You can't time your purchases to take advantage of good or important opportunities, like sales, affordable apartments, early pricing.
It frequently accompanies bad credit, so higher rates on things, harder to get access to things like loans that would help get items that would ultimately save you money or improve your work prospects.
To add to that, buying things in larger quantities is usually far more economically efficient. This includes food, buss passes, toilet paper etc. but if you can't afford the upfront cost, then you have to buy inefficiently
This is the main thing for me. I’m not poor by any means but a small apartment means no chest freezer and no large pantry. It makes it difficult to stock up on large quantities of meat proteins that benefit from being able to be frozen.
Yep! There were times I couldn’t afford a monthly bus pas. So I’d have to buy tickets which are more overall but that’s all I could afford at the time. I would also call in sick the day before payday because I didn’t have bus fare from time to time.
>You can't time your purchases to take advantage of good or important opportunities, like sales, affordable apartments, early pricing.
You also struggle to take advantage of scale in any way to save yourself money.
For example is a houshold able to afford something like a costco membership and their credit cards?
That can easily translate into significant savings in gas and groceries especially over time but you need to afford the yearly payment, to keep payments on the credit card, to have room to store the bulk food, have the money to have the time to cook from scratch, to pay the inflated upfront price to establish your first bulk orders, etc, etc.
When you get going it really can add up to significant household savings but having the income to take advantage of the costs, storage, and time to cook from scratch gates it in other ways.
Not to mention having a vehicle to even get to Costco to begin with. Very impractical to bus home your Costco run. Hell even loading the car is frustrating as hell with no bags or boxes.
To add to this, someone who doesn’t have a lot of money might purchase something that will need to be replaced year after year because they fall apart (say a cheap pair of boots for $30). Someone with more money, might invest in something that’s of higher quality (higher quality boots for $200) that will last them 10+ years. The person without as much money ends up spending $300 over a 10 year period to have warm feet, and the person with more money ends up only spending $200 over 10 years.
Absolutely this. I have lost count of how many times I have lost out on something I need, at a decent deal, because I didn’t have money at that particular time to buy it.
Not being able to take advantage of sales is such a huge disadvantage. You either can only afford to replace the thing once its run out, and you don't have either the cash or the space to buy sales in bulk, let alone the means to transport large quantities of stuff if you don't have a car.
Just wanted to add to your list... government subsidized programs like a junker rebate programs, home renovation/modernization programs are completely meaningless to lower income/fixed income people.
So millions of dollars available to "everyone" are actually just more subsidies for the wealthy.
Not able to buy in bulk because 1. You can only afford to buy the smaller sizes and 2. Even if you could afford to buy in bulk you don’t have a deep freeze or extra storage room in the small apartment you rent.
And for things like laundry soap and toilet paper too. Cheaper to buy in bulk, and even if you have the money, you may not have a car which limits what you can carry home.
No frills has sales like buy 2 for $4 or 1 for $3. But if you don't have the money (or the space to store multiple items) then it's not really a sale...
The tiny fucking washers too.
Nearly $5 a load. A load is less than a grocery bag full.
I've literally paid my sister to do laundry there just becuase I need to actually have a full week of clothes washed or sheets that don't fit in apartment machine.
Plus the machines are often in bad condition. I've lived in several different apartments, and I find it's often hit and miss whether the machines actually work or not. Plus, they're often stupidly expensive for what you do get. Fortunately I have a car so I would just save up a few weeks worth of laundry and then drive to the laundromat every so often. If you don't have that option, you're just kind of screwed.
Even worse if you're a bigger guy. My apartment has some pretty dinky machines but when everything you wear is XL/XXL you really don't get to fit a lot per load, I'm doing laundry every 3 days at this point, at a sweet $4.25/load for wash and dry
1000%. I bought a washer and dryer made for boats, and in 8 months they paid themselves off vs what I'd have spent doing laundry in the building. It's $6 a load, that's robbery
It costs $3 a load in my apartment building for the privilege of using 25 year old washers that are too small for one load, so you need to split your laundry into 6. I'm glad I don't have children because washing just two people's clothes can cost as much as $30-40 a week.
Just to add insult to injury, one of the two machines will leave black marks on your clothing, so you have to wait for the "good" machine.
Can I offer a technique that I used when I was broke?
The bathtub. Load in the laundry, powder (cheaper than liquid), and fill with water.
Stand in there, play some music and pretend you're stomping grapes in Italy.
Rinse, and hang to dry.
Just wait until your apartment gets bedbugs, and you have to wash and dry every piece of cloth your own, from drapes to bed sheets to socks and undies. I had an 8 month battle that cost me over $300 in laundry alone.
Poor people can't invest or take as many risks with their finances that potentially could get them ahead financially, because their priority is just to pay off existing debt and survive.
This comment jogged my memory. Government programs must be designed entirely by people making $200k in a suburb of Ottawa. They are clueless.
There was a children’s fitness tax credit, where you could get $500 towards signing your kid up to a soccer team or whatever. What struggling parent who can’t afford to pay this is going to be helped by the prospect of getting $500 back when they file taxes 11 months in the future?
I just got a heat pump installed. There’s all sorts of programs to make them more affordable. More than half the cost of it will be paid by government rebates. Win-win, right? Sorry poors, you need to pay for the entire thing up front (minus a small deposit), so something like $15k-$20k and then apply for the rebates or for a loan using your invoice after the fact. If you rent and pay out the ass for heating in the winter, your landlord can’t take advantage. Definitely not saying we need handouts for landlords, but at the end of the day the government is giving me $11k while someone else spends their whole paycheque on their heating bill gets nothing.
Boutique tax credits are designed for the rich by the rich.
The heat pump tax credit is actually incredibly frustrating, as someone that owns an HVAC business, because we run into so many people that absolutely could use help with getting rid of their ancient low-efficiency furnaces and don't need or want the AC capabilities of a heat pump. They just want a stable, effective furnace that isn't going to send half of their gas bill right out the flue stack, and that will be able to keep up to the -40 days in the heart of winter out here. Scrapping the 50% to 70% efficiency furnaces would be a huge step forward for everyone, but since there's no subsidies, it's just a question of paying for either the repair of the old clunker or signing up for predatory financing for a surprising amount of people.
You’re right, but just so you know, civil servants in Ottawa usually hate and rarely design those kinds of “boutique” tax credits. They’re politically driven giveaways to population segments that government wants to target and have nothing to do with affordability or tax relief.
The heat pump example is a bit different. That one is designed to reduce carbon emissions and so it is targeted to get the most uptake at the least cost. But again, intentionally not at all about poverty or affordability.
Underrated comment. The services where they means test you can be incredibly unpleasant to work with. Good luck getting hold of someone; good luck not being brushed off if you have a concern. I've never personally experienced this, but I've got friends who have and it seems incredibly draining and, as you say, frustrating.
Means testing is an idea that dumb people like and smart people hate. It adds complexity and cost and is a barrier to entry to people who need the service. The cost of freeloaders is vastly lower than the cost of means testing.
Government offices and call centers tend to perfectly overlap with (or worse) the business hours of someone forced to work to survive. If they work an hourly wage job, they'd have to give up lots of income to go to a gov office.
Those with salaries can get away with things a bit more, and have more compassionate supervisors. I've been on both sides.
The EI system in Canada was fully broken before the pandemic. It took them 8 months to pay me my first week of benefits, and I had to call 6+ times and eventually get my MP involved. Thankfully I could exist in my savings and get another job pretty quickly but it was really messed up.
I can’t imagine what it’s like now
Poor people can't easily upskill themselves: no time, can't lose their livelihood, need to support their family, etc. Being poor also affects the mindset around money: not negotiating offers or raises, being more likely to ignore good opportunities outside of current employment, etc. due to desperation/fear of losing livelihood, potentially leaving a lot of money on the table.
Being poor also gives you a scarcity mindset. You will take anything because you think everything is limited. Whatever is in front of you you will say yes to. You are constantly worried what you have isn't enough and will go away. It's very difficult to dream bigger and take action to improve your life when you're constantly focusing on losing what you have.
I read a really interesting article on what they coined as poor person brain. Part of the scarcity mindset too, is being denied ALL the time...so maybe you have 10bucks left, and you spend that on some treats because fuck it I only gave 5 bucks left and I havent had ice cream in 6months and I'm feeling like shit, I deserve a treat. And what is that 5 bucks really gonna buy me.
I read something kind of along the same lines, but about saving money. It's easy to say just put that extra $20 away when you constantly have extra money each pay, but you can't when you need a new pair of pants for work, or your shoes have almost worn through. So instead of being able to put that $20 into savings as suggested, you have to use it to buy those things instead.
My wife has been harassing me to buy new shoes for at least a year now because mine are worn through on the bottom and have a hole through the top but my ghetto ass brain can't wrap my head around buying new shoes for "no good reason".
Literally got into an argument in the small when my wife tried to get me to buy a new pair of shoes because the soles on my current ones are too yellow and "old". They are even structurally sound - my brain exploded, still traumatized.
Plus you can't afford to buy good quality shoes or clothes that will last awhile so are forced to buy crappy stuff that needs to be replaced every year.
people really take the small comforts for granted. growing up we rarely got anything like ice cream or other sweets because they weren't essential. As an adult i can get those things for myself but my brain still falls into poor mode and i have to literally talk myself into buying a chocolate bar. My last partner thought it was odd i didn't have any "treats" in my home most of the time.
Oh wow. This made me almost tear up I wont lie. Totally get it. Part of why I became such a maverick in the kitchen is so I could afford to make treats.
My dad plus all the first gen immigrant families I grew up with in Toronto inspired me with their practices. Just takes time. My experience as a prep cook helps too. But its still really really hard.
There is also the defeatist mentality. I have $10.
The phone bill is $50
The power bill is $50
$10 isn't going to make a difference to either of those so I'm gona sent $10 on my self and that is something no one can take away from me.
To add to your thought.
I think it also adds to the obesity epidemic as well. If you think you can never afford a vacation or a home, but at least a simple pleasure like some ice cream is within your reach, your mind might trade one thing for the other. "Who cares anyway so I might as well get the junk food that is cheap"
We grew up mighty poor and when there was a treat, we all competed to eat it fast because it would be gone and nothing like that would come around for awhile.
I would even eat stuff I didn't enjoy, just because it was a "treat"
I grew up quite poor and although I have a very comfortable life style now, the one thing that I have a hard time with is taking risks.
When you are continually faced with the prospect of being homeless, taking a chance on a new job or going back to school is fucken terrifying.
When I finished university I worked 2 shitty jobs (60 or so hours a week), 7 days a week for at least 7 months. Slept on a friends floor of the apartment (literally a corner in their living room) just to make sure I could be secure when I got my own apartment
This is a huge one. I had coworkers who were lab technicians who could not take any time during the day to take a course for a master's program.
I also worked as a lab technician and was constantly stuck at the lab and couldn't do much PD. Once I moved to a software engineer, I was given a lot more opportunity to upskill myself.
It's really frustrating to see that. Everyone deserves the opportunity to upskill themselves.
Thank you for bringing this up. I think more about daily life maintenance issues but this is a huge one...massive barrier to moving up the ladder so to speak.
And not being able to afford to pay for more education at all is a big one.
Your story is so real. I've had a fair few friends opt out of higher education because they cannot make school work around their work schedules. A lot of colleges and universities have courses during the day, and a lot of jobs like retail or long-term care, at least in my friends' experiences, will not be super flexible with you. It's really easy to say "take a night class", but not all programs will offer classes in the evening or asynchronous courses, and if you work any kind of rotating shift work, well, you can pretty much forget it.
Unfortunately, one of my friends wanted to take a business diploma. The college in our city would have taken 2 years, but she had the opportunity to do a much shorter course through one of those career colleges. It was much less of a disruption to her work schedule, so she picked that one. Turns out, the certificate she got is basically bunk, and she paid probably more than the college program would have cost over a 2-year span. So now she has a bunch of OSAP loans she can't really afford to pay off, because she can't get any kind of decent job with this certificate. A lot of these career colleges are kind of predatory - they advertised that you can get a diploma in less time than a traditional college or university, but what they don't tell you is that for a lot of things, they're essentially worthless.
Mind you, for things like PSW or hairdressing, they seem to work well, but I think those are more exceptions than the general rule.
Your comment has me in tears.
My dad is retired now and worked hard all his life. Very cliche but immigrated from Greece with $10 in his pocket in the early 70s. He brought over 2 siblings and while they got their education (the 2 younger siblings), he worked 3 jobs to support all 3 of them and send back money to his parents. He worked as a dishwasher, cook, factories most of his life in Canada. His mentality was save every dollar. He managed to buy a house with my mom and raise 3 kids.
He had gotten laid off in the mid 2000s from factory work, and got a job as a janitor in the same building.i remember one day, while I was out and about and spending my money in stupid ways - my parents never asked me to pay rent- I asked him what was wrong. He eventually cried out telling me do you know how it feels to be made fun of at work... With ppl around me are knowing I have to go pick up s**t off the bathroom floor, and they're making comments at me? Omg I cry about it now. I was so selfish. I rarely helped my parents because I wanted to party.
His goal in life is for his children to have done better than him. Now almost 80, he probably wishes he did things differently. But it hurts because I see how tired he is even now. He looks tired.
I try to be a good person, and save as much as I can. Because I want to prove myself that I can make a good life. I don't want to live paycheck by paycheck.
Now let me go sob.
Because you nailed it... Poor ppl have to work work work and most of the time, don't have opportunities. My father's language barrier didn't help.
I'm here to break that generational poorness.and I know I will make it
Cheers and thanks for reading.
Well, your comment brought me near tears. Your dad sounds amazing (the guts and work ethic of our immigrant parents. We are so soft compared to them) and good for you getting over that youngster idiocy (which I think a lot of us share) to create a better life for yourself.
Thank you for reading.
My dad is a good guy. He made an honest living. I'm so glad I got over that youngster idiocy. Took me a while but here I am. Last summer he wanted to talk. And he asked me what I would change in my life. I told him flat out that he restricted me for following my dreams because he was trying to protect me, and I regret listening to him. That's the truth though. I make ok money, but I hate my job. And I have another 22 years of work but I can't go back to school now because I have a toddler and work work work.
My dad told me, at least you did better than me in life.
I love my dad, but oh boy. That was emotional. And he's right, I am doing better than him. And my son will do better than me I hope. Our parents did what they could with what they had. Just like I'm doing what I can as well.
✌️
If your moving that far don’t pay a mover to transport your belongings.
It’s cheaper to sell or even give them away and replace them at the other end.
Go online and find someone making the reverse move.
At my old job I had one guy there that kept pushing me to find somewhere else. he referred me to his union as a labourer. I ended up in a automotive apprentice position. he was the only one happy for me. and props to him for pushing me as hard as he did.
I had an older guy tell me our company was underpaying me and that lots of places would be happy to have someone with my attitude and skills. Turns out it was true!
I hope to pass along advice like that someday.
I got hired as a supervisor at a manufacturing plant. Decent money but when I found out what some of the guys were getting payed, I helped them make a new resume and apply for new jobs. They figured out I was the one after the fifth guy left for a better job. They fired me. Worth it
When I worked as a supervisor for an oilfield company, I never minded when people took better jobs! In fact all I asked of them was to stop calling in sick the morning of the interview without telling me the night before.
We were oilfield supply, nobody is sick in a Wednesday morning but comes to work at noon, clean shaven…… 🤨🧐🥸 so I’d just walk up and ask how the interview went!😝. We should always support people bettering their situation, even if it means moving away from us!
>not negotiating offers or raises
Hey boss, could I get a small raise since I have proven repeatedly that I'm a dedicated employee? "No" is a very common response.
My favorite is when minimum wage goes up and erases any meaningless wage you've already gotten. Congratulations, working harder gets you to the same place as all the dead weight.
You should be able to work 37.75 hours a week on minimum wage and be able to afford to live where you reside. By live I mean have a roof over your head, afford groceries and pay very basic bills. If you cannot than it should go up.
The current living wage in Calgary is 22.50.
Low density populated provinces like Saskatchewan require a mode of transportation like a personal vehicle to reliably get to and from work. The upfront costs and maintenance costs are draining on ones bank account
Just to explain further, you’re more likely to get a cheap car which usually means it’s older and requires more maintenance down the road. It ends up costing more in the long run but you can’t afford putting down more money for something that will last longer or be more reliable.
When you are struggling financially and an unexpected cost comes up it can take so much time to deal with it compared to when you're doing well and can just pay to move on.
If you have car issues you are needing to get it to a specific mechanic who you can trust and afford then walk, bus, or wait for a friend to get to work.
If you need to get credit or short term financial assistance you often have to jump through more hoops to prove income, credit, maybe find a cosigner.
If something in your home breaks and you have to get something from the free Facebook groups or Kijiji you have to search, set up times with the person, get there for pick up and get home.
All the time doing these things takes from your actual earning time.
And in more extreme cases, sometime people may need to call in "sick" and lose hours the day before payday if they are simply out of gas and without another option, or if their winter boots bite the dust and they need them for their job, that sort of thing.
Can't buy in bulk. If you're paycheque to paycheque you might only be able to afford individual sized things like food, toilet paper, etc. Example: when you're buying chicken, the cost per lb drops 20-30% often when you're buying large packages compared to small
Plus if you don't have a car, do you really want to have to pay $30 for a taxi to buy bigger sizes of things? Or rather take the bus or walk and buy only what you can carry. I used to do my groceries by what I was able to carry home.
Yes, +1.
Then making those single purchases at a convenience store instead of a grocery store because they have no access to a car or their work shift ends after midnight. So they are also overpaying for that milk, juice, eggs, you name it because of the convenience stores' markup.
Not being able to afford to buy in bulk is a big one. Or say. For roomers, not being able to store food. So cant buy larger amounts of bulk food because you have no where to store it.
Room renters are also more susceptible to having their stuff stolen due to lack of security in their living arrangements.
Room renters are also not covered by the rta so have little or no recourse when getting royally screwed.
Everything actually takes longer to do if you dont drive, you're travelling elsewhere to get "deals" but having to take a cab home w your groceries which eats up alot of "savings" from shopping at cheaper grocery chains.
Not having money when key sales are on especially now, makes an impact too cause you to miss out on the opportunity to reduce unit costs for common items.
Cooking everything from scratch is a great skill to have but it takes alot more planning and physical work&time. And depending on how physically abled you are, you just might not be able to accomplish certain tasks. Thus you still pay more for food overall.
Being subjected to horrible living conditions because you cant afford anything better is massively expensive.
You're more likely to be subjected to abuse from landlords and maintenance issues, more likely to end up homeless due to income discrimination. Dont get me started on how expensive living with pests are! Bed bugs for example and cockroaches cause you to lose things you cant afford to replace.
Poverty actually makes some people disabled or more disabled, but people with disabilities already are overly represe mnted in the lowest income brackets.
If youve ever tried to live off a fews bucks a day for food you'll know, your cognitive function goes down as well as your overall health. You become more forgetful more stressed which is a burden on your general health. But youre likely to forget when a bill is coming out of your bank account if you can barely eat...or maybe you had to replace something important that you didnt budget for so you get dinged nsf fees...from a service provider AND your bank. There goes a week of groceries.
If you are lucky enough to have ANY savings...its earns less interest due to having less saved. If you are on social assistance of any kind there is a cap on how much youre allowed to save.
Then there are minimum wage parents w kids in daycare. Ya you may get subsidy(only once youre already employed, makes it hard to apply to jobs and go on interviews when you have a kid at home you have to look after)...but that makes your little 15 an hr or whatever it is now...alot less.
Im not sure anymore if insurance rates are determined by credit score/history but low income people often have low credit scores...not necessarily due to spending money they dont have but for not qualifying for credit at all, little or not credit history creates a lower score.
Being broke all the time means your credit with service providers may end up being negative...which will also bring down your score.
Living as a poor person is more expensive in literally every way possible.
Theres so much more. I could write a book but others have already studied this. Which I could remember a good source to reference. You know, other than people with actual lived experience.
I'm someone with an invisible disability, and I know a lot of other people who are disabled. Disabled people tend to be overrepresented in poverty and low income statistics. But it makes sense, if you think about it. You pointed out the lowered cognition if you can't eat properly, but also stress tends to exacerbate disabilities, and autoimmune conditions, and all sorts of other things. And living like that, or in poverty, is just stressful. That's just how it is. And a lot of people can't afford to move to housing, for example, where they would be less stressed, which would allow them to start getting their life back together. Stress, like I mentioned, can exacerbate disabilities and actually render you lower functioning over time. It's a vicious cycle, because you're not feeling great, and then your living environment isn't great, so you're not really in the correct headspace to improve your life, so things just gradually go get worse for you. And a lot of people don't realize how difficult it can be living with invisible disabilities, or even visible ones, but I have experience with invisible disabilities, so that's what we'll go with. They don't realize that you can't just shut it off, that some things affect you more than others. Some people can't deal with noises, some people can't eat certain foods, and I know a lot of people who will point at a poor person with invisible disabilities and say that they should just suck it up and deal with it. But the problem is, there's a reason that it's called a disability, it's because they can't. I've been very fortunate and I have the means to take proper care of myself, but I have a lot of friends who are not in that situation and it's not always great.
I don't know if this was relevant at all. I was pretty much just comparing my experience as a disabled person who doesn't live in poverty with my disabled friends who do. I'm able to work at a decent job and take paid time off when I need to, and I have a decent benefits plan through work so I can get my prescription medication and all that. A lot of people just don't have that, and I have a lot of sympathy, and I spent a lot of time arguing with people who aren't disabled and don't get it. Because I know what my situation would be like if I couldn't afford to take care of myself properly, and I know that I wouldn't be good, and it doesn't take a genius to assume that other people with my conditions would be the same way. I just hate the lack of empathy. Living with a disability is hard enough, without other people constantly judging you.
Buying lesser quality items for example shoes, which only last one season and therefor having to be replaced. Shoes are an example but could be many things. The cumulative cost is much higher than a higher quality one time purchase.
I wish this was higher up because people keep posting big ticket or big life event purchases, or emergency purchases, but ignore the small normal like clothes and jackets and shoes or toiletry and homecare.
Im living this!
$40 pair of shoes i have to buy 3-4 times a year because i never had $200 for the pair that will last 1-2 years and give me actual support.
Special needs items, normal shoes are too heavy for me (car accident) and cheap lightweight shoes i "run" through" every 3-4 months. But on a fixed income with $300-500 in medical costs OOP spending $200 at once (which were on sale for $150) means i sacrifice something else for the month. Whats worse is I *know* how mich better the other shoes are so now one month a year ita go without to buy shoes
Throw in the fact that you buy cheap shoes or say a cheap mattress, you will end up with back or leg problems which will make it even more difficult to work.
Ordinary flu season, people without sick pay will go to work rather than not make rent. And if you can't take that day to recover you stay sick longer and risk worse outcomes.
Same for injuries. Lower income people are often in jobs with repetitive strain or physical labour. Can't take time off, can't ask for light work or get fired, can't afford physio or rehab. Result? On disability before retirement, still in poverty, and being shamed for being a drain on the system.
There were lessons to be learned about workplace illness and disability support during the pandemic and we're right back to ignoring all that.
No dental coverage so avoiding the dentist because one cannot afford it, the dental issues will worsen. Something a simple visit and minor surgery now becomes an emergency surgery costing much more.
Any traffic violation that comes with only a fine becomes a large inconvenience on those with low income. The wealthy don't sweat the $350 for an accidental timing and running a red light.
Not being able to afford insurance then something happens that having insurance would have avoided can become an unexpected cost.
I don't want to be wealthy. I just want to be able to get my oil changed when I'm supposed to.
We're getting there, slowly, but its happening!
“By the end of 2023, we will begin rolling out a dental-care plan for what will eventually be up to nine million uninsured Canadians,” Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said.
The Liberals will open eligibility this year to people who are under the age of 18, seniors, and people with disabilities who meet the income criteria and do not have insurance. They plan to expand that eligibility to anyone who meets the household income requirements by 2025."
Medical costs. Yeah, I know this is worse in the US, but it's still a problem here. Dentists are expensive, and going for cleanings every x months is an expense that many people can't afford, both the up front costs and the opportunity costs of having to both take the time off work and potentially the transportation to get there. So you don't go until something hurts, and then it's thousands of dollars. Sometimes you don't even go then, but then there's all the time off work due to pain. Glasses - again eye exams arent' covered if you're an adult of working age except in very specific circumstances, and glasses can be extremely expensive. You can get cheaper ones online, but most optometrists don't give you one of hte measurements to order them online, and getting that wrong can cause eye pain and headaches, again causing missed work. Miss enough work at a low income job and you don't have that job.
Also mental health is not covered by most provincial health plans, and there is direct correlation between mental health problems and neurodivergence with lower income as kids who don't do well in school don't generally do well in post secondary either. Many of those of older generations are doing their best with undiagnosed mental health issues that if treated could let them improve their lives. Many are self medicating with substances as well, which is not cheap. And then there's the pharmaceutical costs if you are diagnosed that aren't covered. For any ailment, mental health or not. Sure, if you're in a better job, those things would be covered by a plan, but most low income jobs don't have those, and the programs in Ontario at least are laughably terrible - they'll help if you're poor enough to be on assistance, but otherwise you don't qualify. It may be better in other provinces.
Last weekend I was speaking to a relative that works in a call center selling car and house insurance. She explained to me that your credit score, job and level of education will greatly influence the price. Someone with low income, low job security and no higher education will pay far more for the same insurance than a doctor or a lawyer.
How in the world does this correlate at all?
Ins is based on risk assessment at hand based on statistics
Not knocking your thesis here, but your rationale is questionable
One reason might be a lower history of claims on average. If you have high income, high job security and higher education (the opposite of OPs rate increase conditions), you'd be able to pay for more items out of pocket rather than claiming. If there's minor damage, $5-10k, higher income people are more likely to be able to afford to pay that without involving insurance. Similar for job security, if you're working, you could probably pay for an incident yourself, rather than involving insurance. And with higher education, on average I'd expect it to be correlated with higher earnings. I believe higher education also demonstrates a level of delayed gratification, so perhaps those individuals have more savings to do preventative maintenance or take care of minor problems as they arise, preventing future claims.
Generally it is based off credit score. People with good credit get better insurance rates ceteris paribus. It has been a couple decades since I studied this kind of thing but I think it due to there being a correlation between good credit and reduced likelihood of making a claim.
Likelihood of making small claims I would imagine. The doctor isn't going to try to get insurance to pay out the TV that fell off his wall and costs $800 more than his deductible to replace (it's not worth the time/hassle and increasing your rates). The person who can barely afford their daily expenses probably will (and nickle and dime their insurance to death on whole ton of other things the highly-payed professional would just pay to fix themselves and not bother to claim).
I don’t have any proof at all, but I remember one of my profs in college excitedly telling us about how her insurance dropped once she got her PhD and had the “doctor” title.
After posting my comments I went to my library and pulled Weapons Of Math Destruction from Cathy O’Neil. I was sure I read something about this before. Her book is all about how algorithms and big data are used to screw people, especially poor people. There’s a chapter on insurance price and she pretty much says the same thing my relative told me. She also mentions that less educated people don’t tend to argue much or defend themselves on matters such as insurance. The company might just be charging more because they can.
Malcolm Gladwell also talks about this a bit in Revisionist History. According to him, credit scores have a larger influence on insurance price than DUIs
> Ins is based on risk assessment at hand based on statistics
Poor peoples houses burn down much more frequently. I bet they get in more car accidents as well.
Insurance is an industry that relies on it's services having to rarely be used.
In their mind, and likely experience, a person with lower-income would be more likely to need their services.
Not excusing it, of couse, just explaining. They would use tactics like this to minimize payout instances.
If you can't afford rental insurance and God forbid there is a incident and you are at fault
Not owning a car. Not all places are accessible easily/readily through public transit.
Edit: spelling
Yes I know people that can’t afford a car or have the best access to transport.
So when they shop they cannot buy in bulk as they nothing to haul it with, and they have limited access to certain jobs in their area. Yes they have the subway and busses nearby but a 2hr commute will kill the spare time you have for other areas in life.
Absolutely. Plus, if the bus isn't reliable, now you're faced with the potential cost of taking a taxi, which is a lot of money. I have a friend who lived across the city from his workplace because it was pretty much the only place he could afford. I think he had to take two buses to get to work, but periodically the first bus just decided not to show up. So then he either had to take a taxi, at least to the bus terminal depending on how much time he had left, or he had to call someone to pick him up and give him a ride. I lived nearby at the time so I didn't mind doing that on the rare occasion it happened, but it's something to keep in mind. The bus system in my city is so bad, you pretty much only use it if you don't have any other choice. People get cars pretty much as soon as they can here.
Also, it's hard to shop around for the best prices everywhere when you don't have a car. Even if the grocery stores do happen to be close together, they're usually on major stroads, walking between them is a major pain or even almost impossible, and some stores will raise their eyebrows if you lug a ton of bags from another grocery store into theirs. There are several stores around here that say no backpacks or outside bags. I mean you can leave them at customer service I guess, but still... When you have a car you can just leave them in the car. (You can't leave your stuff outside; if you do that around here it *will* get stolen.)
I've got enough friends in situations like these and it kind of sucks to see. And it also sucks to see how quickly one poor decision can snowball into something you can't get out of. A lot of poor people just don't have the flexibility to make bad decisions - when you have money, you can worry less about exactly where you're spending it, because you have a cushion. If you don't have that, suddenly the stakes are a lot higher. Nobody makes perfect decisions 100% of the time, but if you don't have a safety net, the consequences are much higher.
Yes. Imagine a family of 6 not having a car. Amount of things they have to take in bus/train are huge. They might have easy access to wholesale grocery which would be more beneficial for them.
Many low income people can’t afford to pay first and last month’s rent and will live in motels which are more expensive per month but don’t require a deposit.
I pay about $80 a month in laundry in my building. I could have paid for three high end washer/dryers by now with the amount of time I've been living here.
I know it's not always an option for everyone, but I am so thankful that when I had to move I was able to find a place with in-unit laundry, dishwasher, and heat pump/AC. Just the convenience alone is worth the cost, but not having to drag baskets down the hall (or stairs), not having to constantly buy rolls of change, not having to worry about someone throwing my clothes on the floor... it's great for the mental health to just not have those headaches.
Vehicle maintenance. Running your car with very little gas is hard on the fuel pump which turns into a massive repair bill. No money for a $100 oil change can be thousands down the road
I knew a guy who was poor but also thought he was “sticking it to the oil companies” by running his car nearly empty all the time. The reason? “You’re basically paying them to use your car as storage! That’s why I never fill past a quarter tank. My dad taught me that trick”. He didn’t even register that this is why his fuel pumps kept burning out.
Meanwhile, even as a student, I never let my car dip below 1/4 tank unless I absolutely had to.
I think one of the moments when I finally felt like I had 'grown up' and made good financial decisions was when I realized I didn't have to worry about *when* to buy gas, I can just get gas.
Join r/povertyfinancecanada and you'll get a good idea.
Think on how you save just because you have money.
Have disposable income and stable housing? You can buy in bulk to save.
You can buy when Thi g's are on sale and not when you need them.
Your account is always in black so you don't pay NSF.
Your car breaks down you take an über and do t miss a day of work. Or worst don't lose your job.
Your car squeaks, you take it to the mechanic and pay the $1000 to fix it, saving you $5000 down the road.
The list is long.
Poverty penalty is real. It's too easy for the privilege to judge and over generalize things like "if the cost of living is so high, live somewhere else". Wages and job opp are better closer to downtown. Commuting farther also has a cost too. eg: In MetroVancouver, transit is cheaper zone cost in the downtown area, than in the suburbs. Sure, there are other ways to cut down costs, but that also takes time. Now imagine if someone needs daycare. Is the cost of daycare more than their wages? That would hinder career growth and experience.
Thinking of higher education? Sure, you can have a better salary in the future, but you need enough money to feed yourself today.
The less income you make, the more choices and tradeoffs you have to sacrifice. There is only so much time in the day.
It's not to say that people who make less income are entitled to these things. The point is that those born with the privilege will automatically have advantages that are not that obvious.
You're so right, the benefits of privilege are really not obvious at all. I grew up fairly privileged, and happened to make friends with a lot of people who didn't grow up privileged in university. It took me a long time to wrap my head around the fact that some things I took for granted just wanted available to them. It took me a long time to realize that a lot of the knowledge that my parents gave me just also wasn't available to them. People love to judge - extremely harshly, at that - but don't care to look at what's behind the curtain. The lack of empathy is, quite frankly, astounding. It's even worse if the person is disabled or if they, for example, happened to get pregnant as a teenager, or if they're not cisgender, etc. To be fair I kind of get it, our society does this to us, pits us against each other, but... it's very sad.
I think not only should the threshold be raised, they should also be an appeal processes if you can show you're not covered by employer health insurance.
Those people are often hit the worst. Especially now. Their expensiles just went up a ton over the last year...yet they still make the same income that is apparently JUST too much to qualify for assistance or benefits.
This is the position I am currently in.
I make just enough that I am not qualified for many government benefits but not enough to be able to do anything to improve my situation. I have to get another job, but I’ve had some run ins with cancer that make working 60 hrs a week unsustainable long term.
When I was a student relying on governments student loans and trying to pay my own way (around 2011-2012), I got denied financial assistance because I worked too many hours a week (20-25) at Loblaws. When I called the student loans people they told me their best advice was to work fewer hours, even though I needed the additional income to afford my rent. Like what the heck, I’m still going to have to *pay* the loan!
All gains made by the poor and middle class are wiped out by some global crisis that makes the rich richer and everyone else stays right where you are. We are not meant to get ahead, we are wage slaves
Something not mentioned yet is fines. Parking, speeding, no insurance, etc. You may argue that it's just stupid mistakes, but mistakes can happen to anyone and it's exponentially more painful to a low income person.
And here if you go down to the courthouse you can usually get your ticket knocked down by about 1/2 in exchange for waiting in line for quite a while and being polite. But say you're working jobs that don't have the flexibility or you're working 2 jobs and don't have the time? You have to pay the full fine. It makes no sense to me.
This is my third time commenting on this post but it's a favorite topic of mine.
Another way that the poor are stuck is our credit system. I of course realize the point of credit and why that matters.
But let's say a person, I'll call Jane again, messes up her finances in her early 20s. She slowly but surely fixes them. It takes awhile for her credit to catch up to reflect those changes. So now she's in her late 20s, paying rent on time, paying daycare on time, paying her taxes on time, but those things don't report. She still has a few old things lingering. She can't get a $300 overdraft with her bank but she can get $2000 from Money Mart or Easy Financial. On the hard times that is tempting.
Obviously in time it gets better, but when someone is stuck they are stuck.
My finances were in a rough state during/after my divorce. It's been so satisfying as the credit score has steadily shot up over the last few years as the new history is replacing the old. Going from being denied for a single credit card to getting multiple offers for 'pre-approval' is a great feeling.
That is wonderful, congratulations!
This sub can be funny. Someone will post that they have a high interest loan and people will comment "get a low interest LOC to fix this" not realizing that many people can't get even a small overdraft or credit card while they fix their credit.
Keep it up :)
Inability to access cheaper capital, sometimes the ability to get a loan at a decent rate, to buy a house, start a business, get a vehicle or something for a job can be the difference bw perpetual poverty and middle class
Diapers, a small box has half as many as a large one, but costs 75% as much.
Cloth is a huge upfront investment, but is so much cheaper in the long run.
Relative to the US, cell phone bills are ridiculous. In general, there isn’t the same abundance of good deals/thrifty options in all categories - groceries, clothes, vehicles, etc. The climate is harder on vehicles, which means more maintenance costs and less lifetime. Rural Canadians have all kind of extra costs baked into life as well, financial and otherwise. For example - a kid in a decent sized town can run to their orthodontist appointment on their lunch break, but a kid in a rural area has to miss an entire day of school for it, and their parent has to miss half a day of work.
Edit: accidentally posted before I was finished.
Honestly this lol
If you're at the point where $4/month is a budget stressor, you probably don't have enough in your account to need a bank draft the same day
Anything requiring legal assistance.
Spouse leaves and takes the kids? Say goodbye to any real presence in their lives if you can't afford a lawyer.
Terminated at work for no cause? Have to take the minimum severance they offer unless you have a couple of thousand dollars for a retainer and don't need that money to live on in the meantime.
Wealthy people can just drag anything out in the legal system and wait for your money to run out, resulting in an automatic win for them.
> terminated at work for no cause… retainer
Employment lawyers usually provide consultation for free, and charge on contingency (take a percentage of the severance you win). That said, they might not take your case if your salary is low enough that a percentage of severance may not be worth it to them.
Severance? Retainer?
I’m not sure working class people even know what these terms even actually mean.
PTO is a punch line and vacation days means you’re paying lots of money to go somewhere and getting no income while you’re gone.
\*quietly sobs in blue collar*
As someone who has always been in the low income range, I can say it’s extremely hard to get ahead when you start out behind.
Expenses others may not consider include:
Tampons/pads - and don’t say go to a women’s centre because you can’t get the supply you need every single month. I’ve tried many times.
Disability - if you have a disability or become disabled there is no magic pot that will help you pay your bills. The subsidies often force people into less stable situations because it’s all they can rely on. Also, the associated costs for the disability are substantial.
Housing - renting is extremely expensive and when you make below a living wage, you simply cannot save to get ahead. Most of your money goes to shelter costs.
Food - grocery stores offer discounts for buying bulk, but that goes to waste if you are single or living alone. Food, especially fresh items end up costing much more.
Transportation - a vehicle can give someone independence and can be crucial if working more than one job or going to school. Unexpected costs related to this can put someone who is low income into debt. Trying to get out of that debt is nearly impossible because you don’t have enough to pay that unexpected cost down.
Debt - this is not a choice when faced with the possibility of being homeless, without safety, and other crises that arise. When you get into debt and are low income, it can be very hard to make those minimum payments when the options are either a good credit score and low interest or food to eat. I’ve always chosen the latter.
Being a minority - I don’t care what you think, this is real and it affects what is available to you and who chooses to help or work with you. Racism and bigotry is another hurdle a low income person has to face and it can mean not getting that higher paid job, not being called for an interview because your name is difficult, or simply not even considered for housing because you are not a cis gender, white person.
Often, these decisions to get into debt or make what others would consider a ‘poor choice’ happen because you have much harder daily decisions to make.
Is it a roof over my head or eat food or buy tampons today or should I put $10 gas in my car to get to work. I’ve stood at Shoppers Drug Mart with my last $10 bill crying because I knew I needed the tampons the most. And that meant everything else would not happen.
That’s the reality of being low income in Canada.
Just to note, I have post secondary education. But the reality is, it doesn’t matter when society already treats you like lesser.
Not everyone can achieve that insane pipe dream that if you work hard you will get ahead. I work damn hard and let me tell you, I’m not getting ahead. Privilege is what gets you ahead.
Agree with most of these points, and in my opinion housing is the worst offender of all. Renting is getting increasingly out of hand, making it nearly impossible for many to save for a down payment for a mortgage -- even if they wish to settle in a given city.
I am of minority, and while I agree privilege is what gets you ahead, race isn't the only determining factor of privilege, but one of several potential factors.
I have said this a lot over the years. Wealth is the #1 privilege over everything else. Enough money can overcome or at lest separate you from any other discrimination. I would even say most other ways of discrimination is a short cut for wealth. People with Darker skin tones where looked down on due to the assumption that they had to do labour out doors. I imagine this was a large contributor to race based discrimination. Disabilities reduced your ability to make money. Since men where typical the ones who preformed the work that brought money into the house, women who did marry where looked down on.
Pretty much people create short cuts to identify what group you belong to. And people always want to justify why they should have a little bit more then the next guy.
I always kinda wanted to try having a janitor just stop cleaning and start teaching them some white coller job that pays slightly more. Then when people realize the place is dirty have the person doing the job you have been teaching the janitor for say last 5 days start cleaning. Bet by the time they they get caught up on the janitors job you could just leave them in place. And these small swaps would probably work pretty far up.
It would prove nobody’s getting there job done with out the janitor. And where you are is far more about what opportunities to learn you have then you naturally ability.
u/twbrins That's me, and I deeply appreciate you thinking about us. I hope others will do so too. This is why:
I'm from a working class immigrant family (both cleaners). I graduated from a top school, and had a white collar career.
There was a family situation where I had to leave my career to take care of my family. I helped out with their work as cleaners.
Let me tell you, working as a cleaner is the most difficult job I've ever had (especially mentally). No one appreciate your work. There are people who constantly talk down to you, look down on you, and bully you --even at large companies that "treat their employees well" and who "takes care of each other." You're a contractor, so you can't turn to HR for help.
I work with 7 different clients as a cleaner, and only 1 of them treated me as a human. That was until a new facilities manager was hired, and that nice client has become a nightmare client.
You also cover your own costs (sprays, vacuums, mops, car, parking, business insurance, WCB, and etc.), so for some contracts you're working at minimum wage or less. Companies think of you as a fixed cost because there is always someone willing to work for cheaper. Hence no raises or inflation adjustments, even if your clients have revenues in the billions of dollars.
Working as a cleaner has given me so much more respect for working class low income people, because being an "unskilled" blue collar labourer is literally hell in every way.
**We don't earn much, so respecting and being nice to your cleaners/janitors goes a long way. We are all humans that are working hard to make a living, and with families to go home to.**
Middle class or higher people have access to a wealthier social safety net that gives them a leg up. From finding work through personal connections to being able to find financial help in a pinch. One way to check your own is to answer the question “If I needed to borrow $2000 (or 4000, or 10,000..) from someone tomorrow how many people do I know who would or could lend it to me?” Never mind advantages like having credit and equity to borrow against in an emergency.
High end jobs have high end perks. Retirement savings, car allowances, training reimbursement, health insurance, mental health coverage, transit allowance, gym subsidy, and many other things that would usually be paid out of pocket are handled by high paying jobs.
Companies give perks because people over value them. It’s cheaper to do that than just pay people more. I don’t think is a special way to screw poor people, more like corporations saving on salaries
Too many tax credits and incentives don't apply because too many working families don't earn enough. For example, the TSFA / RRSP and the new FHSA doesn't help you if you live paycheck to paycheck and have nothing to save.
Living in low-income areas means less competition because of fewer anticipated revenues from clients. Less competition means goods in your area are more expensive, but overall cheaper than going out of your way to purchase elsewhere.
Living in smaller apartments means no space for things like chest freezers and pantry space. Things get cheaper as you buy in larger quantities, but if you can't store it anywhere, you won't be able to take advantage of this sizeable (pun intended) discount.
Shoes. Cheap shoes are poorly made and generally bad for your feet. They can do real lasting damage.
Like many other cheap products, they won't last long either. You might spend $25 on shoes 2 or 3 times a year while a $100 pair might last a couple years.
Places like Amazon and Walmart are actually quite expensive in the long run because junk has to be replaced more often.
Diapers!
If you are poor the cheapest amount of diapers you can buy is probably the president’s choice brand package of 40 for $14. They are terrible quality. They barely hold any pee and beed to be changed hourly for a young baby.
If you have a bit more money and a costco membership you can buy 192 diapers for $40 and they will keep baby dry much longer. Not to mention avoiding to cost of travelling to the shop multiple times.
Similarly people who can subscribe to diapers on amazon will save a lot of money compared to the first option.
And I will add that reusable cloth diapers have a huge starting cost of about $200 and are not really viable for people without private laundry or even living in apartments with restricted laundry hours.
The new FHSA account. Since the "benefit" of it really is tax breaks - at deposit and widthrawal time (if for house). But tax breaks only really benefit those in upper income brackets the most.
NSF fee is now 48 bucks. I once bought some random cheap crap on ebay through paypal and didnt realize some payment went through and got hit with 8 NSF (was like 300 something), bank only removed one. Ffs
Lack of credit, when you’re paycheck to paycheck sometimes unforeseen expenses come up and you’re unable to deal with them
There are often long term consequences for that
If you can't go to the dentist because you can't afford it, it will eventually cost massive amounts of money or you get to look like a hillbilly. Then you will not be able to work many jobs. Having bad teeth destroys your earning potential.
I pay about $40 + a month to do laundry, and that's not doing bed sheets regularly because I have to use coin operated machines. That's the easiest example I have, plus it takes more time than a person who has their laundry machines at home.
I already commented but another great resource for this topic is Bridges Out of Poverty by Ruby Payne. A book that is also offered as training for those who work in community services. As well as what the Circles group program came out of.
But it talks about the culture of poverty and how it can keep people in. Such as being used to using your time as currency, and the mindset of taking care of having each other's backs, being your priority.
An example would be: Jane gets a job interview for tomorrow at 3:00. At 2:00 her neighbor, who has always had her back and helped her out when needed, gets injured and there is noone to watch her kids. Jane misses the interview to step in and watch the kids.
That is just one piece though, many other examples.
Time. If Canada is anything like the rest of Canada, commuting on a bus takes 3 time longer than what a car would. This has so many implications, imagine trying to study up and work part time, commuting across town, add a kid in that mix, it probably quintuples in difficulty.
Not having money on hand, you miss opportunities. So, I am in a bit of a financial slump and I knew some stocks were going to fall, but I couldn't afford to take advantage of it.
Having only on foot access to pawn shops to purchase tools etc. My office is close to pawn shops and the tools are outrageously priced. A trip to Home Depot or Canadian tire you could buy a brand new whatever tool for cheaper. But some people don’t know that.
Canada, and ofc US as well, run on debt. People buy things with debt. Without asset or income, you can't get debt. Without debt, it's difficult to get "ahead".
Most of the answers stem from this theory.
Today I went to renew my license and I overheard the guy in front of me wasn’t able to pay a speeding ticket so he had to pay an extra $300 to reinstate his license.
Not necessarily just Canada, but coming from a single parent home does not help.
I grew up with a single mom and I am not sure how she did it. Looking after 2 kids with no support of any kind from our dad. Working and paying for child care, putting food on the table. It’s no joke.
I am very blessed to have an awesome wife by my side. Having multiple children and someone to raise them with is the most advantageous thing I could ask for. We are not wealthy by any means, but we are not going hungry or lacking any major necessities. Money does not buy happiness, but being poor is not a joyful experience either. Having a family that is loving and caring does go a long way.
More than anything it's the mental cost of feeling caged in with limited options all the damn time.
Constantly weighing any decision to spend, living in tiny apartments with barely enough room, not being able to just have an outdoor space to have a drink with friends unless it's at an expensive bar, can't have more than a few friends over since there's no space.
I'm just tired and drained.
You can't time your purchases to take advantage of good or important opportunities, like sales, affordable apartments, early pricing. It frequently accompanies bad credit, so higher rates on things, harder to get access to things like loans that would help get items that would ultimately save you money or improve your work prospects.
To add to that, buying things in larger quantities is usually far more economically efficient. This includes food, buss passes, toilet paper etc. but if you can't afford the upfront cost, then you have to buy inefficiently
And you are not likely able to carry home the sale 10lb bag of potatoes so you have to buy the much more expensive little bag.
Not to mention the housing crisis, ppl don’t have any space to put bulk purchased items. Especially if you live in a city.
This is the main thing for me. I’m not poor by any means but a small apartment means no chest freezer and no large pantry. It makes it difficult to stock up on large quantities of meat proteins that benefit from being able to be frozen.
Yep! There were times I couldn’t afford a monthly bus pas. So I’d have to buy tickets which are more overall but that’s all I could afford at the time. I would also call in sick the day before payday because I didn’t have bus fare from time to time.
>You can't time your purchases to take advantage of good or important opportunities, like sales, affordable apartments, early pricing. You also struggle to take advantage of scale in any way to save yourself money. For example is a houshold able to afford something like a costco membership and their credit cards? That can easily translate into significant savings in gas and groceries especially over time but you need to afford the yearly payment, to keep payments on the credit card, to have room to store the bulk food, have the money to have the time to cook from scratch, to pay the inflated upfront price to establish your first bulk orders, etc, etc. When you get going it really can add up to significant household savings but having the income to take advantage of the costs, storage, and time to cook from scratch gates it in other ways.
Not to mention having a vehicle to even get to Costco to begin with. Very impractical to bus home your Costco run. Hell even loading the car is frustrating as hell with no bags or boxes.
To add to this, someone who doesn’t have a lot of money might purchase something that will need to be replaced year after year because they fall apart (say a cheap pair of boots for $30). Someone with more money, might invest in something that’s of higher quality (higher quality boots for $200) that will last them 10+ years. The person without as much money ends up spending $300 over a 10 year period to have warm feet, and the person with more money ends up only spending $200 over 10 years.
Absolutely this. I have lost count of how many times I have lost out on something I need, at a decent deal, because I didn’t have money at that particular time to buy it.
Not being able to take advantage of sales is such a huge disadvantage. You either can only afford to replace the thing once its run out, and you don't have either the cash or the space to buy sales in bulk, let alone the means to transport large quantities of stuff if you don't have a car.
Just wanted to add to your list... government subsidized programs like a junker rebate programs, home renovation/modernization programs are completely meaningless to lower income/fixed income people. So millions of dollars available to "everyone" are actually just more subsidies for the wealthy.
Not able to buy in bulk because 1. You can only afford to buy the smaller sizes and 2. Even if you could afford to buy in bulk you don’t have a deep freeze or extra storage room in the small apartment you rent.
And for things like laundry soap and toilet paper too. Cheaper to buy in bulk, and even if you have the money, you may not have a car which limits what you can carry home.
A $20 bottle of Advil from Costco will last me a year A $12 bottle from shoppers is 24 pills
No frills has sales like buy 2 for $4 or 1 for $3. But if you don't have the money (or the space to store multiple items) then it's not really a sale...
No one's mentioned having to use a laundromat. Very expensive.
Hell, even shared laundry in an apartment. The amount of clothes that are stolen is just ridiculous lol
The tiny fucking washers too. Nearly $5 a load. A load is less than a grocery bag full. I've literally paid my sister to do laundry there just becuase I need to actually have a full week of clothes washed or sheets that don't fit in apartment machine.
Plus the machines are often in bad condition. I've lived in several different apartments, and I find it's often hit and miss whether the machines actually work or not. Plus, they're often stupidly expensive for what you do get. Fortunately I have a car so I would just save up a few weeks worth of laundry and then drive to the laundromat every so often. If you don't have that option, you're just kind of screwed.
Even worse if you're a bigger guy. My apartment has some pretty dinky machines but when everything you wear is XL/XXL you really don't get to fit a lot per load, I'm doing laundry every 3 days at this point, at a sweet $4.25/load for wash and dry
That's some ghetto vibes 😂
I had my entire scarf collection stolen along with a big jug of purex from me one year. Expensive lesson to learn.
That’s why I turn my underwear inside out… last twice as long. Lol
Not to mention time consuming and inconvenient
1000%. I bought a washer and dryer made for boats, and in 8 months they paid themselves off vs what I'd have spent doing laundry in the building. It's $6 a load, that's robbery
It costs $3 a load in my apartment building for the privilege of using 25 year old washers that are too small for one load, so you need to split your laundry into 6. I'm glad I don't have children because washing just two people's clothes can cost as much as $30-40 a week. Just to add insult to injury, one of the two machines will leave black marks on your clothing, so you have to wait for the "good" machine.
Can I offer a technique that I used when I was broke? The bathtub. Load in the laundry, powder (cheaper than liquid), and fill with water. Stand in there, play some music and pretend you're stomping grapes in Italy. Rinse, and hang to dry.
Just wait until your apartment gets bedbugs, and you have to wash and dry every piece of cloth your own, from drapes to bed sheets to socks and undies. I had an 8 month battle that cost me over $300 in laundry alone.
What a nightmare!!!
Poor people can't invest or take as many risks with their finances that potentially could get them ahead financially, because their priority is just to pay off existing debt and survive.
Ya my Dad told me this too He said when you live at home and your young you can take advantage of investment opportunities bc if u get burnt its okay
Best time to take risky moves is when you're at home for sure or have low expenses.
And dealing with government to access services must be insanely frustrating.
This comment jogged my memory. Government programs must be designed entirely by people making $200k in a suburb of Ottawa. They are clueless. There was a children’s fitness tax credit, where you could get $500 towards signing your kid up to a soccer team or whatever. What struggling parent who can’t afford to pay this is going to be helped by the prospect of getting $500 back when they file taxes 11 months in the future? I just got a heat pump installed. There’s all sorts of programs to make them more affordable. More than half the cost of it will be paid by government rebates. Win-win, right? Sorry poors, you need to pay for the entire thing up front (minus a small deposit), so something like $15k-$20k and then apply for the rebates or for a loan using your invoice after the fact. If you rent and pay out the ass for heating in the winter, your landlord can’t take advantage. Definitely not saying we need handouts for landlords, but at the end of the day the government is giving me $11k while someone else spends their whole paycheque on their heating bill gets nothing.
Boutique tax credits are designed for the rich by the rich. The heat pump tax credit is actually incredibly frustrating, as someone that owns an HVAC business, because we run into so many people that absolutely could use help with getting rid of their ancient low-efficiency furnaces and don't need or want the AC capabilities of a heat pump. They just want a stable, effective furnace that isn't going to send half of their gas bill right out the flue stack, and that will be able to keep up to the -40 days in the heart of winter out here. Scrapping the 50% to 70% efficiency furnaces would be a huge step forward for everyone, but since there's no subsidies, it's just a question of paying for either the repair of the old clunker or signing up for predatory financing for a surprising amount of people.
You’re right, but just so you know, civil servants in Ottawa usually hate and rarely design those kinds of “boutique” tax credits. They’re politically driven giveaways to population segments that government wants to target and have nothing to do with affordability or tax relief. The heat pump example is a bit different. That one is designed to reduce carbon emissions and so it is targeted to get the most uptake at the least cost. But again, intentionally not at all about poverty or affordability.
Underrated comment. The services where they means test you can be incredibly unpleasant to work with. Good luck getting hold of someone; good luck not being brushed off if you have a concern. I've never personally experienced this, but I've got friends who have and it seems incredibly draining and, as you say, frustrating.
Means testing is an idea that dumb people like and smart people hate. It adds complexity and cost and is a barrier to entry to people who need the service. The cost of freeloaders is vastly lower than the cost of means testing.
Government offices and call centers tend to perfectly overlap with (or worse) the business hours of someone forced to work to survive. If they work an hourly wage job, they'd have to give up lots of income to go to a gov office. Those with salaries can get away with things a bit more, and have more compassionate supervisors. I've been on both sides.
The EI system in Canada was fully broken before the pandemic. It took them 8 months to pay me my first week of benefits, and I had to call 6+ times and eventually get my MP involved. Thankfully I could exist in my savings and get another job pretty quickly but it was really messed up. I can’t imagine what it’s like now
Poor people can't easily upskill themselves: no time, can't lose their livelihood, need to support their family, etc. Being poor also affects the mindset around money: not negotiating offers or raises, being more likely to ignore good opportunities outside of current employment, etc. due to desperation/fear of losing livelihood, potentially leaving a lot of money on the table.
Being poor also gives you a scarcity mindset. You will take anything because you think everything is limited. Whatever is in front of you you will say yes to. You are constantly worried what you have isn't enough and will go away. It's very difficult to dream bigger and take action to improve your life when you're constantly focusing on losing what you have.
I read a really interesting article on what they coined as poor person brain. Part of the scarcity mindset too, is being denied ALL the time...so maybe you have 10bucks left, and you spend that on some treats because fuck it I only gave 5 bucks left and I havent had ice cream in 6months and I'm feeling like shit, I deserve a treat. And what is that 5 bucks really gonna buy me.
I read something kind of along the same lines, but about saving money. It's easy to say just put that extra $20 away when you constantly have extra money each pay, but you can't when you need a new pair of pants for work, or your shoes have almost worn through. So instead of being able to put that $20 into savings as suggested, you have to use it to buy those things instead.
My wife has been harassing me to buy new shoes for at least a year now because mine are worn through on the bottom and have a hole through the top but my ghetto ass brain can't wrap my head around buying new shoes for "no good reason".
Not to mention how much time you've invested in breaking them in to perfection.
Literally got into an argument in the small when my wife tried to get me to buy a new pair of shoes because the soles on my current ones are too yellow and "old". They are even structurally sound - my brain exploded, still traumatized.
Plus you can't afford to buy good quality shoes or clothes that will last awhile so are forced to buy crappy stuff that needs to be replaced every year.
people really take the small comforts for granted. growing up we rarely got anything like ice cream or other sweets because they weren't essential. As an adult i can get those things for myself but my brain still falls into poor mode and i have to literally talk myself into buying a chocolate bar. My last partner thought it was odd i didn't have any "treats" in my home most of the time.
Oh wow. This made me almost tear up I wont lie. Totally get it. Part of why I became such a maverick in the kitchen is so I could afford to make treats. My dad plus all the first gen immigrant families I grew up with in Toronto inspired me with their practices. Just takes time. My experience as a prep cook helps too. But its still really really hard.
There is also the defeatist mentality. I have $10. The phone bill is $50 The power bill is $50 $10 isn't going to make a difference to either of those so I'm gona sent $10 on my self and that is something no one can take away from me.
To add to your thought. I think it also adds to the obesity epidemic as well. If you think you can never afford a vacation or a home, but at least a simple pleasure like some ice cream is within your reach, your mind might trade one thing for the other. "Who cares anyway so I might as well get the junk food that is cheap" We grew up mighty poor and when there was a treat, we all competed to eat it fast because it would be gone and nothing like that would come around for awhile. I would even eat stuff I didn't enjoy, just because it was a "treat"
I grew up quite poor and although I have a very comfortable life style now, the one thing that I have a hard time with is taking risks. When you are continually faced with the prospect of being homeless, taking a chance on a new job or going back to school is fucken terrifying. When I finished university I worked 2 shitty jobs (60 or so hours a week), 7 days a week for at least 7 months. Slept on a friends floor of the apartment (literally a corner in their living room) just to make sure I could be secure when I got my own apartment
This is a huge one. I had coworkers who were lab technicians who could not take any time during the day to take a course for a master's program. I also worked as a lab technician and was constantly stuck at the lab and couldn't do much PD. Once I moved to a software engineer, I was given a lot more opportunity to upskill myself. It's really frustrating to see that. Everyone deserves the opportunity to upskill themselves.
Thank you for bringing this up. I think more about daily life maintenance issues but this is a huge one...massive barrier to moving up the ladder so to speak. And not being able to afford to pay for more education at all is a big one.
I used to be a lab tech too and moved to a new career. 100% the best move I've ever made. Lab tech sucks
Yeah it's awful, it's the same thing over and over again with very little career progression options. Happy someone else made the move as well!
Your story is so real. I've had a fair few friends opt out of higher education because they cannot make school work around their work schedules. A lot of colleges and universities have courses during the day, and a lot of jobs like retail or long-term care, at least in my friends' experiences, will not be super flexible with you. It's really easy to say "take a night class", but not all programs will offer classes in the evening or asynchronous courses, and if you work any kind of rotating shift work, well, you can pretty much forget it. Unfortunately, one of my friends wanted to take a business diploma. The college in our city would have taken 2 years, but she had the opportunity to do a much shorter course through one of those career colleges. It was much less of a disruption to her work schedule, so she picked that one. Turns out, the certificate she got is basically bunk, and she paid probably more than the college program would have cost over a 2-year span. So now she has a bunch of OSAP loans she can't really afford to pay off, because she can't get any kind of decent job with this certificate. A lot of these career colleges are kind of predatory - they advertised that you can get a diploma in less time than a traditional college or university, but what they don't tell you is that for a lot of things, they're essentially worthless. Mind you, for things like PSW or hairdressing, they seem to work well, but I think those are more exceptions than the general rule.
Erratic schedules and no rest also make looking for even a marginally better job extremely challenging
Your comment has me in tears. My dad is retired now and worked hard all his life. Very cliche but immigrated from Greece with $10 in his pocket in the early 70s. He brought over 2 siblings and while they got their education (the 2 younger siblings), he worked 3 jobs to support all 3 of them and send back money to his parents. He worked as a dishwasher, cook, factories most of his life in Canada. His mentality was save every dollar. He managed to buy a house with my mom and raise 3 kids. He had gotten laid off in the mid 2000s from factory work, and got a job as a janitor in the same building.i remember one day, while I was out and about and spending my money in stupid ways - my parents never asked me to pay rent- I asked him what was wrong. He eventually cried out telling me do you know how it feels to be made fun of at work... With ppl around me are knowing I have to go pick up s**t off the bathroom floor, and they're making comments at me? Omg I cry about it now. I was so selfish. I rarely helped my parents because I wanted to party. His goal in life is for his children to have done better than him. Now almost 80, he probably wishes he did things differently. But it hurts because I see how tired he is even now. He looks tired. I try to be a good person, and save as much as I can. Because I want to prove myself that I can make a good life. I don't want to live paycheck by paycheck. Now let me go sob. Because you nailed it... Poor ppl have to work work work and most of the time, don't have opportunities. My father's language barrier didn't help. I'm here to break that generational poorness.and I know I will make it Cheers and thanks for reading.
Well, your comment brought me near tears. Your dad sounds amazing (the guts and work ethic of our immigrant parents. We are so soft compared to them) and good for you getting over that youngster idiocy (which I think a lot of us share) to create a better life for yourself.
Thank you for reading. My dad is a good guy. He made an honest living. I'm so glad I got over that youngster idiocy. Took me a while but here I am. Last summer he wanted to talk. And he asked me what I would change in my life. I told him flat out that he restricted me for following my dreams because he was trying to protect me, and I regret listening to him. That's the truth though. I make ok money, but I hate my job. And I have another 22 years of work but I can't go back to school now because I have a toddler and work work work. My dad told me, at least you did better than me in life. I love my dad, but oh boy. That was emotional. And he's right, I am doing better than him. And my son will do better than me I hope. Our parents did what they could with what they had. Just like I'm doing what I can as well. ✌️
Specifically in Canada it's really hard to just move to go to school or get another job. Like, a moving truck from Toronto to Edmonton is no joke.
[удалено]
It's only \~40 hours of driving. /s
Yet boomers will always say “don’t like the cost of [city]? Just move!”
Even moving inside a city is expensive and if you rent you are always on yhe precipice of the landlord renovicting or "moving in family".
If your moving that far don’t pay a mover to transport your belongings. It’s cheaper to sell or even give them away and replace them at the other end. Go online and find someone making the reverse move.
At my old job I had one guy there that kept pushing me to find somewhere else. he referred me to his union as a labourer. I ended up in a automotive apprentice position. he was the only one happy for me. and props to him for pushing me as hard as he did.
I had an older guy tell me our company was underpaying me and that lots of places would be happy to have someone with my attitude and skills. Turns out it was true! I hope to pass along advice like that someday.
I got hired as a supervisor at a manufacturing plant. Decent money but when I found out what some of the guys were getting payed, I helped them make a new resume and apply for new jobs. They figured out I was the one after the fifth guy left for a better job. They fired me. Worth it
When I worked as a supervisor for an oilfield company, I never minded when people took better jobs! In fact all I asked of them was to stop calling in sick the morning of the interview without telling me the night before. We were oilfield supply, nobody is sick in a Wednesday morning but comes to work at noon, clean shaven…… 🤨🧐🥸 so I’d just walk up and ask how the interview went!😝. We should always support people bettering their situation, even if it means moving away from us!
Capitalism is like a carnival game, the more tries you can afford the more likely you are to get the prize.
better yet, just own the carnival game and charge others to play
>not negotiating offers or raises Hey boss, could I get a small raise since I have proven repeatedly that I'm a dedicated employee? "No" is a very common response. My favorite is when minimum wage goes up and erases any meaningless wage you've already gotten. Congratulations, working harder gets you to the same place as all the dead weight.
You should be able to work 37.75 hours a week on minimum wage and be able to afford to live where you reside. By live I mean have a roof over your head, afford groceries and pay very basic bills. If you cannot than it should go up. The current living wage in Calgary is 22.50.
Low density populated provinces like Saskatchewan require a mode of transportation like a personal vehicle to reliably get to and from work. The upfront costs and maintenance costs are draining on ones bank account
That and heating costs are survival costs.
My mother in law lives in a Southern Alberta location with no public transport. She has to have a car, pretty expensive on seniors benefits.
Just to explain further, you’re more likely to get a cheap car which usually means it’s older and requires more maintenance down the road. It ends up costing more in the long run but you can’t afford putting down more money for something that will last longer or be more reliable.
Higher borrowing rates due to bad credit and fewer lending options.
Yup, also wealthy people have access to lower interest loc due to asset securtization
When you are struggling financially and an unexpected cost comes up it can take so much time to deal with it compared to when you're doing well and can just pay to move on. If you have car issues you are needing to get it to a specific mechanic who you can trust and afford then walk, bus, or wait for a friend to get to work. If you need to get credit or short term financial assistance you often have to jump through more hoops to prove income, credit, maybe find a cosigner. If something in your home breaks and you have to get something from the free Facebook groups or Kijiji you have to search, set up times with the person, get there for pick up and get home. All the time doing these things takes from your actual earning time. And in more extreme cases, sometime people may need to call in "sick" and lose hours the day before payday if they are simply out of gas and without another option, or if their winter boots bite the dust and they need them for their job, that sort of thing.
Can't buy in bulk. If you're paycheque to paycheque you might only be able to afford individual sized things like food, toilet paper, etc. Example: when you're buying chicken, the cost per lb drops 20-30% often when you're buying large packages compared to small
Also may not have the space for bulk purchases, or extra freezer or fridge space.
Plus if you don't have a car, do you really want to have to pay $30 for a taxi to buy bigger sizes of things? Or rather take the bus or walk and buy only what you can carry. I used to do my groceries by what I was able to carry home.
Yes, +1. Then making those single purchases at a convenience store instead of a grocery store because they have no access to a car or their work shift ends after midnight. So they are also overpaying for that milk, juice, eggs, you name it because of the convenience stores' markup.
Also things like diapers, say a small bag for $20 or a box 4x the size for $35. But if you only have $20…
Not being able to afford to buy in bulk is a big one. Or say. For roomers, not being able to store food. So cant buy larger amounts of bulk food because you have no where to store it. Room renters are also more susceptible to having their stuff stolen due to lack of security in their living arrangements. Room renters are also not covered by the rta so have little or no recourse when getting royally screwed. Everything actually takes longer to do if you dont drive, you're travelling elsewhere to get "deals" but having to take a cab home w your groceries which eats up alot of "savings" from shopping at cheaper grocery chains. Not having money when key sales are on especially now, makes an impact too cause you to miss out on the opportunity to reduce unit costs for common items. Cooking everything from scratch is a great skill to have but it takes alot more planning and physical work&time. And depending on how physically abled you are, you just might not be able to accomplish certain tasks. Thus you still pay more for food overall. Being subjected to horrible living conditions because you cant afford anything better is massively expensive. You're more likely to be subjected to abuse from landlords and maintenance issues, more likely to end up homeless due to income discrimination. Dont get me started on how expensive living with pests are! Bed bugs for example and cockroaches cause you to lose things you cant afford to replace. Poverty actually makes some people disabled or more disabled, but people with disabilities already are overly represe mnted in the lowest income brackets. If youve ever tried to live off a fews bucks a day for food you'll know, your cognitive function goes down as well as your overall health. You become more forgetful more stressed which is a burden on your general health. But youre likely to forget when a bill is coming out of your bank account if you can barely eat...or maybe you had to replace something important that you didnt budget for so you get dinged nsf fees...from a service provider AND your bank. There goes a week of groceries. If you are lucky enough to have ANY savings...its earns less interest due to having less saved. If you are on social assistance of any kind there is a cap on how much youre allowed to save. Then there are minimum wage parents w kids in daycare. Ya you may get subsidy(only once youre already employed, makes it hard to apply to jobs and go on interviews when you have a kid at home you have to look after)...but that makes your little 15 an hr or whatever it is now...alot less. Im not sure anymore if insurance rates are determined by credit score/history but low income people often have low credit scores...not necessarily due to spending money they dont have but for not qualifying for credit at all, little or not credit history creates a lower score. Being broke all the time means your credit with service providers may end up being negative...which will also bring down your score. Living as a poor person is more expensive in literally every way possible. Theres so much more. I could write a book but others have already studied this. Which I could remember a good source to reference. You know, other than people with actual lived experience.
I'm someone with an invisible disability, and I know a lot of other people who are disabled. Disabled people tend to be overrepresented in poverty and low income statistics. But it makes sense, if you think about it. You pointed out the lowered cognition if you can't eat properly, but also stress tends to exacerbate disabilities, and autoimmune conditions, and all sorts of other things. And living like that, or in poverty, is just stressful. That's just how it is. And a lot of people can't afford to move to housing, for example, where they would be less stressed, which would allow them to start getting their life back together. Stress, like I mentioned, can exacerbate disabilities and actually render you lower functioning over time. It's a vicious cycle, because you're not feeling great, and then your living environment isn't great, so you're not really in the correct headspace to improve your life, so things just gradually go get worse for you. And a lot of people don't realize how difficult it can be living with invisible disabilities, or even visible ones, but I have experience with invisible disabilities, so that's what we'll go with. They don't realize that you can't just shut it off, that some things affect you more than others. Some people can't deal with noises, some people can't eat certain foods, and I know a lot of people who will point at a poor person with invisible disabilities and say that they should just suck it up and deal with it. But the problem is, there's a reason that it's called a disability, it's because they can't. I've been very fortunate and I have the means to take proper care of myself, but I have a lot of friends who are not in that situation and it's not always great. I don't know if this was relevant at all. I was pretty much just comparing my experience as a disabled person who doesn't live in poverty with my disabled friends who do. I'm able to work at a decent job and take paid time off when I need to, and I have a decent benefits plan through work so I can get my prescription medication and all that. A lot of people just don't have that, and I have a lot of sympathy, and I spent a lot of time arguing with people who aren't disabled and don't get it. Because I know what my situation would be like if I couldn't afford to take care of myself properly, and I know that I wouldn't be good, and it doesn't take a genius to assume that other people with my conditions would be the same way. I just hate the lack of empathy. Living with a disability is hard enough, without other people constantly judging you.
Buying lesser quality items for example shoes, which only last one season and therefor having to be replaced. Shoes are an example but could be many things. The cumulative cost is much higher than a higher quality one time purchase.
I wish this was higher up because people keep posting big ticket or big life event purchases, or emergency purchases, but ignore the small normal like clothes and jackets and shoes or toiletry and homecare. Im living this! $40 pair of shoes i have to buy 3-4 times a year because i never had $200 for the pair that will last 1-2 years and give me actual support. Special needs items, normal shoes are too heavy for me (car accident) and cheap lightweight shoes i "run" through" every 3-4 months. But on a fixed income with $300-500 in medical costs OOP spending $200 at once (which were on sale for $150) means i sacrifice something else for the month. Whats worse is I *know* how mich better the other shoes are so now one month a year ita go without to buy shoes
Ah yes, the Sam Vimes theory of socioeconomic unfairness.
I came here to quote Sam Vimes, but the work has been done.
Throw in the fact that you buy cheap shoes or say a cheap mattress, you will end up with back or leg problems which will make it even more difficult to work.
Also we have to have so many shoes in Canada. Winter boots, summer shoes waterproof spring boots
Getting sick. Over the counter cold medicines? $20-$30. Losing a day of work if you don’t have sick pay? ~$120 (if minimum wage) per day.
Ordinary flu season, people without sick pay will go to work rather than not make rent. And if you can't take that day to recover you stay sick longer and risk worse outcomes. Same for injuries. Lower income people are often in jobs with repetitive strain or physical labour. Can't take time off, can't ask for light work or get fired, can't afford physio or rehab. Result? On disability before retirement, still in poverty, and being shamed for being a drain on the system. There were lessons to be learned about workplace illness and disability support during the pandemic and we're right back to ignoring all that.
No dental coverage so avoiding the dentist because one cannot afford it, the dental issues will worsen. Something a simple visit and minor surgery now becomes an emergency surgery costing much more. Any traffic violation that comes with only a fine becomes a large inconvenience on those with low income. The wealthy don't sweat the $350 for an accidental timing and running a red light. Not being able to afford insurance then something happens that having insurance would have avoided can become an unexpected cost. I don't want to be wealthy. I just want to be able to get my oil changed when I'm supposed to.
We're getting there, slowly, but its happening! “By the end of 2023, we will begin rolling out a dental-care plan for what will eventually be up to nine million uninsured Canadians,” Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said. The Liberals will open eligibility this year to people who are under the age of 18, seniors, and people with disabilities who meet the income criteria and do not have insurance. They plan to expand that eligibility to anyone who meets the household income requirements by 2025."
Medical costs. Yeah, I know this is worse in the US, but it's still a problem here. Dentists are expensive, and going for cleanings every x months is an expense that many people can't afford, both the up front costs and the opportunity costs of having to both take the time off work and potentially the transportation to get there. So you don't go until something hurts, and then it's thousands of dollars. Sometimes you don't even go then, but then there's all the time off work due to pain. Glasses - again eye exams arent' covered if you're an adult of working age except in very specific circumstances, and glasses can be extremely expensive. You can get cheaper ones online, but most optometrists don't give you one of hte measurements to order them online, and getting that wrong can cause eye pain and headaches, again causing missed work. Miss enough work at a low income job and you don't have that job. Also mental health is not covered by most provincial health plans, and there is direct correlation between mental health problems and neurodivergence with lower income as kids who don't do well in school don't generally do well in post secondary either. Many of those of older generations are doing their best with undiagnosed mental health issues that if treated could let them improve their lives. Many are self medicating with substances as well, which is not cheap. And then there's the pharmaceutical costs if you are diagnosed that aren't covered. For any ailment, mental health or not. Sure, if you're in a better job, those things would be covered by a plan, but most low income jobs don't have those, and the programs in Ontario at least are laughably terrible - they'll help if you're poor enough to be on assistance, but otherwise you don't qualify. It may be better in other provinces.
NSF / returned cheque fees are worse than payday loans
Osap charges me $100 for every time I don’t have enough money. Which is often…
dude call them and pause the payments and only pay the the provincial portion, here's no interest on the federal portion of the loan.
Last weekend I was speaking to a relative that works in a call center selling car and house insurance. She explained to me that your credit score, job and level of education will greatly influence the price. Someone with low income, low job security and no higher education will pay far more for the same insurance than a doctor or a lawyer.
How in the world does this correlate at all? Ins is based on risk assessment at hand based on statistics Not knocking your thesis here, but your rationale is questionable
One reason might be a lower history of claims on average. If you have high income, high job security and higher education (the opposite of OPs rate increase conditions), you'd be able to pay for more items out of pocket rather than claiming. If there's minor damage, $5-10k, higher income people are more likely to be able to afford to pay that without involving insurance. Similar for job security, if you're working, you could probably pay for an incident yourself, rather than involving insurance. And with higher education, on average I'd expect it to be correlated with higher earnings. I believe higher education also demonstrates a level of delayed gratification, so perhaps those individuals have more savings to do preventative maintenance or take care of minor problems as they arise, preventing future claims.
Generally it is based off credit score. People with good credit get better insurance rates ceteris paribus. It has been a couple decades since I studied this kind of thing but I think it due to there being a correlation between good credit and reduced likelihood of making a claim.
Likelihood of making small claims I would imagine. The doctor isn't going to try to get insurance to pay out the TV that fell off his wall and costs $800 more than his deductible to replace (it's not worth the time/hassle and increasing your rates). The person who can barely afford their daily expenses probably will (and nickle and dime their insurance to death on whole ton of other things the highly-payed professional would just pay to fix themselves and not bother to claim).
I don’t have any proof at all, but I remember one of my profs in college excitedly telling us about how her insurance dropped once she got her PhD and had the “doctor” title.
Professional and educational memberships memberships can get you discounts. Like I’ve gotten discounts for having went to Memorial University.
After posting my comments I went to my library and pulled Weapons Of Math Destruction from Cathy O’Neil. I was sure I read something about this before. Her book is all about how algorithms and big data are used to screw people, especially poor people. There’s a chapter on insurance price and she pretty much says the same thing my relative told me. She also mentions that less educated people don’t tend to argue much or defend themselves on matters such as insurance. The company might just be charging more because they can.
Low income = home in a low income area = higher risk of thefts/break-ins. Only one instance but I'm sure there's more
Malcolm Gladwell also talks about this a bit in Revisionist History. According to him, credit scores have a larger influence on insurance price than DUIs
> Ins is based on risk assessment at hand based on statistics Poor peoples houses burn down much more frequently. I bet they get in more car accidents as well.
Insurance is an industry that relies on it's services having to rarely be used. In their mind, and likely experience, a person with lower-income would be more likely to need their services. Not excusing it, of couse, just explaining. They would use tactics like this to minimize payout instances.
If you can't afford rental insurance and God forbid there is a incident and you are at fault Not owning a car. Not all places are accessible easily/readily through public transit. Edit: spelling
Yes I know people that can’t afford a car or have the best access to transport. So when they shop they cannot buy in bulk as they nothing to haul it with, and they have limited access to certain jobs in their area. Yes they have the subway and busses nearby but a 2hr commute will kill the spare time you have for other areas in life.
Absolutely. Plus, if the bus isn't reliable, now you're faced with the potential cost of taking a taxi, which is a lot of money. I have a friend who lived across the city from his workplace because it was pretty much the only place he could afford. I think he had to take two buses to get to work, but periodically the first bus just decided not to show up. So then he either had to take a taxi, at least to the bus terminal depending on how much time he had left, or he had to call someone to pick him up and give him a ride. I lived nearby at the time so I didn't mind doing that on the rare occasion it happened, but it's something to keep in mind. The bus system in my city is so bad, you pretty much only use it if you don't have any other choice. People get cars pretty much as soon as they can here. Also, it's hard to shop around for the best prices everywhere when you don't have a car. Even if the grocery stores do happen to be close together, they're usually on major stroads, walking between them is a major pain or even almost impossible, and some stores will raise their eyebrows if you lug a ton of bags from another grocery store into theirs. There are several stores around here that say no backpacks or outside bags. I mean you can leave them at customer service I guess, but still... When you have a car you can just leave them in the car. (You can't leave your stuff outside; if you do that around here it *will* get stolen.) I've got enough friends in situations like these and it kind of sucks to see. And it also sucks to see how quickly one poor decision can snowball into something you can't get out of. A lot of poor people just don't have the flexibility to make bad decisions - when you have money, you can worry less about exactly where you're spending it, because you have a cushion. If you don't have that, suddenly the stakes are a lot higher. Nobody makes perfect decisions 100% of the time, but if you don't have a safety net, the consequences are much higher.
Yes. Imagine a family of 6 not having a car. Amount of things they have to take in bus/train are huge. They might have easy access to wholesale grocery which would be more beneficial for them.
Many low income people can’t afford to pay first and last month’s rent and will live in motels which are more expensive per month but don’t require a deposit.
I pay about $80 a month in laundry in my building. I could have paid for three high end washer/dryers by now with the amount of time I've been living here.
I know it's not always an option for everyone, but I am so thankful that when I had to move I was able to find a place with in-unit laundry, dishwasher, and heat pump/AC. Just the convenience alone is worth the cost, but not having to drag baskets down the hall (or stairs), not having to constantly buy rolls of change, not having to worry about someone throwing my clothes on the floor... it's great for the mental health to just not have those headaches.
Vehicle maintenance. Running your car with very little gas is hard on the fuel pump which turns into a massive repair bill. No money for a $100 oil change can be thousands down the road
I knew a guy who was poor but also thought he was “sticking it to the oil companies” by running his car nearly empty all the time. The reason? “You’re basically paying them to use your car as storage! That’s why I never fill past a quarter tank. My dad taught me that trick”. He didn’t even register that this is why his fuel pumps kept burning out. Meanwhile, even as a student, I never let my car dip below 1/4 tank unless I absolutely had to.
I think one of the moments when I finally felt like I had 'grown up' and made good financial decisions was when I realized I didn't have to worry about *when* to buy gas, I can just get gas.
Join r/povertyfinancecanada and you'll get a good idea. Think on how you save just because you have money. Have disposable income and stable housing? You can buy in bulk to save. You can buy when Thi g's are on sale and not when you need them. Your account is always in black so you don't pay NSF. Your car breaks down you take an über and do t miss a day of work. Or worst don't lose your job. Your car squeaks, you take it to the mechanic and pay the $1000 to fix it, saving you $5000 down the road. The list is long.
Poverty penalty is real. It's too easy for the privilege to judge and over generalize things like "if the cost of living is so high, live somewhere else". Wages and job opp are better closer to downtown. Commuting farther also has a cost too. eg: In MetroVancouver, transit is cheaper zone cost in the downtown area, than in the suburbs. Sure, there are other ways to cut down costs, but that also takes time. Now imagine if someone needs daycare. Is the cost of daycare more than their wages? That would hinder career growth and experience. Thinking of higher education? Sure, you can have a better salary in the future, but you need enough money to feed yourself today. The less income you make, the more choices and tradeoffs you have to sacrifice. There is only so much time in the day. It's not to say that people who make less income are entitled to these things. The point is that those born with the privilege will automatically have advantages that are not that obvious.
You're so right, the benefits of privilege are really not obvious at all. I grew up fairly privileged, and happened to make friends with a lot of people who didn't grow up privileged in university. It took me a long time to wrap my head around the fact that some things I took for granted just wanted available to them. It took me a long time to realize that a lot of the knowledge that my parents gave me just also wasn't available to them. People love to judge - extremely harshly, at that - but don't care to look at what's behind the curtain. The lack of empathy is, quite frankly, astounding. It's even worse if the person is disabled or if they, for example, happened to get pregnant as a teenager, or if they're not cisgender, etc. To be fair I kind of get it, our society does this to us, pits us against each other, but... it's very sad.
I would imagine being low income but just above the threshold for receiving most of the benefits available would be a bitter pill to swallow.
The thresholds are very, very low too. I mean going from 30K to 31K a year does not suddenly mean I can afford dental care.
I think not only should the threshold be raised, they should also be an appeal processes if you can show you're not covered by employer health insurance.
Those people are often hit the worst. Especially now. Their expensiles just went up a ton over the last year...yet they still make the same income that is apparently JUST too much to qualify for assistance or benefits.
This is the position I am currently in. I make just enough that I am not qualified for many government benefits but not enough to be able to do anything to improve my situation. I have to get another job, but I’ve had some run ins with cancer that make working 60 hrs a week unsustainable long term.
When I was a student relying on governments student loans and trying to pay my own way (around 2011-2012), I got denied financial assistance because I worked too many hours a week (20-25) at Loblaws. When I called the student loans people they told me their best advice was to work fewer hours, even though I needed the additional income to afford my rent. Like what the heck, I’m still going to have to *pay* the loan!
having to shop at dollarama vs. in bulk at costco. Late fees when paychecks and bills don't line up.
All gains made by the poor and middle class are wiped out by some global crisis that makes the rich richer and everyone else stays right where you are. We are not meant to get ahead, we are wage slaves
Something not mentioned yet is fines. Parking, speeding, no insurance, etc. You may argue that it's just stupid mistakes, but mistakes can happen to anyone and it's exponentially more painful to a low income person.
And here if you go down to the courthouse you can usually get your ticket knocked down by about 1/2 in exchange for waiting in line for quite a while and being polite. But say you're working jobs that don't have the flexibility or you're working 2 jobs and don't have the time? You have to pay the full fine. It makes no sense to me.
Fines are just a tax for being poor.
Rich people say shit like "It's not a parking ticket, it's just how much it costs to park in a fire lane."
And unfortunately, as long as the fine is the same for everyone regardless of income, they're correct.
This is my third time commenting on this post but it's a favorite topic of mine. Another way that the poor are stuck is our credit system. I of course realize the point of credit and why that matters. But let's say a person, I'll call Jane again, messes up her finances in her early 20s. She slowly but surely fixes them. It takes awhile for her credit to catch up to reflect those changes. So now she's in her late 20s, paying rent on time, paying daycare on time, paying her taxes on time, but those things don't report. She still has a few old things lingering. She can't get a $300 overdraft with her bank but she can get $2000 from Money Mart or Easy Financial. On the hard times that is tempting. Obviously in time it gets better, but when someone is stuck they are stuck.
My finances were in a rough state during/after my divorce. It's been so satisfying as the credit score has steadily shot up over the last few years as the new history is replacing the old. Going from being denied for a single credit card to getting multiple offers for 'pre-approval' is a great feeling.
That is wonderful, congratulations! This sub can be funny. Someone will post that they have a high interest loan and people will comment "get a low interest LOC to fix this" not realizing that many people can't get even a small overdraft or credit card while they fix their credit. Keep it up :)
Inability to access cheaper capital, sometimes the ability to get a loan at a decent rate, to buy a house, start a business, get a vehicle or something for a job can be the difference bw perpetual poverty and middle class
Commuting is tough in Canada if you dont have a car.
Diapers, a small box has half as many as a large one, but costs 75% as much. Cloth is a huge upfront investment, but is so much cheaper in the long run.
Relative to the US, cell phone bills are ridiculous. In general, there isn’t the same abundance of good deals/thrifty options in all categories - groceries, clothes, vehicles, etc. The climate is harder on vehicles, which means more maintenance costs and less lifetime. Rural Canadians have all kind of extra costs baked into life as well, financial and otherwise. For example - a kid in a decent sized town can run to their orthodontist appointment on their lunch break, but a kid in a rural area has to miss an entire day of school for it, and their parent has to miss half a day of work. Edit: accidentally posted before I was finished.
Bank fees in general. If you can afford the minimum balance you can save a bundle.
Or you could just bank with any of the gazillion no-fee options out there, no minimum balance required.
Honestly this lol If you're at the point where $4/month is a budget stressor, you probably don't have enough in your account to need a bank draft the same day
Anything requiring legal assistance. Spouse leaves and takes the kids? Say goodbye to any real presence in their lives if you can't afford a lawyer. Terminated at work for no cause? Have to take the minimum severance they offer unless you have a couple of thousand dollars for a retainer and don't need that money to live on in the meantime. Wealthy people can just drag anything out in the legal system and wait for your money to run out, resulting in an automatic win for them.
> terminated at work for no cause… retainer Employment lawyers usually provide consultation for free, and charge on contingency (take a percentage of the severance you win). That said, they might not take your case if your salary is low enough that a percentage of severance may not be worth it to them.
That's not true. I've sought this and it's not a thing. You have to pay a consultation fee to even talk to a lawyer now.
Severance? Retainer? I’m not sure working class people even know what these terms even actually mean. PTO is a punch line and vacation days means you’re paying lots of money to go somewhere and getting no income while you’re gone. \*quietly sobs in blue collar*
As someone who has always been in the low income range, I can say it’s extremely hard to get ahead when you start out behind. Expenses others may not consider include: Tampons/pads - and don’t say go to a women’s centre because you can’t get the supply you need every single month. I’ve tried many times. Disability - if you have a disability or become disabled there is no magic pot that will help you pay your bills. The subsidies often force people into less stable situations because it’s all they can rely on. Also, the associated costs for the disability are substantial. Housing - renting is extremely expensive and when you make below a living wage, you simply cannot save to get ahead. Most of your money goes to shelter costs. Food - grocery stores offer discounts for buying bulk, but that goes to waste if you are single or living alone. Food, especially fresh items end up costing much more. Transportation - a vehicle can give someone independence and can be crucial if working more than one job or going to school. Unexpected costs related to this can put someone who is low income into debt. Trying to get out of that debt is nearly impossible because you don’t have enough to pay that unexpected cost down. Debt - this is not a choice when faced with the possibility of being homeless, without safety, and other crises that arise. When you get into debt and are low income, it can be very hard to make those minimum payments when the options are either a good credit score and low interest or food to eat. I’ve always chosen the latter. Being a minority - I don’t care what you think, this is real and it affects what is available to you and who chooses to help or work with you. Racism and bigotry is another hurdle a low income person has to face and it can mean not getting that higher paid job, not being called for an interview because your name is difficult, or simply not even considered for housing because you are not a cis gender, white person. Often, these decisions to get into debt or make what others would consider a ‘poor choice’ happen because you have much harder daily decisions to make. Is it a roof over my head or eat food or buy tampons today or should I put $10 gas in my car to get to work. I’ve stood at Shoppers Drug Mart with my last $10 bill crying because I knew I needed the tampons the most. And that meant everything else would not happen. That’s the reality of being low income in Canada. Just to note, I have post secondary education. But the reality is, it doesn’t matter when society already treats you like lesser. Not everyone can achieve that insane pipe dream that if you work hard you will get ahead. I work damn hard and let me tell you, I’m not getting ahead. Privilege is what gets you ahead.
Agree with most of these points, and in my opinion housing is the worst offender of all. Renting is getting increasingly out of hand, making it nearly impossible for many to save for a down payment for a mortgage -- even if they wish to settle in a given city. I am of minority, and while I agree privilege is what gets you ahead, race isn't the only determining factor of privilege, but one of several potential factors.
I have said this a lot over the years. Wealth is the #1 privilege over everything else. Enough money can overcome or at lest separate you from any other discrimination. I would even say most other ways of discrimination is a short cut for wealth. People with Darker skin tones where looked down on due to the assumption that they had to do labour out doors. I imagine this was a large contributor to race based discrimination. Disabilities reduced your ability to make money. Since men where typical the ones who preformed the work that brought money into the house, women who did marry where looked down on. Pretty much people create short cuts to identify what group you belong to. And people always want to justify why they should have a little bit more then the next guy. I always kinda wanted to try having a janitor just stop cleaning and start teaching them some white coller job that pays slightly more. Then when people realize the place is dirty have the person doing the job you have been teaching the janitor for say last 5 days start cleaning. Bet by the time they they get caught up on the janitors job you could just leave them in place. And these small swaps would probably work pretty far up. It would prove nobody’s getting there job done with out the janitor. And where you are is far more about what opportunities to learn you have then you naturally ability.
u/twbrins That's me, and I deeply appreciate you thinking about us. I hope others will do so too. This is why: I'm from a working class immigrant family (both cleaners). I graduated from a top school, and had a white collar career. There was a family situation where I had to leave my career to take care of my family. I helped out with their work as cleaners. Let me tell you, working as a cleaner is the most difficult job I've ever had (especially mentally). No one appreciate your work. There are people who constantly talk down to you, look down on you, and bully you --even at large companies that "treat their employees well" and who "takes care of each other." You're a contractor, so you can't turn to HR for help. I work with 7 different clients as a cleaner, and only 1 of them treated me as a human. That was until a new facilities manager was hired, and that nice client has become a nightmare client. You also cover your own costs (sprays, vacuums, mops, car, parking, business insurance, WCB, and etc.), so for some contracts you're working at minimum wage or less. Companies think of you as a fixed cost because there is always someone willing to work for cheaper. Hence no raises or inflation adjustments, even if your clients have revenues in the billions of dollars. Working as a cleaner has given me so much more respect for working class low income people, because being an "unskilled" blue collar labourer is literally hell in every way. **We don't earn much, so respecting and being nice to your cleaners/janitors goes a long way. We are all humans that are working hard to make a living, and with families to go home to.**
All. Of. This.
Middle class or higher people have access to a wealthier social safety net that gives them a leg up. From finding work through personal connections to being able to find financial help in a pinch. One way to check your own is to answer the question “If I needed to borrow $2000 (or 4000, or 10,000..) from someone tomorrow how many people do I know who would or could lend it to me?” Never mind advantages like having credit and equity to borrow against in an emergency.
High end jobs have high end perks. Retirement savings, car allowances, training reimbursement, health insurance, mental health coverage, transit allowance, gym subsidy, and many other things that would usually be paid out of pocket are handled by high paying jobs.
Companies give perks because people over value them. It’s cheaper to do that than just pay people more. I don’t think is a special way to screw poor people, more like corporations saving on salaries
Coin laundry
Too many tax credits and incentives don't apply because too many working families don't earn enough. For example, the TSFA / RRSP and the new FHSA doesn't help you if you live paycheck to paycheck and have nothing to save.
Living in low-income areas means less competition because of fewer anticipated revenues from clients. Less competition means goods in your area are more expensive, but overall cheaper than going out of your way to purchase elsewhere. Living in smaller apartments means no space for things like chest freezers and pantry space. Things get cheaper as you buy in larger quantities, but if you can't store it anywhere, you won't be able to take advantage of this sizeable (pun intended) discount.
Shoes. Cheap shoes are poorly made and generally bad for your feet. They can do real lasting damage. Like many other cheap products, they won't last long either. You might spend $25 on shoes 2 or 3 times a year while a $100 pair might last a couple years. Places like Amazon and Walmart are actually quite expensive in the long run because junk has to be replaced more often.
Banks are charging you a fee of you're below a certain balance. This should be illegal IMO.
Get a free bank, I think of it like this. The minimum balance isn’t worth it. Even if you have the min balance invest it in stocks or bonds
Dental expenses, and being charged 30 for a doctor's note because you don't have sick days to cover it, also can't afford to be sick.
Diapers! If you are poor the cheapest amount of diapers you can buy is probably the president’s choice brand package of 40 for $14. They are terrible quality. They barely hold any pee and beed to be changed hourly for a young baby. If you have a bit more money and a costco membership you can buy 192 diapers for $40 and they will keep baby dry much longer. Not to mention avoiding to cost of travelling to the shop multiple times. Similarly people who can subscribe to diapers on amazon will save a lot of money compared to the first option. And I will add that reusable cloth diapers have a huge starting cost of about $200 and are not really viable for people without private laundry or even living in apartments with restricted laundry hours.
Can’t afford dental care? Teeth goes bad and you then go from maintenance dental care to emergency dental care.
The new FHSA account. Since the "benefit" of it really is tax breaks - at deposit and widthrawal time (if for house). But tax breaks only really benefit those in upper income brackets the most.
Dental. No coverage for adults at any income level means not being able to have work done ans, thus, making dental peoblems worse and more expensive.
NSF fees
NSF fee is now 48 bucks. I once bought some random cheap crap on ebay through paypal and didnt realize some payment went through and got hit with 8 NSF (was like 300 something), bank only removed one. Ffs
You can apply for overdraft protection and only pay for it if you use it. Great option to avoid this.
They will deny you overdraft protection if you don’t make a certain amount
Lack of credit, when you’re paycheck to paycheck sometimes unforeseen expenses come up and you’re unable to deal with them There are often long term consequences for that
Overdraft protection and NSF fees really add up if you're in tight financial quarters.
Having money isn’t everything, not having it is.
If you can't go to the dentist because you can't afford it, it will eventually cost massive amounts of money or you get to look like a hillbilly. Then you will not be able to work many jobs. Having bad teeth destroys your earning potential.
I pay about $40 + a month to do laundry, and that's not doing bed sheets regularly because I have to use coin operated machines. That's the easiest example I have, plus it takes more time than a person who has their laundry machines at home.
Minimum bank balance. Can’t afford to keep several thousand dollars a month in an account that will be $10.
Things like insurance that are cheaper if you pay the whole year at once. You want to pay monthly? They'll slap on an extra % fee for the privilege.
I already commented but another great resource for this topic is Bridges Out of Poverty by Ruby Payne. A book that is also offered as training for those who work in community services. As well as what the Circles group program came out of. But it talks about the culture of poverty and how it can keep people in. Such as being used to using your time as currency, and the mindset of taking care of having each other's backs, being your priority. An example would be: Jane gets a job interview for tomorrow at 3:00. At 2:00 her neighbor, who has always had her back and helped her out when needed, gets injured and there is noone to watch her kids. Jane misses the interview to step in and watch the kids. That is just one piece though, many other examples.
May have to drive a junkier car more prone to needing repairs
Not being able to buy a house. Rent prices keep going up, so do house prices. You'll get doubly screwed in the long run.
Time. If Canada is anything like the rest of Canada, commuting on a bus takes 3 time longer than what a car would. This has so many implications, imagine trying to study up and work part time, commuting across town, add a kid in that mix, it probably quintuples in difficulty.
Not having money on hand, you miss opportunities. So, I am in a bit of a financial slump and I knew some stocks were going to fall, but I couldn't afford to take advantage of it.
Having only on foot access to pawn shops to purchase tools etc. My office is close to pawn shops and the tools are outrageously priced. A trip to Home Depot or Canadian tire you could buy a brand new whatever tool for cheaper. But some people don’t know that.
Canada, and ofc US as well, run on debt. People buy things with debt. Without asset or income, you can't get debt. Without debt, it's difficult to get "ahead". Most of the answers stem from this theory.
Today I went to renew my license and I overheard the guy in front of me wasn’t able to pay a speeding ticket so he had to pay an extra $300 to reinstate his license.
Not necessarily just Canada, but coming from a single parent home does not help. I grew up with a single mom and I am not sure how she did it. Looking after 2 kids with no support of any kind from our dad. Working and paying for child care, putting food on the table. It’s no joke. I am very blessed to have an awesome wife by my side. Having multiple children and someone to raise them with is the most advantageous thing I could ask for. We are not wealthy by any means, but we are not going hungry or lacking any major necessities. Money does not buy happiness, but being poor is not a joyful experience either. Having a family that is loving and caring does go a long way.
More than anything it's the mental cost of feeling caged in with limited options all the damn time. Constantly weighing any decision to spend, living in tiny apartments with barely enough room, not being able to just have an outdoor space to have a drink with friends unless it's at an expensive bar, can't have more than a few friends over since there's no space. I'm just tired and drained.