An example of how being poor is more expensive

[Bettie]

Our dryer is broken. DH ordered a part, but we had to go to the laundromat since it won't be here until next week.

We are privileged in that he knows how to repair things and we can afford to repair the dryer. If we couldn't, we'd be able to replace it.

But, doing three loads of laundry at the only laundry facility in our town cost over 20 dollars, to wash and dry it. That's the cost of not being able to afford a lump sum of hundreds of dollars to buy a washer and dryer and have a place to hook it up.

[SouthernLiberal]

1. This is so true

There are many examples of how being poor is expensive. Still, we have people who think the problem is buying expensive coffee drinks.

[Solly Mack]

2. K&R

[thucythucy]

3. Having to own a car to function in this culture

has always struck me as s form of discrimination, going back almost a century.

The end of SROs--single room occupancy options--which was done mainly through zoning laws, made it that much more difficult to not slip into homelessness.

Having to own a cell phone is to me the latest example. Let's tear down all the phone booths so everyone has to A) buy a cell phone and B) pay a monthly fee to some huge corporation if you don't want to get stranded and unable to call for help if you're out somewhere.

It sucks being poor, but as a society we seem to do all we can to make that experience as demeaning and frustrating as possible.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

8. There are millions

Of things that require money the poor dont have. Even food costs more. If you have no way to cook food you are stuck eating at restaurants. Homelessness is very expensive. I spent 81 dollars of my food stamps getting a few things,two boxes cereal (store brand) 2 packs of hot dogs, 2 cans beans,1 frozen pizza,peanut butter,1 pack of raisins,2 packs broccoli,2 cans tomato soup.

Usually I go to a grocery store where that 81 bucks would go a lot further.But I am dependant on my sister to get groceries. The reason I spent 81 dollars is because she has covid and she cant drive me to the supermarket. My ssi will not be coming for a week or so .Taking a cab or uber would eat up the cost I would have saved at a grocery store.


But I dont have a car. I had to buy from the wall mart down the road who I think raise prices because they are in close proximity to hud housing. Knowing they will make plenty of money off us poors without cars.
Car or not we need to buy food.

When I went to the other walmart a short way away but requires a car to get to prices were cheaper had a bigger selection . The fact I cant drive myself to get food and I have to limit how much I get so its not too heavy to haul home means I have to shop more. If I went to the fallston rich area out here that the public transportation does not even go to,the costs were even more cheaper still and they have a better selection of foods than my walmart or the other walmart in a less poor area,but not the poorist area I live in.
Thier selection of food sucks.

Now if I had a bit more money so I could get bulk packs and had a big expensive refrigerator or a chest freezer and could afford a car I could shop at costco and save even more money. And I could eat better food too .

But my apartment says I cant install a bigger fridge or a chest freezer. Hud is pretty minimal regarding what you can do
To modify your apartment.


However my mom did something that I will always be thankful for dhe bought me a washer dryer. Without that I would have to spend a 50 dollar fee to have it every month or go to the communal washers and spend even more money. Even having flood options on my renters insurance which we have to have is cheaper than the 50 bucks or the community wash machines.

But If I had to buy the washer dryer by myself, I could never ever afford to buy one. Even if I could save up for it. I live on 800 and some change a month. By time the month ends I am broke. All this makes sure I will never have any wealth.


With a single family home I could have two chest freezers If I wanted them. And there is no way I could afford to buy and maintain a house with 800 bucks a month.Hud saves my ass when it comes to rent. Without hud I couldn't afford to live anywhere.

It is a deliberate set up because the rich love nothing more than keeping the poor ,poor and doing it with the cruelty baked in.Indirectly forcing the poor people into a kind of desperate servitude. The poorer you are the more things cost.

In a fair world it would be cheaper for people with less means,but its not.

I cant afford the bulk toilet paper that would save money because I need food too. So I buy a pack of 4 rolls that will run out faster. Then in a few days I have to buy another 4 rolls because thats all I can afford. Smaller packages of toilet paper costs more per roll than does a bulk pack.

[Evolve Dammit]

11. Great post. So many inequities making it intentionally harder on the poorest of us. Thanks and take

care. We are hostages to price fixing and being raped by multi-national (and national) corporations fleecing us every day. Covid gave them carte blanche to charge whatever they wanted and blame it on labor shortages and "supply chain" issues.

[Tree Lady]

18. I totally get that I used to be so jealous

Of my dad buying paper goods in bulk to save money when I was in my 30's.

Now we shop at Costco and do the same, only because I remarried and my income went up.

I think everyone should experience being low income for at least 6 months, I was for about ten years. It changes the way you look at things, you don't take things for granted. Also I think so many that look down on others would change their opinion.

[Genki Hikari]

26. You wouldn't necessarily save more money at Costco

You know who Costco is perfect for? A family of Mom, Dad, and three kids, two of them teenagers. Or a larger family than that. Or a business.

Everyone else? It may or may not be a good deal if you only have 1-2 people in your household

Even when I had a teenaged son justifying the membership, it was always a mixed bag shopping there, often not the best deal to be had. You really have to know your prices at competitors to get good deals there.

My husband and I live just 2.5 miles from a Costco, and we could afford the membership, still. We also live in the single-family home we bought several years ago, and have a freezer. Guess how often we've shopped at Costco since my son left home?

Hardly ever. Because it's just my husband and me, and we weren't shopping there enough to justify the membership. More often than not, I found better deals for our situation by shopping elsewhere.

Every couple of years, I reactivate the membership, though, to take advantage of what are the good deals at Costco for us:

*Kirkland marinated artichoke hearts.

*Shelf-stable shredded beef. This is awesome for cooking quick soups--but I have a freezer to store what we don't use right away.

*When I have room in my freezer for legs of lamb. Yes, the plural is intentional.

*Assorted Kirkland brand OTC medications

*Kirkland jeans--my husband goes through them like crazy with his work.

*Socks & undies for the husband

*Whatever they're currently carrying that looks good--and is priced right.

That's really all we buy there, for the most part. When the card is about to expire, I make a final run to stock up on all those things once more. In between, I take advantage of their cheaper gasoline.

And then I let it lapse for another few years.

DM me if you want some pointers for grocery shopping on the cheap for 1-2 people. If you have grocery delivery in your area, DM me about that, too.

[diane in sf]

38. The cheaper gas prices at Costco and the low likelihood of getting a gun shoved in my face,

while filling up, unlike at the other cheap gas places around here, have more than paid for my membership. I am fortunate to own a home (something I never thought was possible, made possible by SF rent protection rules for buying out old renters when their landlords die and the property gets sold). I do load up on bulk paper products, and am contemplating a small chest freezer. I like to make industrial sized vats of soup in the winter and freeze individual servings. I want one big enough to keep stuff frozen for a couple days if we lose power.

[thucythucy]

48. An excellent post!

Thank you for fleshing out what I was trying to say. You hit on so many points, I wonder if you couldn't post this as a separate thread in its own right.

People who have never been poor or on the brink of poverty or homelessness so rarely understand how society stacks the deck again those who are.

[Joinfortmill]

19. Boy, you nailed it. I remember when individual women and men could live at the YWCA/YMCA

with dignity and safety. Sometimes we suck as a society.

[Diamond_Dog]

25. +++

[Polybius]

56. Cable and Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, etc. are others

All monthly bills that did not happen years ago. On the plus side though, most don't have a landline telephone bill like we did years ago.

[ret5hd]

4. When I was young and broke...

I was working in machine shops, etc…didn’t have to have to wear a starched pressed shirt/pants.

I’d do my laundry in the tub. Scrub, scratch, twist, flop, whatever till things looked good enough. Then rinse till the water was clear (enough).

Remember the old floor furnaces for heat? Then I’d put the clothes over the floor furnace overnight. My clothes always had a kind of grid pattern “ironed” into them from the grate on the floor furnace.

Now when we are out camping and need to wash something I use a large canister…shake shake shake till I get tired of it, set it down, do it again later, etc. Then rinse in a creek or river, then hang to dry.

BUT i would NOT want to do three loads with either method!!!

Floor Furnace (for you young’uns):

[BigmanPigman]

6. When I grew up in PA

all the heating units and vents were in the floor or at the baseboards which made sense...hot air rises. Where I live in CA the heat is in the ceiling and by the time it gets down to me it has already heated up my upstairs neighbor's unit. And I do not make enough to turn on the heat, I just wear dickies, leg warmers, long johns, etc. The heat is CA is VERY expensive.

[diane in sf]

40. Especially if you're renting and the windows are leaky and there's no insulation.

I don’t live in SF anymore, but when I did, my lovely Edwardian apartment (which I still miss) would go down to 45* inside at night. And in the summer or fall when we had regional heat spells, it might be 106* down near the floor and much worse near the fortunately tall ceilings under the uninsulated 18” attic.

Now I live in a much more boring house. But it’s fully insulated and has double pane windows. Running the heat for 20 minutes heats it up for hours.

[BigmanPigman]

51. That is exactly how my apt is.

It was built in 1978 and it was built very poorly and there have been constant problems due to the cheap construction (getting buildings up FAST was the theme for Southern CA during the 70s). I can actually see my indoor blinds move when it is windy outside. And my apt DOES get down to 53 degrees inside in the winter months. People don't realize how cold it gets and with no insulation and crappy windows the electric bills are insane.

[Evolve Dammit]

13. We had the same floor furnace! Worked great for 40 years or so.. Pain to light, but other than

that, it delivered clean (propane) heat and served as a clothes dryer as well!

[thucythucy]

50. I grew up in a small home with a keresene furnace in the crawl space underneath

and one floor vent at in the center hall that was supposed to heat the entire house.

On really cold days I'd lie on the floor next to the vent. Sometimes I'd lie with my face against the grate, and I can still remember the odor of the keresene and the red marks the grate would leave across my face.

[Evolve Dammit]

54. Ah, good times! We used to put Clark peanut butter candies on the furnace to soften 'em up!

[Joinfortmill]

20. I loved those grates, especially in the winter! We'd come from the cold and run and stand on them.

[Bettie]

55. We have them in our very old house

and my youngest son and all the cats and dogs lay on them in the winter!

[ThoughtCriminal]

28. Thank goodness I have no memory of it

But the house my parents lived in when I was a baby had floor vents like that. They tell me I was badly burned one day when I crawled over it. No lasting scars and no memory of the event.

[stage left]

32. My sister and I

used to stand over one of these on cold mornings to get dressed for school.

[marked50]

35. I'll traipse down memory lane on these things.

Me and a friend and his girlfriend shared a rental house with one of these.

The girlfriend was talented in making things and she had just recently acquired a very young husky. Not a very well trained one tho- so it got into a lot of things.

The girlfriend decided she wanted to make a couple of sleeping bags for her and her beau. She decided on using down for the filler.

I came home one afternoon and they were not home, except for the puppy. All of the floors in all the rooms were covered with the down for the sleeping bags, courtesy of the dog, Not a big place luckily. But here's where to floor heater comes in.

It was in the central hallway and on of course and thankfully there was no fire or burning of anything but there was a continuous up and down (no pun intended) cycling of big fluffs of down. They would go up about five feet and then drop down on the side and then get sucked back up in the hot updraft. One of the funniest things I have ever encountered.

[Hekate]

49. What an indelible image...

[Snarkoleptic]

5. More examples of how it's expensive to be poor-

Inability to afford to buy things in bulk
Late charges/penalties/NSF fees
Urban "food deserts" leading to purchases at c-stores/bodegas
Unaffordable health insurance
Regressive taxation burdens the poor

I could go on all day long.

[BigmanPigman]

7. The inability to buy stuff in bulk

and a place to store it is a real problem and very costly. I have enough room for 1 roll of paper towels in my 500 sq ft apt. I use my oven for storage of dry goods. No second freezer and no storage adds up to a lot of $$$$$.

[Genki Hikari]

10. Buying in bulk isn't always cost effective.

With SOME things or for SOME households, yes, it works well. But for some things, and for small households, not so much.

My husband and I can't eat enough of some things before they expire. That's why buying the small bagged salads is far more cost efficient for us than buying all the separate ingredients and making a big salad. We simply can't get to all of a head of lettuce and so on before it goes bad. We will never go through Costco-sized herbs and spices before they go bad. And so on.

Throwing away food is far worse than paying a bit more for the amount that works for our household.

Buying in proportions right for your situation is the secret to cost-effective shopping that too many "experts" don't get around to telling us.

[Demovictory9]

29. Same here..wasted too much food buying too big

[GopherGal]

9. Author Terry Pratchett had a theory about this...

[link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory|]

The Sam Vimes "Boots" theory of socioeconomic unfairness, often called simply the boots theory, is an economic theory first popularised by English fantasy writer Terry Pratchett in his 1993 Discworld novel Men at Arms. In the novel, Sam Vimes, the captain of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, reasons that poverty causes greater expenses to the poor than to those who are richer. Since its publication, the theory has received wider attention, especially in regard to the effect of increasing prices of daily necessities.

A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes "Boots" theory of socioeconomic unfairness

[Joinfortmill]

21. Back in the day even the cheap boots would have lasted a decent amount of time... today, not so much

[Hekate]

47. Great minds think alike. I was just about to look up Sam Vimes "boots theory" to post it...

GNU Terry Pratchett

[eppur_se_muova]

53. GMTAA, beat me to it ! Happy to know it has a formal name and a following. nt

[dlk]

12. The high cost of being poor

It’s not just laundry.

[Evolve Dammit]

14. It is truly EVERYTHING is more expensive and it seems "weaponized" against the poor. n/t

[dlk]

15. They are hit the hardest

It’s heartbreaking.

[Evolve Dammit]

22. And that's why tax "cuts" for low income are soo differnet than the wealthy. It goes immediately

back into the "economy" whereas the wealthy just add it to their investment portfolios and chuckle.

[dlk]

39. Yes, exactly

[kwijybo]

30. It's to keep them poor

Why do you think they want to kill the middle class? With a middle class, it's easier to escape...

[Bettie]

16. And I've been there, for a lot of my life

we're middle class now, but it took a while to get here.

This was just a smack in the face at the reminder of how expensive it is to simply do laundry...and I didn't even think of the cost of detergent, transportation, etc.

Heck, I started babysitting at age 10, not for spending money, but to buy canned food to squirrel away for when my father got bored with his job and stopped going.

It is so stupid. We're the richest country in the world, but we're ruled by human dragons sitting on their piles of gold, refusing to give up even a small part of their hoard. It is enraging. It is so fucking stupid.

[Evolve Dammit]

24. amen to that

[Joinfortmill]

17. Very heartbreaking, too. We can do better than this.

There are some alternatives that could reduce costs for the small stuff like undies and tshirts, but, if you're working and have a couple of kids, it's also about the time it takes to wash by hand and/or use some of these smaller appliances.

[Prairie_Seagull]

23. Not to mention the cost to ones psyche.

[Evolve Dammit]

27. Excellent point

[GreenWave]

31. I got a Speed Queen washer with the stimulus check.

One with water level adjustments and agitator! Should last at least 25 years. Pays for itself fast.

And best of all: Made in America!

[kwijybo]

33. Start setting up Co-Ops for fixing things, buying in bulk?

"Neighborhood Shop" and "Neighborhood Fix-its", sort of thing.

Charlie has a Bulk Membership, everyone in-group pays toward it. Ann and Bob each pay for (example) half a mega pack of TP, and get it when Charlie goes shopping.

The Fix-its each can fix at least one sort of thing. Trade off expertise among each other, trade off other stuff for people who can't (lunch, 6-pack, etc). This is how my first car got a clutch put in: Dad called a friend and his brother, they came over and had the clutch out before Dad could drive a mile to get the new clutch and beer. They put it in, had burgers and beers, and shot the sh!t with Dad for hours after.

[KentuckyWoman]

34. I'm just an old lady with a fetish for clotheslines

It's hard to hand wash and put up clotheslines these days. Many communities even outlaw them. Folks with the laundry in the basement can string lines, which is an advantage. Sure, things aren't as soft and fluffy but they are serviceable. Most women my age know the joy of running outside to grab the laundry off the line and the lawn chairs before an afternoon storm came in. Or taking freeze dried jeans and towels off in the winter.

I didn't own a dryer until 40. My husband came home with a 2nd hand mismatched washer and dryer - a million years ago when things lasted a long time with a little care. Now things are made to be breakdownable.

Fast forward 40+ more years and I still have 2 clotheslines strung in the garage. I just can't bear it to run the dryer for heavy jeans and the like. Plus some things just do better not in the dryer. Foam backed rugs and bras. Even when we lived in an apartment in Lexington, I had a couple of retractable lines over the tub and a couple more above the washer/dryer behind bifold doors.

I still sometimes use the fels naptha soap and a washboard.

Old lady doing old things because money doesn't grow on trees at my house either.

Good post and thanks for the reminder. Poor is indeed expensive.

Low balance checking accounts aren't free.
interest rates are higher.
Delayed health appointments create bigger and more expensive health issues.
The car centric society
Jobs on your feet all day and not being able to afford more supportive shoes.
Higher insurance rates for people in certain low income zip codes.
The list goes on.

I wish you the best with the dryer. Hug your husband once for me too. Those fixit guys are gooderin gold.

[roamer65]

36. Plus the lack of grocery stores in large city cores.

Detroit for example has very few. Most of the stores are small or convience stores which charge way too much for non-nutritious garbage.

[Bettie]

37. Small rural towns

also have problems with grocery prices.

Everything is at least .50 more in our small town, milk, bread, up to a dollar more. Meat? Not even worth buying from the 'almost expired' bin.

[kwijybo]

44. You don't like shopping at this Walmart?

Then you can go to the next town and shop at the one there! -- A rural resident

[Bettie]

46. We're 40 minutes from a Walmart

30 from a Fareway. But we've got a little grocery store in town. Since it is the only game in town, they have really high prices.

I can either go to the store or have my DH stop on the way home at Aldi or a few other options.

[kwijybo]

58. Krogers and Walmart

are 30 minutes away, North or South. Other than that, it's a Dollar General (15 minutes), 1 cash savers (30 minutes), or a gas station (15 minutes).

[roamer65]

45. Yes very true.

[paleotn]

41. Breaks my heart what our country does to people.

The people who do the hard work every day for a pittance. It's a disgrace and a tragedy in the richest nation the planet has ever seen. It shouldn't be this way.

[Farmer-Rick]

42. As the social philosopher said

Poverty is like punishment for a crime you didn't commit.” — Eli Khamarov, writer

He is good on poverty but his ideas about gods were crazy.

[FakeNoose]

43. Laundromats provide something we often need - time-saving convenience

I'm retired now, but when I was working 50+ hours per week I really had to budget my time more than my quarters.

I could take 3 or 4 loads of dirty clothes to the laundromat, wash, dry and fold them and get back home in a little over 2 hours. The cost wasn't prohibitive either, I'm sure I got it done for less than $20. (Of course I understand that everything costs more now.) My deal was to hold off doing the laundry until I had full loads of everything - whites, darks, bright colors, etc. I only did laundry about once every 3 weeks, but when I did it I washed everything at the same time.

The ability to wash all those loads in 3 or 4 washers at the same time, then dry them all in multiple dryers simultaneously - that was the clincher for me. I was really hooked on it. Even though I could afford to buy the appliances for myself.

Now that I'm retired, it's a different story. It might make sense for me to buy the appliances and have them installed. If I had them at home I'd probably run frequent, smaller loads and spread them out on different days. It would be less efficient and more wasteful of water, and that's why I haven't done it.

[chriscan64]

52. I have struggled with this most of my life, and I am one of the lucky ones.

I could illustrate with examples from my entire life, but I will focus on one signature event, surviving Hurricane Katrina. The storm's impact on one's life had a direct correlation to your economic status. I am not saying that was easy for anyone, but being poor made it that much harder.

First of all, there was the issue of evacuation. I was one of many thousands that did not own a vehicle. The option of being bussed to a shelter was problematic. My wife was released from the hospital two days before landfall after a week-long stay for a severe kidney infection. We could not have made it to the pick-up location had we known where one was. Our apartment building had been fire damaged the week before, so we were effectively homeless at the time. We decided to ride it out in a hotel paying for a week in advance. My first bit of luck was my wife being released from the hospital in time, the second was that my bi-weekly paycheck fell on that Friday. We were also blessed by the fact that we were on the 2nd floor of a cinder block building. During landfall, a large branch from a 100-year-old oak tree moving at 100 mph hit the wall next to where the bed was. The effect was limited to the building shaking.

When the week was up, we had to check out. The hotel was not giving anyone a grace period. On the day the storm hit after the winds died down but still raining, a young couple with a baby was sent packing. Checkout time was 11:00 am, hurricane or no hurricane. We would have been out in the street, but we had friends who lived nearby who had evacuated. We "borrowed" their home for shelter, cleaning up debris and disposing of rotten food from the freezer to pay for the privilege. When we explained this to them, they were happy that the place was occupied. The house had a landline phone that was only able to connect long distance. We were able to contact my wife's brother who drove from San Antonio to extract us.

I could go on with more examples, but time after time we either had luck preventing the situation from being worse or the benefit of loved ones throwing us a lifeline. Others were not so lucky. Without credit cards or savings, you live on a razor's edge. I deviate from atheism from time to time to pray that my car keeps running or that my employer stays in business. That's how life goes when you are below middle class. If you live in a house and eat food every day, you consider yourself fortunate that you are not among those that don't.

[beaglelover]

57. Last year while having our kitchen redone, we had to use the laundomat for about 8 weeks.

It shocked me how expensive laundromats had become since I last used on in the 1990s.