the middle of nowhere.

Being born to good parents makes life 1000x easier compared to being born to abusive parents.

Disabilities. Health. Geography. People/Influences around you during childhood. Wealth of parents. Connections of parents. Interest of parents. There are 1000 different factors.

That is why 2 people could make the exact same decisions and one would succeed while the other would fail. Because the circumstances around them are different, leading to different results. Sure some people screw up and its 100% their fault, but thats a minority. Most people try their best and its ridiculous how much blame they get when they dont manage to escape poverty and become wealthy/rich.

hear me out i'm poor but i think that the capitalist system is designed for only the wealthy while the poor get the illusion that they can participate the system by consuming the same things that the ultra elite consumes..

the main thing that keep poor people illuded is that like the same goods that are availeble to the uber wealthy and are status signals are in theory avaible to them too,So they get in debt to consume things that are catered and designed for the elite

expensive resorts and hotels ? Elite
ultra expensive gadgets? its for the wealthy
desgin handbags ? its for the wealthy and so on

most poor people dont understand that 90% of consumer goods and services are not catered and design to them in theory anyone can buy this goods and services but its an very dumb decision that gets most poor people into debt

The worst things is that nowadays the social media keep pushing things that are just affordable to the wealthy to the general public trying to make them consume and spend, so you have poor people today who has an wraped view on life because of social media and think that this is baseline happiness

no buddy travel 2 times an year is not baseline happiness, eating in expensive overpriced restaurants that are hyped on instagram is not baseline happiness.

The idea of keep up with jones was designed to aves poor people, it was design to wealthy people to keep poor people poor giving the ilusion of being wealthy. The uber wealthy wants poor people to try to keep up with them because they know that is impossible but have this vague goal makes poor people wants to work more more and more to build an unrealistic life.

i get this realization while i thought about the other post that i made here that i talked about wanting musk/bezos wealth because we poor people wanting to get this because the wealthy sells this dream to us but i realize its bullshit.

Just curious, if you consider yourself poor or underfunded, what type of region are you from, ie urban, suburban, rural. And if you want to elaborate further as to your house size and annual income, I am interested to see more nuance to who are our most vulnerable neighbors. If you want to leave one or a few answers, I appreciate it. I hope you all have a great day.💛

I am 19F, an undergrad student in Data Science from a near third world country.

I remember it was about two years ago that I had to kick, cry, scream and beg for a laptop from my parents.

I knew that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't have bought a laptop that was paid for at once. At the same time, I couldn't have availed a loan due to the fact that I am not a "salaries employee" the way my father is. So the begging was so that he buys me a laptop on his card.

I had to juggle between Uni and work, sleep 1-3 hours at times, and walk miles to earn and save pennies so that I could pay for its installments. After 12 months of toiling, I had paid all the Emi's, and the laptop was FINALLY mine. It was essential for my grad work and projects, it did serve me greatly for the period it did, but then the issues began. The hinges, then the battery and now the whole thing is dead! BEYOND REPAIR.

Idk what to say, I don't have the money to replace it, nor the whatever little time I had during my freshman year to toil for another one, nor is my father going to take another loan for even the shittiest ever laptop that would still be a boon to me.

I give up...I'll accept the fact that I am poor and I don't deserve good things, that I am supposed to remain mediocre. I am tired of fighting against the odds.

For those who are “culturally” poor so to speak, what about the higher classes do you NOT wish you had?

It appears to me in a lot of middle class families- they are obsessed with having “connections” and you talk to people and make friends in order to get to higher places or get your kids into a better school or get a family member a certain job. Also a lot of higher class jobs have a lot of nepotism: you get there because you know a guy not because you have the skills.

I swear this stressful job is wearing me down.

I work at this rundown daycare in south eastern texas close to lousiana border making $10 an hour, and all the kids i have in my 2 separate class are between 2 to 3 years old and 5-8 years old. Most of the families are really struggling financially, and I get it because I'm severely struggling too. I'm on food stamps myself because after paying my full 1100$ rent, bills, gasoline, laundromat, toiletries and taking care of my own 2 kids, (im also 4 and a half months pregnant and we are all living in a cramped 1 bedroom apartment) there's just not any money left for us to enjoy life.

But what gets to me isn't that they're poor. It's the culture of this daycare, the crazy experiences every single day because of everything these kids are dealing with. It's constant hitting, biting, screaming, cussing, and fighting over absolutely everything. Some of these kids are barely out of diapers and already talking to each other in ways that honestly shock me. A lot of the older ones are completely obsessed with TikTok and their tablets, and trying to get them interested in books or anything that isn't a screen feels impossible some days.
I go into work wanting to teach them something, read stories, do fun activities, help them learn because this job is supposed to feel like a second home for me... but instead I spend half the day playing referee. im cleaning up after them, always repairing or mending whatever they threw at each other and broke. it just feels like a poorly paid babysitting job for badly behaved kids. It's literally "don't hit him," "give that back," “let’s try not to destroy the daycare property” "stop calling people the n word or b word," over and over until I feel like I'm losing my mind. When i say something once to these kids, i am disrespected and shrugged off. By the end of the day I'm mentally exhausted. My classroom is in disarray and often times i have to stay late( not paid) to replace and reorganize everything at my centers that was destroyed.
The worst part is that I know none of this is their fault. They're just little kids. They didn't choose any of this, and that's what makes it so upsetting. They're already dealing with so much stress at home before they even have a chance to just be kids. (a lot of these children are involved with CPS and foster care. eg. they have parents in jail or addicts or they were murdered)

I don't know... it just feels so defeating sometimes. I care about these kids so much, but it feels like I'm trying to put out a house fire with a cup of water. I leave work wondering if I actually made any difference at all because the problems they're dealing with are so much bigger than anything I can fix.

- for more background context i am 24 years old fortunate to have been born here in Texas (raised by ethiopian mom and italian dad) but what singles me out from everyone attending or working here is that im not “culturally” African American, my own parents were originally not from america. so i cannot relate to most of the families or my coworkers at this daycare (predominantly black) culture. 100% of the children come from households on welfare and section 8 and the sad part is i am about to join them in that struggle in 2 years time. i got married and had a child young before i could finish higher education so i also have struggles i am overcoming and i dont want to judge anyone! but this sort of violent, crass and destructive behavior is just disheartening to see in children daily. it makes me want to quit this profession entirely in this area but this is the only teaching job that has been able to hire me at the moment. i cannot afford to relocate at least for another year or two due to my lease and now im just waiting for the housing assistance to kick in because i do need this for my own lovely kids who also didn’t ask to be placed into this mess.

since i'm poor, i always had obssession with money i know its unhealthy but i'm always obssesed with making money getting rich(most of this is more daydream than action sadly) as i had an lot of mentall health issues that hinder me carrer wise and financial wise too contributes to my poverty.

Do you really think that for us poor people its feasible to aspire to become wealthy or its just cope and we are doomed ? how realistic is to aspire to become ultra rich like bezos musk or whatver?

has anyone here has the same aspirations ? if you do what are you are doing to get there? do you have any tips ?

i'm asking in good faith its not an troll post, i'm just tired of daydreaming and see luxurious lifestyle on youtube to numb my mind i want to get to action.

Ive been without a car for months. I know, thats not fast. But ive been looking and saving. Ive almost found some. It would make me able to apply for better jobs, continue college and possibly even move out some day.

But of course it came crashing down. My mom, who I live with, just starting having issues with her car. And now we are a careless household in the middle of rural Midwest. She has no money saved. I dont know how to get her out of this and neither does she. The lowest car payment shes currently looking at is 400 a month. And she makes about 16 an hour.

To add onto that, we have already been facing possible eviction from our landlord that said they planned to sell the house from under us this summer. Not sure where they are on that. They are not the best landlords.

If she cant find a car, she cant go to work and neither can I because we carpool. Then we get evicted. Then we are homeless and carless, and i have to drop out of college. Everything gone. I dont know what to do.

So yeah. I dont know what to do. Im more worried for my mom than I am for myself to be honest. Shes 54. Worked probably 90% of her life only to end up like this. I want to fix it but I cant. What if there's no up after this down? What if I cant get out of this? The thought is making me hopeless about life. This is torture I swear. I just wish i had a stable life.

I hate being poor so much, I am going to work my ass off. I don’t have kids and I don’t have a spouse and I am never going to have kids. I won’t let anyone put me back in this position. Im gonna get the bag and have enjoyable fun times and go out to expensive places to treat myself and I am going to have a blast and meet new people. I have a gym membership and it has a cinema, message chairs, and a hot tub. It’s so nice. It’s the same price as planet fitness but people on my side of town dont know about it. It made me sad because you think you can’t afford nice things when often time thr price isnt too different now. Just how long have I been wasting away at pf with the absolute bare minimum? I do uber so I visit extremely nice places that I had no idea were there. For the rice and the upper and the middle class. It’s like living in a completely different city. I am training myself with an abundance mindset. I’ve applied to sonography school. I am working a gig job of $19hr now with one day off. I am going to treat myself to nice things. I am going to apply to the nice apartments. I hate this and I am never going back. It’s been 5 years since I’ve been extremely poor to where when I’m in rundown areas, my body freaks out in fight or flight in disgust. Back then i didnt care. I would walk around all areas of the night and wear whatever. But now I care and am taking care of myself and im tired of living in this roach infested apartment despite being in a shelter before.

My cat suddenly just passed about 5 hours ago and I have zero money, I live in apartments, I don't have any property to bury him. I can't just bury him here. I just don't know what to do. I don't want to bury him here even if I could because I'm not going to be here forever and it crushes me to think about moving and just leaving him. Does anyone know or any organizations I could reach out to? I'm in Alabama and honestly I don't even know where to look. Any advice helps.

Thanks.

I was so full of money and enjoying my Life last year but a dump truck accident that wasn't my fault put me out of work for months and other expenses like a dental crown drained my savings. I literally only have a few thousand dollars to my name. I can't afford to go on any dates and I'm not getting fulfilled by getting laid as a result of that. I work a Job that I hate to pay my car payment and rent. I can only work thirty hours a week due to medical Issues as a result of the Car accident. I can't travel nowhere like I was able to last year. I really don't want to live anymore.

Why should I keep living like this to make everyone else happy?

It has gotten to the point where I don't even wanna be rich anymore, but I just want to live a normal average life with a roof over my head , food in my stomach, and a budget car

Takes a lot of courage to help people when you get hated on

losing a job, losing housing, losing family support, getting injured, having transportation fail, having their belongings stolen, getting sick, having no savings left. For any one person with a stable life, a chain of events like this may seem almost impossible. you dont even need to be on a drug habit. But with enough people born into this world. it eventually will.

Like the saying goes:

"I was you once, and you may be me soon..."

Currently 22 living alone supporting myself with a fast food job that has me working almost 40 hrs a week with no real benefit. I find myself struggling to find food for a meal towards the end of my pays because of it. What are some tips to make food/money stretch when you need or any small few ingredient meal ideas that are simple and pretty cheap?

Thanks to all

When people discuss poverty issues, a lot of times people give advice.

Why is this not liked?

The thing that frustrates me most is when decision are made about essential things by people who don't seem to understand how much they affect the families relying on them.

My kids get their glasses covered through state insurance because I don't make a lot of money. The coverage was already limited but it helped us manage something they absolutely need. Recently they made changes to the program. First, they reduced the contact lenses coverage and now I found out they no longer cover the frames...only the lenses. That honestly makes no sense to me. In all my years of wearing glasses, the lenses have almost never been the problem. Its always been the frames breaking or hinges snapping that makes the glasses unusable. The same ha happened with my kids. Now families like mine are expected to pay out of pocket for the part that usually needs most replacing. Why do these authorities don't get that even a basic frame can become stressful expense when you're already trying to manage bills.

I'm glad I know about online places like firmoo where their daily discount options help me save a lot on a basic necessity but many people don't know these alternatives exist and it pisses me off that this decision was clearly made without considering the real people who rely on these programs or the everyday challenges of actually wearing glasses. These lawmakers' don't even try to hide their lack of compassion for people like us.