It’s expensive to be poor and people who haven’t ever been poor just can’t wrap their heads around that. They don’t understand the loss-loss choices poor folk have to make every day and the toll and psychological exhaustion it puts on them.
"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.
This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness."
I went through my fair share of Walmart black no slip shoes before moving into tech. I hope financial hardship is in your future as well as your past. Maybe you'll figure it out the second time around.
Wow.. I had to check your post history to make sure I didn’t misinterpret your words. There was a clear pattern. You seem smart, maybe you can find it too.
My dear internet stranger and fellow HNer: I hope you find more love in your life and the ability to see it in, and give it to others. All the best to you!