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Comment by bsder | Hacker News Reader

> Poor people should properly budget and cook at home to avoid staying poor

You can't budget your way out of being poor. Most actually poor people (as opposed to people who have a substance abuse problem) I know have a very good grasp of their budget as they are constantly shifting money around figuring out which bills they have to pay and which bills they can put off.

You get out of being poor by getting more money. Period. Nothing else works.

Yes, more money doesn't guarantee you get out of being poor, and we all know people who got a windfall and then were worse off than before.

However, insufficient money absolutely does guarantee that you will be poor indefinitely.

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You can't budget your way out of a genuine lowest-quintile income without going to ridiculous lengths that are more difficult than getting a higher-paid job.

You can absolutely reconsolidate and budget your way out of debt, though. Or budget your way to having a savings account when you're earning the median income.

Yes and can avoid debt in the first place so that when you are making more money it's not just going to interest payments

How much money you have depends on how much you make and how much you spend

While you can't budget your way out of being poor if you have a very low income you absolutely can keep yourself poor by not budgeting no matter how much you make

I don't know why you seem to take offense with a simple suggestion that will help reduce how much you spend

There are people who make six figures who are in debt because they overspend and food is often one of the biggest factors in that

> There are people who make six figures who are in debt because they overspend and food is often one of the biggest factors in that

Those people aren't "poor". They aren't worried about eating or staying warm.

"Poor" is when you are deciding between fixing the car you need for work and whether or not you will have electricity the last 4 days of the month. You don't fix that with "clever budgeting".

If you have a negative net worth then I consider you poor no matter how much money you make

But yes obviously there are levels to it however regardless if you are buying overpriced fast food when you could be cooking at home for much cheaper that's not good for anybody especially if you don't make a lot of money... So what's your point other than trying to argue over the definition of poor?

If you don't have an emergency fund and your car breaks down and then you have to get into debt to fix it and then you have to spend more paying interest on that debt and you get stuck in a cycle... Compare that to reducing your expenses by not buying fast food and building up an emergency fund and not getting stuck in that situation to begin with

> So what's your point other than trying to argue over the definition of poor?

Because people make political decisions about programs that support the "poor" and the definition matters.

In particular, if a program supports the "poor" and winds up handing money to someone who is making $100K, there are a lot of people who will scream about that and attempt to cut off all support for all poor people.

This was the whole the point behind the racist "welfare queens" dog whistles, for example.

I guess that distinction in poor matters some to me, because when I read your original comment (budgeting to avoid staying poor) the first thing that came to mind was someone I know who often says things like poor people should just work harder and variations of that. And then I'm thinking like food deserts or people dealing with more pressing issues where there's probably a general inability to do any long term planning. And in that context it comes across as out of touch or like a naive solution to a complex problem, but then I guess you also have broke college students and others who could certainly heed this advice, not just necessarily low income people.

Even if you live in a food desert you could make cheap unhealthy food at home and it will always be cheaper than McDonalds and with even just a little bit of creativity it will be much healthier too

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