[azelfrath]

I could not agree with you more had I said those words myself.

A year ago I had a great job as a sysadmin, then I got laid off. Shit happens. I got a job doing landscaping for $10 an hour til I could find something better, and when winter came I worked in a restaurant serving people in the city.

What did I do? I stopped eating out and put my cooking skills to use saving money by eating in. I cut out cable, lowered my Internet speed and got Netflix. Got more conscientious about power usage.

What did I learn? At that job I both cooked and took orders in a 24/7 setting in a large city. I saw wealthy executives and immigrant Somalians alike buy food. The one thing I took away from that is that poor people stay poor by making poor decisions. Pun. Intended. When you walk around buying lottery tickets and junk food, wearing bling bling, smoking a pack a day, and clubbing every night, of course you're going to hit a financial hurdle.

My advice? Exercise that section of your mind we call common sense. Shop smarter. Do some math. Skip the club. Stop smoking. Put that on a 4x6.

[Jormundir]

You didn't learn much at all then. To think that being poor and having a tendency to make bad decisions, is just a matter of having developed negative personal habits throughout your life is just plain naive and ignorant.

Poor people are not just personally poor, they were raised by poor parents who taught them different values, albeit seemingly dumb ones (though I know a lot of poor people who are wayyy happier than a lot of wealthy people I know following the note card). They were taken to crappy schools, if their parents took them, or made them go at all. They were fed all sorts of unhealthy food their whole lives. They're lied to relentlessly by businesses saying things are healthy, will help them, or are good decisions (always campaigns run by wealthy people taken advantage of poor people).

They have everything around them working against them, and some dumb, naive, asshat, born to the middle class, thinks (s)he was poor for a little while and it was kind of enlightening and fun, ignorant guy telling them to put money in a 401k. Will it put rims on my car, because that would make me happy? When I'm 65? Fuck that.

[cdcarter]

That's not being poor.

Try earning federal minimum wage and providing for 2-3 people. You cut the crap out early. But your car that you need to get to work still breaks down. Your SNAP (don't know what they are? you've never been poor) benefits still run out too soon. And you and your kids still get sick.

[jamesaguilar]

That notwithstanding, what advice would you naysayers like to see on this card for poor people? Is there anything that simply knowing is going to help them?

This card contains all the major points of advice a poor person can use about finance. Whether that is enough to save them is a completely different question. Raising it is not a valid criticism of this card.

[aidenn0]

For poor people, there's basiclayy

#1 Convince all the rich people to do the last item on the card from the original article

#2 Try to get your kids to do something different than you, if you're earning $20k/year with no savings, no spouse and have kids it's probably too late for you to save anyway

[mc32]

It is being poor. If you want to define 'poor' or poverty as the UN defines it, then fewer people than you would suppose would be classified 'poor'.

When one loses one's source of income, one loses one's security. One is then eligible for state and federal benefits --for most intents and purposes, one has become poor --though perhaps not a destitute pauper.