| I studied in Europe's Universities and met and befriend a lot of smart people coming from lower classes families. The number one problem with them is they being "penny wise, dollar fools". They had been trained all their lives in saving money, so they continue doing it even when it does not makes sense. For example I had one friend that spent a week trying to save $100. I had to take him apart and give him a talk: Listen, your company is paying for you 9000 euros a month, it is beyond stupid what you are doing. He understood that rationally pretty well, but emotionally he has been trained all his life into this behavior, and it was hard changing habits. You could also see the opposite behavior. "New rich" people wasting money because they don't know what to do with it. Educated people inherit lots of knowledge from other educated people like their parents or just the books that you have in your house from the smartest people that have existed in the world. When I was a kid I just read from books that were in my house because it was normal, all my family did it. So it was a shock to know that most people were so naive about so many topics. |
I'm making more than 9000 euros a month and can also spend considerable amount of time to avoid spending $100. It's called avoiding lifestyle inflation.