When I moved to New York City I had $7, which I immediately spent at White Castle. - XMASTIME
Huffington Post article from 2013 on the stark reality of poverty and why poor people's bad decisions make sense:
We have learned not to try too hard to be middle-class. It never works out well and always makes you feel worse for having tried and failed yet again. Better not to try. We know that we will never not feel tired. We will never feel hopeful. We will never get a vacation. Ever. We know that the very act of being poor guarantees that we will never not be poor. It doesn't give us much reason to improve ourselves. We don't apply for jobs because we know we can't afford to look nice enough to hold them.
It's also a succinct primer rich motherfuckers need to read before the next time they're loudly horrified that some poor motherfucker's spending their last $7 on junk food instead of (checks notes)(checks notes again) investing it. (eyeroll)
Junk food is a pleasure that we are allowed to have; why would we give that up? We have very few of them. I make a lot of poor financial decisions. None of them matter, in the long term. I will never not be poor, so what does it matter if I don't pay a thing and a half this week instead of just one thing? It's not like the sacrifice will result in improved circumstances; the thing holding me back isn't that I blow five bucks at Wendy's. It's that now that I have proven that I am a Poor Person that is all that I am or ever will be. It is not worth it to me to live a bleak life devoid of small pleasures so that one day I can make a single large purchase. I will never have large pleasures to hold on to. There's a certain pull to live what bits of life you can while there's money in your pocket, because no matter how responsible you are you will be broke in three days anyway. When you never have enough money it ceases to have meaning.
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