The 5 Stupidest Habits You Develop Growing Up Poor
As some of you know, until the last couple of years, I was poor as shit. The first 18 years, I was a kid and couldn't do anything about it. The next 17, I was still a kid and wouldn't do anything about it. I take full responsibility for that, and I don't point a finger at anyone for the way I lived. I dug my own hole.
But along the way, a few miracles happened (including landing a job that doesn't suck), and I've finally found myself living the way I always pictured a normal person would: bills paid, groceries in the fridge and two gold-plated nude statues of myself standing proudly in my front yard.
But as anybody who's been through the poverty gauntlet can tell you, it changes a person. And it doesn't go away just because you're no longer fighting hobos for their moonshine. For instance ...
#5. You Develop a Taste for Shitty Food
When You're Poor ...
Shockingly, when you're buying food based entirely on 1) how long it keeps and 2) how cheap it is, you wind up with shitty food. When I was growing up, we knew that the first of each month was grocery day. That's the day that our food stamps came in. Nowadays (in the U.S., anyway) it's all done on an ATM-type of plastic called a link card that gets reloaded with "food only" money on the first of every month. But the idea is still the same: new month, new food. So when our food money arrived, to avoid multiple trips to the grocery store and burning shitloads of gas that we couldn't afford, we bought our entire month's worth of groceries all at once and stored it like fucking squirrels. When you do that, you need shit that won't spoil.
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Like assloads of beer.
Forget about fresh produce or fresh baked goods or fresh anything. Canned vegetables are as cheap as a gang tattoo, and every poor person I knew (including myself) had them as a staple of their diet. Fruit was the same way. Canned peaches could be split between three kids for half the cost of fresh ones, and at the end you had the extra surprise of pure, liquefied sugar to push you into full-blown hyperglycemia.
If it wasn't canned, it was frozen. TV dinners, pot pies, chicken nuggets ... meals that can be frozen forever, and preparation isn't more complicated than "Remove from box. Nuke. Eat." Because of that, by week two, half of everything we bought would be freezer burned. Just like with the canned food, you grow up thinking that this is the way it's supposed to taste. It's not that you grow to like it, necessarily, but you do grow to expect it.
Once You Escape ...
To this day, my kids won't eat fresh green beans. There's such a huge difference in texture and taste compared to the canned version that they're honestly like two different foods. None of us will eat homemade macaroni and cheese. If it doesn't come out of a box, it tastes weird. And the list is a mile long. We've eaten these things for so long, we've grown to prefer them to the fresh version.
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"Awesome, seafood night! Is it someone's birthday?"
People who have never been poor love to point out overweight people in the ghetto and sarcastically exclaim, "Yeah, it really looks like she's starving!" And they have no idea that the reason many of them have weight problems is because everything they're putting into their bodies is dirt-cheap, processed bullshit. Grab a TV dinner and look at the nutritional information.
Fresh food is expensive and takes forever to prepare. It goes bad quickly, so it requires multiple trips to the grocery store per week, which is something most impoverished people can't do. And since all of those time-saving frozen meals are high in salt and fat, they take up residence in the expanding asses of the people who can't afford anything else.
When you finally get to the point where you can afford those grocery trips and fresh ingredients and have the time to prepare them, your taste buds freak the fuck out. They're not used to it. Vegetables are supposed to be squishy, aren't they? Is chicken supposed to have this texture?
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"And who put all that green shit on my plate?"
No, it's not like you're eating food for the first time, staring at asparagus in wide-eyed bewilderment, not knowing whether to put it in your mouth or rub it on your skin until it absorbs right into your body. But a lot of this new stuff sucks by comparison because it's not what you've been trained to eat -- the flavors and textures are all wrong, and there's a real temptation to keep eating the same shit until it stops your heart at age 43.
#4. Extra Money Has to Be Spent Right Goddamn Now!
When You're Poor ...
Every poor person I knew got a big check one time a year in the form of their tax return. They made just enough money to file taxes, and made little enough to claim "earned income credit," which is a tax credit that can dramatically boost your return. For my ex-wife and I, it meant getting around $5,000 at the end of January. And just like many poor people, we'd be broke within days of cashing that check, our living room sporting a new TV. Or we'd replace our old computers and all of our furniture. There's a reason many poor people blow through that money instead of saving it for future bills.
When you live in poverty, you're used to your bank account revolving very tightly around a balance of zero. Your work money comes in and goes right back out to bills, leaving you breaking even each month (if you're lucky). That's the life you've gotten used to. It's normal for you.
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Put down the calculator, asshole, it equals zero. It always equals zero.
When a windfall check is dropped in your lap, you don't know how to handle it. Instead of thinking, "This will cover our rent and bills for half a year," you immediately jump to all the things you've been meaning to get, but couldn't afford on your regular income. If you don't buy it right now, you know that the money will slowly bleed away to everyday life over the course of the next few months, leaving you with nothing to show for it. Don't misunderstand me here, it's never a "greed" thing. It's a panic thing. "We have to spend this before it disappears."
Once You Escape ...
Have you heard those stories about lottery winners who are bankrupt within a year or two, despite winning millions? That's because they can't turn that off. They can't shake the idea that the money is perishable.
And I'm not going to lie, if I had an unexpected check show up right now, I'd drop all of that fucker right into a new car and a computer for my kids. But for the most part, I've kept my head clear where those rare pockets of money are involved. My truck broke down last week, and for the first time, I was able to get it fixed without having to call my friends for a loan. The reason is because I've learned to manage that money a little better and not spend it in a blind panic when I fall into some.
OK, maybe I redecorated my living room, but I needed a new chair.
That's the key, though. When you don't have the extra cash, you don't know how to handle it when you do get some. When you escape that level of poverty, and you find yourself having extra money for the first time, you eventually learn how to manage it. I can watch people play guitar all day and get the basic idea. But unless you put one in my hands and make me start strumming, I'm never going to learn how to play the damn thing. Like anything else, it takes practice, and the poor never get the chance.
A similar problem is ...
#3. You Want to Go Overboard on Gift-Giving
When You're Poor ...
Even if you're not poor, you can already guess this part. You don't get many gifts, and the presents you do receive usually aren't as cool as what your friends are getting. And fuck all that "Christmas and birthdays are about being with good friends and family" noise. You don't have to be a spoiled shithead to like presents. That's half the fun of being a kid on those days. It doesn't make you a materialistic asshole; it just makes you a normal kid.
But what a lot of parents don't realize is that when they're openly worrying about bills within earshot of their children, the kids worry, too. When they hit a certain age, they start to make sacrifices on the family's behalf, and they feel guilt for the rare small luxuries they're allowed. I remember going shopping toward the end of our poverty streak, and I told my kids to pick out new bedspreads so we could get rid of their old, ugly ones. My oldest son looked around for a second and then said, "Thanks, dad, but I don't really need one."
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"I can just cover up with some leaves. I'll be fine."
I made it a point after that to keep the adult problems in the adult world. They have enough stress just growing up. They don't need to worry about things that are beyond their control. Not for several more years, anyway. But being the provider of the household, it makes you feel like a failure. And like anything else, that makes you want to overcompensate.
Once You Escape ...
So, for the last two years, we've gone overboard on gifts on the holidays. I remember all the years that we couldn't afford to give them even a quarter of the things they asked for, and I swore I would make that right. So we spent about double what a normal person would consider reasonable. And then went back to buy more.
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We will not rest until you are buried under the crushing weight of our generosity.
After we exhausted our bank account, my fiance and I looked at the number of boxes around the tree and pointed out that it didn't look like all that much. So we waited until our next check and went back for more.
We overcompensated so much in the other direction that we damn near drove ourselves back into the poorhouse. I think pretty much anyone who escapes poverty goes through this for a short time. If not with gifts, then with other showy forms of spending -- fancy clothes or new furniture or a car you can't afford. It's like you're trying to rub it in the face of your past self. "Eat shit, poverty!"
And strangely, when you're not going over the top on stupid shit, you have the opposite problem ...
My mom grew up poor. I'm growing up somewhat middleclass, but we still put ourselves on budgets and I usually feel guilty when I spend allowance money on anything other than some grocery items we're low on. I rarely buy stuff that can be considered wants. As for groceries my mom is smart because she always know where to buy stuff cheaper and where the good sales are. She'll often save and use coupons and shop at place other than walmart, like Biglots, Ollies, and Save-A-Lot to see if anythings cheaper.
ReplyWow. This is a great list. I grew up poor and spent a lot of my adult life that way. It's only been the past 5 years I've had a 'real' income and this year at Christmas I caught myself shopping for a SNOWMOBILE for my 5, 10, and 12 y/o kids. Luckily I snapped out of it thinking, "How the F*CK do you follow that up next Christmas? What if Hoverboards aren't out yet?!" I think a lot of it comes from never asking "should I buy this" but always asking "CAN I afford this?" for so many years. It's a hard thing to switch over to the mindset that, "Yeah I can afford it but should I really allocate funds this way?" Bravo on this one. I loved it!
ReplyAlso, i don't remember the bank account numbers so well, unless i'm constantly writing them down....so what I do is round off to the nearest even number, and then subtract five dollars from the ammount in my mind...thats how I always stay in the clear ^_^
ReplyWhat's so bad about the tv-dinner? Looks fine to me, except I wonder who calculated the fat content since there's 45g missing.
ReplyI grew up poor. The one terrible habit that I still have to do this day is that I cannot waste food or allow others to do so without lecturing them. Even if it's the most unhealthy thing in the world, it can't be "wasted".... in fact, there is a family saying that goes back generations, "Take all you want, but eat all you take." They were serious about that s**t too.... you might sit there for hours if you didn't finish your pork n beans. Anyway, if I can just remember that I'll save on medical bills down the road by not eating every last chili bacon sour cream covered cheese fry on the plate at Outback (because one can't waste food!), I might be able to break out of it one day.
ReplyI have that sort of mindset too, except I think it was passed down from my dad who grew up poor. It's such a strong, visceral reaction. Wasting even a small amount of food seems downright immoral to me. "You decided to eat an *entire* plate of greasy food the moment you decided go to Outback. Don't go back on that decision now."
I would definitely have to agree with that statement. In fact, the hardest thing for me to do is not eat my entire plate when I go out to eat or eat "good food." It's one of the worst habits I have from growing up poor and it's terrible because it's impossible to lose weight when you have that mind set.
me and a friend were talking about this article again last night. it just so true. poor people also buy cheap furniture/household items that break easily and need to be replaced frequently. rich people spend the time and money on nice things that may never need to be replaced
ReplyExactly man. That's what we did. When I grew up, I started realizing that by repeatedly buying the same "disposable" cheap, crap, we ended up spending the same amount of money, if not more than we would have on buying the "good" shit.
Cheap ass paper towels or paper plates where you have to use 3 instead of 1, cheap laundry detergent that fades and puts holes in your clothes, etc.... the only thing really justified, at least financially, is cheap food, because even though it doesn't taste nearly as good, it has as many calories as the good s**t, so you get just as full.
U.S. poverty jaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
ReplyYou've got a good point, you just need to be less of douche in getting it across.
The first 4 definitely remind me of me, unfortunately. #1 reminds me of my friend because sometimes I ask him "Dude, what do you have against free stuff?". For reference, he turned down bing points. BING POINTS.
ReplyThis is all so painfully accurate. Going to go die in a cave of shame and poverty now.
ReplyGoddammit, John, why you gotta make me feel emotions?
ReplyThis article was perfect, and completely true. Busted out laughing at the extra minotaur in the kitchen part. Found an extra 20 in a pair of pants once and it felt like christmas for a minute. Being poor sucks but it does force you to have a good sense of humor. Or die trying.
ReplyGreat article. I've been poor for a long time now, keep gaining weight, and have tried and tried to interest my husband in better food now that we live very close to a grocery store but he still buys s****y food. However he also would rather take a bullet than spend an extra dollar on a larger package of better toilet paper that would last longer and not feel like slightly crumpled notebook paper scraping my pink parts. We never get to get anything new at tax time either. I see all my friends buying new toys and he gets his crappy car fixed, again, and I get a lecture about how I cant get X because money doesn't grow on trees and we need to have this blah blah blah, its all noise really.Loved this article.
ReplyWas he the last single man left in your village?
Great article. I think it really helps people understand WHY poor people get into the mindsets they do; it's a different subculture with different economic values than upper middle class, and it's unfair to try to hold them to the same standards. I have a friend who asked why poor people wear bad clothes, especially since you can get cute clothes every season at bargain places like Gabe's or Goodwill. The idea of clothes shopping being this big event boggles the mind.
ReplyI can relate to this whole thing. I love John Cheese's articles! Something I'd add would be a sort of crazy mutation that would actually encourage the marriage of #2 and #1.
ReplyMy mother has an anxiety disorder that manifests itself in the form of compulsive spending and hoarding. Growing up, we were always on a tight budget, which didn't mesh well with my mother's issues at all. If, for example, my mom went shopping for a 4-pack of toilet paper, she could easily have returned with 8 since "they were on sale." She was worried that in the future the price would go up to where she would not be able to afford the rolls or would have to risk going over her account for simple toiletries. This may seem somewhat logical, put when that formula was applied to food, it usually resulted in food going bad before we had a chance to eat it (since we weren't expecting to get that much in the 1st place, and there were only 3 of us, including her). Though she kept a close eye on her finances, her compulsive actions made it really difficult for her to be sure her account stayed in the black. If she had adopted the idea of #2, she would have known precisely how much she had left and could use #1 to only purchase items she needed or that could be reasonably bought in bulk.
However, please don't get me wrong. Another wonderful demonstration in Cheese's article of the assurance of the continuing poverty cycle is if one were to do one of the listed behaviors to the exclusion of one or more of the others, creating a damned-if-you-do or don't situation.
Using my mother again, say it was close to payday so she only had some small amt in her account (like $50). If she were to compulsively buy a 3-pack of juicy fruit from Walgreen's for $3 instead of 1 for $1.42 after spending a grand total of $48.12 on some groceries or what-the-hell-ever that day, her account would be successfully overdrawn by a f*****g dollar. Consider Cheese's other article about various punishments for being poor, and despite her checking acct only having a negative balance of $35 (which was "paid for" by another credit card) she must pay that AND the $35 on said credit card. In that fake scenario, my mother would have paid $70 for 15 sticks of gum.
Why is it that the author and most of those who post comments seem unable to express any idea without liberal use of the "F" word??
Reply Hide All See All 5 RepliesI agree. It's absolutely f*****g ridiculous.
I f*****g know, it's a damn f*****g shame isn't it?
Because when you are poor, you feel like you are always F***ed. People who aren't in a bad situation do not feel trapped. An animal that feels trapped will react violently, even to those who mean it no harm. Swearing is like a dog Growling, or a cat hissing. It is the sound a trapped human makes to warn others not to F*** with them because they will not play nice.
People say that swearing shows a lack of creativity, but it can also be used to express strong emotions. The words may be disgusting, cruel, and offensive, but all that just serves to show the state of mind of the person saying them; frustrated, hopeless, angry, and disappointed. Doubtless that's how many poor people feel about their condition.
Whoa, ask a legitimate f*****g question on this site and its THUMBS DOWN for you partner.... hahaha, but seriously, poor people do use curse words a lot more than non poor people. Less educated/articulate, generally less intelligent, more frustrated/angry, plus no reason to give a f**k since they aren't trying to impress anyone.
#4 and #3 makes a lot of sense to me. I didn't grow poor (upper middle class half the time), but I grew in a feast-and-famine environment. My mom is very smart and went to Harvard but has trouble keeping a job because her alcoholism (my dad doesn't believe in having bosses or listening to people so he never kept a job in his life).
ReplyI can remember one winter getting a shitload of presents for Christmas and then two months later hearing my mom arguing the power company to keep the power on.
When I turned 18 and order my credit report, I learned that they used my credit to pay for those Christmas presents and destroyed it. Now, because of my parents, I owe over $40,000 (of course, that wasn't all for Christmas gifts) to multiple debtors. Now I know why I got so many Christmas gifts because they felt guilty for their actions.
So, all you kids of parents who keeping up with Jones and don't relate to this article, this is what you have to forward to when you get older.
#2 isn't a stupid habit. It's actually one that could keep a hell of a lot of people from getting into stuff like credit card debt. If you know exactly how much money you have, you're able to say "No. I can't afford this."
ReplyAlso, not all cheap foods are as bad or worse than more expensive ones. About a year ago, I switched over to much less expensive foods than what I'd been buying and I've managed to drop about 40 pounds (I'm still overweight, but not nearly as much so, now) and generally am more healthy than I was a year ago. The key is to find off-brands of the more healthy "broke foods". Sometimes, if you're not paying for a name brand, you can get the exact same product, or even a better one, for less money.
Similarly, sometimes it's the cheap off-brand stuff like tools that last forever and take insane amounts of abuse, while the expensive name-brand ones rust up and/or break.
There is a difference between having no clue how much money you have, assuming you should be able to buy everything, and then always knowing exactly to the penny what you have. If I put $30 of gas in my car, I'll remember it, and I'll be cool not writing it down, because it's the only thing (besides tips at restaurants) that doesn't show up right away online. But if I slip and put in $30.02, you better believe I will write that down, because that 2 cents could easily become $36 in the form of an overdraft fee.
(Note: Also write down your tips at restaurants.)
Funny...although You all do realize that this is how republicans see every poor person right? no exception. this is why no social help should be given to you poor idiots, you're lazy, can't save, stupid and live in filth. well that's what they believe, they usually won't tell us though.
ReplyI'm still wearing shirts from high school (graduated in 88). They are too worn to be donated or sold but not too worn to still be useable.....god I can't even remember the last time I went shopping for clothes!
ReplyI don't go shopping for clothes unless someone else is buying.
I buy shirts and wear old blue jeans. I can't remember the last time I bought pants. The 2 pair I cycle through now were handed down to me. But I buy lots of tee shirts off the internet. I have a tee shirt problem.
This is pretty much my life. Thankfully I just f*****g discovered exactly what the new GI Bill is. I mean like yesterday. I just discovered that I don't have to be poor anymore, at least for the next three or four years, and at the end of that, I'll hopefully have a degree. I swear to god, I damn near cried. I know this sounds like some f*****g spammy join-the-military s**t, but I've been looking for a job for weeks (which I know isn't very long) and feeling like the time I served was apparently worth fuck-all, and then suddenly it was like the sky opened up and there was a future of some kind there.
ReplyYou forgot about not buying s**t because of space constraints, though. "I COULD buy the 12 pack of toilet paper at 3 cents a roll, but since I live in one room, that will mean giving up my chair for four weeks, or just taking a ton of ex-lax and getting all my shitting for the month out of the way right away."
That last paragraph I can relate to. It also made me laugh out loud. Thank you for that.