Hacker News Reader

Comment by baddox | Hacker News Reader

I still don't get it. If they're paying $150 a week to finance the nice couch, why not stick it out for two weeks without a couch and buy the $300 one on craigslist?

View on HN

My parents just took old couches in off the street, for the cost of dragging it down the street and up the stairs.

But when you're poor, you're more self-conscious about these things. What happens when your six-year-old son/daughter brings over their friends to play? Will they get made fun of for the old couch? What if there are hair lice in it? What if the kid gets hurt from it collapsing, and you have to take them to the doctor (which will cost hundreds out of pocket)? There are all sorts of irrational fears praying on the people in this situation.

Spot on I think. But are those fears 100 % irrational? Weatlthy people can build their own furniture with old wood skids, their neighbours will never raise an eyebrow. Try doing that if you are poor. You'll get child protection in no time.

"So Abbott and her husband walked into Buddy’s this past winter, hoping to replace the old sofa in their trailer, six years old, its wiring poking through the bottom, cutting gashes into the living room floor."

The easy and cheap option if you have springs poking into the floor is buy a sheet of MDF for $9.25[0] and a 20" hand saw for $20 (or less) [1] and the spring-destroying-the-floor problem is fixed for under $30.

It breaks my heart that these folks are so financially illiterate that they dig themselves into such terrible debt.

[0] http://www.homedepot.com/p/Unbranded-1-8-in-x-4-ft-x-8-ft-S2...

[1] http://www.homedepot.com/p/Stanley-20-in-Saw-20-029L/1002432...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com