As an example, I have a friend who just took out a $30k loan on a car because "interest is only 2% anyway, so might as well buy something with the money instead".

I would guess that is an extremely common view for people to have.

Yes there are people in actual poverty. But there are also many people who just think there is nothing to do with money besides spend it.

TBH, 50k wouldn't help. It's a petty amount of money when it comes to investments. On average you can aim at 3% per year. That should be enough to support your lifestyle which is 30k if you are ok with being frugal. Would you live like a homeless if you had 1M in your investments accounts? No, you'd be paying off mortgage on a nice house while figuring out how to make more money, deal with inflation and rapidly rising property taxes, so you won't end up on streets when you retire. If 50k could solve your problems, I'd give it to you now because I believe that fixing someone's life is worth way more than 500 hundred dollar bills.