That actually sounds pretty great. You covered your necessities and had a few luxuries. Heck, I make an order of magnitude more than minimum wage, but my life doesn't sound much more glamorous than that.
If poor people are able to afford food, housing, and small luxuries (cigarettes), is life really so bad?
You also probably don't have to worry about getting sick or injured (health insurance and sick leave are basically assumed in most careers that pay >$100k/year), getting access to money (whether savings or credit) for emergencies, or being able to support a loved one when they have problems.
There's nothing "glamorous" about scraping by month to month, working an hourly job with no benefits or paid leave, or having to lie to get access to social services to support your family. It might not be as bad as living in medieval-era poverty, but it's still miles away from your six-figure professional lifestyle.
Life can be (and often is!) fine day-to-day when you're poor, but the complete lack of an effective safety net means the difference between "doing okay" and "living on the street with no options" is razor-thin.
My point was simply that my life generally doesn't seem much/any better than joelhooks's ostensibly "poor" life.
I might have health insurance, but I haven't used it once. Even though I have sick leave at work, I'd probably never take it (preferring to work remotely).
I guess my main point is that we shouldn't lose sight of the advances which centuries of development have brought us. An order of magnitude income differential no longer connotes an order of magnitude difference in lifestyle. At least for young single men, it seems like there's almost no difference in lifestyle based on salary.
Sure, sitting around getting loaded smoking cigarettes is Fun. This is better. A lot better.
I personally have very clear memories of the years where I worried constantly about finding and keeping enough work to pay rent, left problems with my health unaddressed because I couldn't afford to fix them, and stayed in a bad relationship because my partner had a place to me to stay and a car I could take to job interviews.
If you had asked me then I would have said my life was fine b/c I had friends, plenty of cheap beer, and didn't really know any better. Now that I'm also solidly in the middle class and can afford luxuries like an entire house I share with just my wife, regular meals out, and leisure travel I would describe those years as "strained" and "challenging" at best.
I guess maybe I'm just not allocating my money intelligently, but it really doesn't feel like my life is much better than "poor" young people.
My university friends who survive on a $4000/semester stipend don't seem any less happy or contented than me. If anything, more so.
> much more stability and confidence you have as a product of your income.
Admittedly, I don't really worry about the effect of losing my job. I could probably sustain myself for a few years off my savings.
But, on the flip side, having a "professional" job is also much more all-encompassing. I doubt people working at McDonalds frequently wake up with thoughts about new strategic directions and methods for flipping burgers, but I am. In exchange for the stability which a high salary brings, I'm always thinking about work.
Also, the concept of being able to sustain your current lifestyle for a few years on your savings alone makes you sound like you're from another planet to someone making minimum wage with the savings and benefits that entails. It also doesn't appear to jive with your earlier statement about managing your money in such a way that your day to day finances would be in any way similar to someone earning $10 hourly. Where I come from, having enough money for beer and weed might mean you've got $20 to your name, not a savings account with enough for rent and expenses for the next 2 years.
Edit:
Your friends at university might appear to have a fairly similar lifestyle to yours on the measly sum of $4000 per semester given the fact that university life generally comes accompanied by prepaid meal plans, health insurance, counselling, housing, on campus services and student discounts. Such amenities are a far off dream to those below the poverty line.
I never claimed my finances were similar to someone earning $10/hour. Just my lifestyle. (The fact that I don't have much to spend money on is part of the reason I've managed to accumulate extensive savings.)
> university life generally comes accompanied by prepaid meal plans, health insurance, counselling, housing, on campus services and student discounts
They do have housing taken care of, but that $4000 is used for meals. While those fringe benefits are tangible, I don't think they make a major lifestyle difference considering that most never use health or counseling services
Wealth is relative, but progress is not.
What happens when you get old? What happens why somebody else needs your help? What happens if you have a good idea and nobody to listen to it?
By definition luxuries are not necessities. If people can do without them fine (millions of people don't drink or smoke), they are not necessities.
> They are not a recipe for a good life unless you are pacified by trite platitudes.
Then what is, which money could buy? I make a lot more money than that, but my life doesn't sound any better.
I daresay, it's a necessity for human beings to experience less than complete absence of all pleasures in life. Many of the things described as "small luxuries" are individually forgoable, sure, but for one to live their life denying themselves the satisfaction of any expense anyone else might do without, experiencing nothing but the bare toil and drudgery required for physical survival, is a kind of mental torture no one should be expected to bear.
If a drink now and then (or "junk food" instead, or movies, or videogames instead, or nice clothes, or this, or that, or the other thing, whatever the particular indulgences are that floats one boat) is what it takes to feel like a proper human being, it's worth it. Poor people like the same things anyone likes, and I cast no aspersions on their allowing themselves joy.
(Also, yes, millions of people don't smoke, but at the same time, millions of people wish no longer to smoke but have great difficulty quitting, because it is physically addictive (rather famously), and though one might say no one should ever have picked up the habit in the first place, it's not uncommon for perfectly fine people to have made suboptimal decisions at at least one point in their life...)
The physical addiction to nicotine is weak and lasts only a few weeks after stopping smoking.
The psychological addiction is very strong and that lasts much longer.