Better living is brought about by better technology, not having more money
are phones and social media making the world better? is ai?
Yeah all these machines were supposed to have us working ten hours a week by now for a living wage what’s that about?!
If I’ve learned anything, it’s that bad public transportation is a conscious choice by the government.
over here it’s very common to not be able to afford a personal vehicle. 1 hour commutes each way, while standing in a crowded hot bus is not only normal but even sorta decent.
at least we have shitty broken sidewalks.
Another thing about being poor is that once you get a bit of money its like pouring water onto a desert because of all the deferred things. Clothes, car repairs and tires, debt, dentist, medical care, shoes. The hole people get in is deeper than it looks. A few thousand can evaporate disappointingly quickly.
I didnt file taxes one year with my kid as a dependent. So I filed two years at the same time. Got back $8K. 8 fucking K. The most money still to this day, I ever had at once. The govt took $3 for my deafaulted, unfinished degree, student loans ($1500 loan, I paid back in total via my tax returns $7500).
So I had $5K left. I used to to move near a friend who had an apt opening near him, it was the same price, but knocked 40 mins off my morning commute to work/daycare and the place was better insulated for heating costs. I didnt waste any money except for paint. The new apartment had orange and PINK walls. orange and pink, oye, I left the orange, but painted the pink, green. Moved and repaired my shitbox car, stupid jetta had been leaking coolant for a bit, me and the buddy repaired it ourselves, and I think I bought good work shoes too.
all the money was gone in about a month.
A brief personal report about fried chicken prices in America…
- 2025: $24-$26 dollars for 24 pieces.
- 2026: $26, $28, and now $31 dollars.
Also, I am seeing many items suffering from shrinkflation. Terrific. 😒
tangent, I recently remembered I can make fry chicken.
Got a family pack of chicken on sale, those god aweful giant breat pieces that are not natural. One breast, pounded out to like three sandwich sized pieces. Five chicken pieces pouned out thin- was a lot of Fin chicken. Marinated them for 20 mins in (low sodium) soy sauce. Dredged in a layer of corn starch, knocking off any extra startch so it is a thin coat. And fried em in a combo of canola/avocado oil.
then you can put any sauce you like on em. Absolutely fire. It takes some time to do this yes, but it was so much chicken. The work to me, justifies the calorie bomb fried chicken is. Its still healthy/better than fast food chicken.
why spend $30 when you can spend $15 and use up all your corn startch and the better part of an afternoon? lol ;)
tanget /end
Okay maybe I missed the Terry Prachett quote, but he wrote (paraphrasing) basically buying an awesome pair of boots that last takes decent coin, the people who need boots to last that long can never afford them so pay more for multiple cheap ones. Again paraphrased, but maybe it’ll encourage more people to read him, think I read a few years ago but anytime anyone quotes him sounds worthwhile.
If this was said, I apologize, sort of quickly scrolled to check so may have missed. But seriously why do we make things so expensive to be less well off? Sounds downright stupid, unless you’re making the dough I imagine. We should be making sure people can live comfortably especially with multiple jobs (though again not my preferred outcome, why should anyone need to work more than one full time job anyway?)
I just wish people could be comfortable with a single job even as a single parent if they need or would like to raise a kid. Though also think we’re a tad overpopulated but that’s not this discussion and still think if we allow it as a society then it should be possible as a single parent.
I am no kids person for the record, dated some mothers over the years but currently a dink (dual income no kids) more an 80s term.
I bought my son three Terry Prachett books two Christmas’ ago, including Men at Arms, because I hear so much about them on here.
He hasnt read them yet and it makes me sad.
Maybe one of the things he comes back in x years going, I loved those books! (After not reading for years) Mean one can hope but you least tried give a good gift. All things I’ve heard is he’s an amusing author though don’t know much beyond what I’ve seen comments on, oh plus Good Omens but only saw season 1 which was based on some of his work, listened to the audiobook too that was a good one. But I enjoy the premise of angels and such.
So he’s been in a bit of trouble this week. I was having him do a couple chores each day before he can earn his CD player for the day. Yesterday, I decided he could earn the CD player by reading Men at Arms for 20 mins instead lol. He did it! His gripe, seems silly, but he said he hasnt read them because there arnt marked chapters, so he doesnt know when to stop! The solution was to use a timer to know when to stop ;)
The original, excellent passage:
The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.
Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. 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 the 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.
Thanks for the whole bit, he wrote it much better than I ever could and in a way that makes it simple to understand. The mark of a good writer, which from what I understand he was. Okay I need to check out more of his stuff.
Much of it is a deliberate business strategy. The lower priced options waste more time to deter those able to afford more expensive alternatives from using them.
People really do like rediscovering fire don’t they. no shit, its a treadmill to keep you busy and keep you from growing or finding other sources of income, its to keep you under socitys thumb
You know what’s also wild?
Paying Elon Musk for a blue checkmark.
Giving No Kings vibes.
The SiFi movie “In Time” staring Justin Timberlake is meh quality wise, but the premise is really interesting… That the currency of that universe is the time someone has left to live. They do an interesting job playing with how wealth inequality changes behavior of people with and without time to spare
Time poverty is a totally real and utterly overlooked hindrance
One example I can think of is in the woodworking/DIY work I do. A common frustration of DIY projects is you often end up making many many trips to hardware stores. Often they’re not even big runs, you just need an item to continue the project. You absolutely need it, and it doesn’t matter if you’ve already been the the store twice today.
One way to reduce this problem is to buy more than you need. I once built a dust collection system out of PVC pipe and fittings. When starting, I went and bought way more parts than I knew I would need. I can afford to do this, and I knew that I would end up returning a good number of them. And I made sure to buy from a place with easy returns. But when working on a big project, I’ll happily by 20-50% more of something than I’ll need, just to reduce the number of emergency trips back to the hardware store. Saves so much time to just buy way more than you need and then return all the extras at the end of the project.
I enjoy the design aspect so I spend extra time challenging myself to make it in one run. I sketch everything up in detail and treat it like design me is handling the project of to diy’er me. Unexpected things that can’t really be seen don’t count like rotted joists, missing insulating, or other sub surface stuff but if project manager me fails I have to buy contractor me beer, if project manager me nails it then we celebrate with beer.
It makes things more fun for me but being able to afford what you’re talking about is a very valid point it just inspired me to share the mental game I play on myself to make things more enjoyable.
It’s ruinning my friendships. I can’t even fully be there for peolle, and they resent that.
And the mecical bills one accrues for treatment of the ailments that are brought on by an immune system weakened by constant stress.
I usually choose the bus over my own vehicle regardless, and Laundromats are generally too expensive unless you’ve got greasers or can pay to have your laundry done for you.
greasers ?
I’ve seen that term used for some White youth and also Mexicans.
What does it mean here?
Greasers in reference to laundry are a colloquial term for rags and clothes covered in Grease such as Petrol, Motor Oil, etc.
You have to take them to a Laundromat that allows them because they will damage or cause residential washers and dryers to stick or smell.
I could be wrong but I think it predates the term for white working class youth in the US during the Atomic Era because it refers to what they were often seen wearing as they spent a lot of time maintaining vehicles.
Thanks.
they were often seen wearing as they spent a lot of time maintaining vehicles.
DUUUUDE…I thought it was about all the hair product they used LOL!
That, too.
It’s by design
That’s a marker of the upwardly mobile. At some point they reach a threshold of wealth where they can be paying other people for their time.
Those who stay poor might look at them like they’re spending money recklessly to pay for the help. They don’t realize the financial crossover that’s happening.
Oh we do
