Being poor is very expensive.
 

This theme has been hammered home every hour of every day at work this week. I sell final expense life insurance and the lowest/fixed income demographic has a near religious belief in this stuff. So I get regular, up-close doses of socio-economic real life in my day-day work.

A lady has been blowing up my phone every day about her latest payment (auto bank draft) bouncing. She gave me cash for the initial premium and I bought a postal money order with it and mailed it in. She says I got one of her checking account number digits wrong (for future payments). Nope. I took a photo of it on her bank statement. She reauthorized a redraft this past Tues. (after eating that $35 NSF fee). That payment hasn't bounced (yet) or been confirmed, but she was so impatient from seeing the money still sitting in her account, instead of calling me, she called the insurance company and gave them her debit card # for the same payment. Most insurance companies charges a 6% premium for using a card. So that upped her payment $9. But wait! The debit card payment goes through instantly, so that pending draft from Tues. is going to bounce now and she'll get hit with another NSF fee. I told her that and she said, "Well, they said they only charge $35 for that, so it's ok." This is why they're poor.

Met a guy three weeks ago who was still paying on a policy he took out in 1971. He said he had a $2000 loan against the cash value, but was adding $20/mo to his payment to cover that. We called the company, turns out the loan is $7k and his $20 doesn't cover half the interest, let alone the principal. So his cash value is getting devoured like termites. He was better off cashing out and starting over, even though he's 50 yrs older now. This is why he's poor.

Met a guy on Mon. who has a $2000 Colonial Penn policy he's paying $40/mo on. He's one year into his two yrs wait. I was able to get him $5k for $18 more, but he said he'll stick with what he has. I explained that, once that two yr wait is up, he has two more year before he will have paid into it as much as it will ever pay out. He'd be better off with a money market account. This is why he's poor.

Met a couple in a trailer park who smoke 3.5 packs a day between them, on food stamps, looking for assistance to keep their electricity on. $900/mo on smokes, which they buy per pack at the corner gas station. I mentioned buying cartons at the nearby Indian reservation and how much that would save them. Nope. This is why they're poor.

Wrote a very heathy 56 y/r female yesterday. She was a total ghetto rat, but I tend to get along with those folks in my work capacity. She was very enthusiastic. But she absolutely refused to go on automatic bank draft. I told her the next company I had that would take monthly direct payments by check or MO was $22/mo more than what I had originally quoted her. She was fine with it. This is why she's poor.

Had a no show appt a few weeks ago. This guy lived in a mobile home in the backyard of another hovel. I went back two weeks later when I had some downtime, was in the neighborhood and door knocked him. He answered the door and said he was no longer interested, had already bought a policy. I asked a few questions about what he had gotten and for how much. I was able to get him the exact same coverage for $25/mo less. He said, "Well, I did my research and this one is the best plan." Knowing it was a lost cause and wanting to make sure he doesn't mail in any more lead cards, I decided to get difficult. I replied, "If you had done your research, you would have found two companies on the first page of Google that are much better deals. You live here and don't care about $25/mo savings every month for the rest of your life?" This is why he's poor.

Go into the Dollar Store. Sure lots of things are cheap, but a lot of items are more per ounce, or more per piece in the smaller packages. Toilet paper, peanut butter, dish-soap. Poor people probably don't think about it or can't afford to buy in bulk.

One of the guys I worked with was married, had one kid and they lived in a 900 sq ft house that they did own, of course a long mortgage.

He decided they HAD to have a car because of impending repair costs. He had no preference as to what car it was only based on the monthly payment. The were upside down on the loan for the current car, and he went even further upside down of a new car. Then he said I was lucky to have an old car that had paid off.

Buy here / pay here lots is another issue

Sigh...

Have you guys heard of the Direct Express card? Probably not real prevalent among the Porsche-owning crowd. It's a debit card that gets loaded from SS each month. No routing or account number, just a debit card. They're mainly for people who can't have a bank account, likely for skipping out on a mountain of NSF debt. 100% of those cardholders will claim the bank screwed them and they don't trust banks. These people go to the ATM the day the card is loaded, withdraw the max, pay the ATM fee, go to the next ATM, rinse and repeat. If they get $1000 in SS money, they take that much out in cash on day one. Then they go buy money orders for their rent and some other bills, obviously paying more fees. Whatever money they may have left on the card that goes to autopay bills, they pay a premium for that too. You can imagine how responsible these folks are about updating their vendors/creditors when they get a replacement card. This is a huge percentage of the SS income population. They pay more for everything.

When I buy at grocery stores or Amazon, I usually/often look at the price per unit. The big containers are usually cheaper, but not always.

A girl I work with smokes 2 packs a day, has a new Jeep lease, drinks 3-4 Monster Energy drinks, and then asks for a few bucks to get some lunch. Her weekends are filled with drunken debauchery, but she *****es constantly about not being able to get more overtime !

I don't believe she is in the company payed 401K, and has 3 kids from 3 Dads....THIS is why she is poor !

Now that's my type of lady! Any face tattoos?

I shake my head every time I pass a PayDay Loan, or Rent-to-own place, that always seems to have cars in the parking lot !

We all know the predictors of future or never breaking out of poverty - teen pregnancy, out-of-wedlock kids, brushes with the law, not graduating high school, etc. Those aren't ironclad and plenty of folks have had them all and still done well. But the one constant I see that is a 110% guarantee of lifetime poverty is going on SS disability. I run into a ton of these folks too. Plenty of them could do something, maybe not be on their feet all day, but something. But no, while watching tv game shows and sucking down cigarettes and malt liquor, they are bombarded by tv commercials from law firms promising to get their SSDI approved. AND, the longer the process is dragged out, the bigger the lump sum retroactive payment they get. It's really sad, but the gov't. wants dependents and SSDI will continue to grow like The Blob.

I work with a gal, single mom of 3 kids, always money problems. She's the one who went to Mexico over Christmas because it was her mom's birthday and came back into the office with COVID. Didn't want to take time off because "she couldn't afford it after being on vacation".

She's constantly late for work, today it was because of a "flat tire". Last week and the week before it was a dead battery and she was waiting for someone to give her a jump.

I go into her office last week and see a little puppy sleeping under her desk.

Me: "Whose dog?"

Her: "It's my oldest son's puppy."

Me "Is she a French Bulldog?"

Her; "Yes, her name's Charlie."

Me; "French Bulldog eh? Aren't they kind of expensive?"

Her: "Yes but my son's best friend had the puppies. I was able to get her for only $4,500, the others went for $6-7,000."

Me: "Ooohhkay."

A bandmate of mine got a French Bulldog for $2500 because there were no papers. But he can easily afford it.

had some nice motorcycles. so got to hang out with other guys who had nice bikes in LA. these were private jet level of wealth people. we'd meet at a crappy winchells parking lot. i once asked why we didn't meet at the starbucks down the road. they all said no way in hell were they paying three bucks for a cup of coffee.

I'm sure I've shared the stories of my wife's youngest brother and his, uh.....'wife'.....Apparently one can move to Tennessee, get the right doctor/ attorney to set you up on disability, regardless if you're capable of actually working or not. UFB. All the above is absolutely true, I've seen it over and over becoming Generational poverty / curse.

I love that! I worked for a billionaire once. Man, was he a cheapskate, but I so respected that.

I'll just put this out there:

The wealthy ex Navy pilot I help smokes two packs a day, at least. We live near Virginia, the home of cheap(er) cigarettes. Since he works and invests from home, time is not a real issue.

Even f he paid me, which I won't accept, spending the hour to drive over the Potomac and back saves an incredible amount of money.

He is phenomenally cheap that, while annoying, has virtue in some areas.

Money management is, as we have discussed here many times, so woeful as to be non-existent.

The percentages of where and what your budget should go towards hasn't changed in forever.

Yes it's absolutely true. It's a racket. Bender and Bender is (or was, they may have been shut down by now) one of the most famous offenders. You don't have to do anything but respond to one of their ads and they take care of the rest. They also take 1/3 of your benefits, and the government is so deep in cahoots with them that SSDI sends 1/3 of your benefit directly to the lawyer. So they "represent" the client but get paid by taxpayers.

This is a fascinating report on the practice, if you have an hour.

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/490/trends-with-benefits