The Wealth of the Poor

I have always stunned by most people’s attitude towards their financial situation.
Some people believe that I am excessively concerned by this reality. Half jokingly, some people have even called me cheap.
However, it seems like this tag doesn’t affect me. As a matter of fact, I like being called out this way from time to time. I do not believe being more intelligent than the average people, but I certainly know that I am a well-informed person, especially on this subject. Neither am I a God-like figure conscious of abstract realities inaccessible to most people. Yet I believe it is not far-fetched to say that even the-more-than-average people do not understand how the economic system truly works. I also think that if you are reading this article, you must feel concerned by this matter and knowledgeable.
My intention, in this text, is not to explain how our capitalist system works nor if it works. In fact, my goal is simply to illustrate behaviours that contribute that people live from paycheck to paycheck. Since it is not statistic-based article, I only want to share my thoughts on based on my perceptions. Feel free to disagree!
Isn’t the idea of living off only a single source of income stressful? Being completely dependant of an employer is not a comforting idea. The perspective of losing this only source of income would make anybody perfectly vulnerable. Moreover, not only do many people depend from a single source of income, many people do not save for retirement or wait too much time before doing so. This is the first reality many people face and which I regret.
Another sad idea is that decisions and attitudes adopted in young age tend to influence one’s behaviour for life. Although I’m not very aged, I have the feeling the way we make decisions is based on our personality, which is forged in our young age.
Based on these two assumptions, I will analyse a few cases.
The first one concerns a friend of mine, which spending behaviours make my mouth drop. As a full-time worker and part-time pre-university student, this friend managed to sign an 80$ monthly cellphone contract with a brand-new iPhone with 6 GB of monthly data and everything else limit-free. More than 2000$ are spent on an Apple computer, with to another monthly payment. Every year, hundreds of dollars are spent on costumes and other event-related activities. Moreover, every two weeks additional expenses come from fake plastic nails, along with countless expenses. At the same, I hear that money should be saved to consider living independently in an apartment. Are these expenses necessary? Allow me to ask this candid question. Working 40 hours a week, living off parents’ food and shelter, benefiting of paid education from parents and not being able to save a penny! This situation makes my mouth drop. If the goal here is to enjoy life, then good enough. However, if you expect living by yourself soon, better being prepared! What does this say about the future of this person?
The second case concerns the friend of a friend mine, whose spending habits are pitiful. Having dropped out school at the age 16 and not having completed basic education, now working full-time. He doesn’t have 200$ to pay for an online course leading to a better-paying job. Even though this person only lives off around 450$ a week, I don’t believe maintaining a 2006 Mustang and paying over 100$ for a personal trainer plus food for a special diet, while being perfectly healthy is a good strategy to aspire to a better living. Once again, what does this say about the future of this person?
My third case concerns one of my relatives who once said to me that credit was extraordinary for buying things over time. It was phrased about like “credit allows us to buy things even though we don’t have the money to buy it. And once payments end, material objects suddenly belong to us. This is how we accumulate things.” This harmless speaking is eye-opening to me as to how people conceive credit as a tool to win instantly, to possess instantly. Our lives are organized over credit. Pretty much nobody starts off in life being able to live without credit. Our system based on credit is a race against time. “Time is money,” they say. This is the reason why we need “it” right now, and not tomorrow.
This credit-based system is part of the debt-based system: to maintain the system, people must increase their living standards now and pay over time. Do not mistake me, I am not criticizing credit as itself, since it is a perfectly legitimate and useful tool in the society we currently live in. However, this system turns people into credit-addicts and dictates how people will behave over time. I fear this situation does not provide the best outcome for society.
In consequence, when people older than me, working full-time and poorer than me question me whether I am cheap or not, I, as a student, like to think that they dedicate their lives to maintain a system that keeps them away from aspiring to anything better.