Do you know "poor"?

[Hardrock69]

Right on!

[Terry]

Originally posted by Douglas T.
Most of us are ... excuse me ... lower class! Dr.'s & lawyers and such .... middle class .... movie producers, actors, atheletes and people like that are upper class. Then there's the filthy HIGH clas Bill Gates people! DLRARMY people are the best class! Class dismissed!

Fuckin' A

[Dan]

Originally posted by Douglas T.
Most of us are ... excuse me ... lower class! Dr.'s & lawyers and such .... middle class .... movie producers, actors, atheletes and people like that are upper class. Then there's the filthy HIGH clas Bill Gates people! DLRARMY people are the best class! Class dismissed!

A Big Amen to That,D.T.

[Jesus Christ]

I was born in a barn, and spent the last three years of My life on this world homeless and unemployed.

In between those times ye might call Me "working class", being raised the stepson of a carpenter. So despite being born a king, I never lived the life of a rich man in this world.

Which is fine, because even I, the Messiah, wouldn't want to try to fit through the eye of a needle

[PETE'S BROTHER]

Originally posted by Jimmy Jingles
He hates these cans! Stay away from the cans!

damn these glasses son! i damn thee!

hitchin' a ride to the end of the fence.

GREAT STUFF!!

[Bill Lumbergh]

Originally posted by Terry
Possibly felt pure because when you don't have much, things tend to be simplified.

Shit, when I was a kid, we used to just go out and PLAY, you know? Didn't have video games (Pong had just come out on TelStar). Didn't have cable tv. Didn't have chaperoned, supervised 'playdates'. We just went outside and DID THINGS. Things that didn't cost anything to do. Like hucking rocks at each other, riding bikes, swimming in the creek, melting Army Men with a magnifying glass, building forts, beating the shit out of each other...you know, FUN STUFF!

A fucking men to this....all my kids EVER wanna do is play video games, to the point that they never get to anymore. My mom never had to TELL me to go outside....in fact, she used to get pissed cuz I'd be out for like 12 hours a day during the summer, and didnt even wanna come home for dinner! My kids love toplay outside, but for todays kids video games are king.....

[PETE'S BROTHER]

for me the goal is not the money, the goal is freedom! and peice of mind, I don't live for the bigger and the better , really I live for quality time...

preach it brother. travel, see more than your housing developement, meet and engage with people you may never see again, those pure moments of your past can be just as pure now. keep life fresh and INTERESTING. status quo is just a tranquilizer for imagination and dreams

[SparkieD]

Originally posted by PETE'S BROTHER
for me the goal is not the money, the goal is freedom! and peice of mind, I don't live for the bigger and the better , really I live for quality time...

Spot on!

I'm lucky enough to be able to dictate my own hours. I could make tons of dough but at the expense of the quality time you speak of. What good is the money if you don't have the time to enjoy it? I think I prefer being comfortable to being filthy rich. I don't do half bad AND I haven't missed any of my kid's milestones.

Now, I'm not saying I'd mind if somebody came and dropped a million bucks on my head. I'm sure I'd figure out what to do with it

[SparkieD]

I was reading Curt Smith's (from Tears for Fears) blog and came across one passage that brought this thread to mind. I found his insight on wealth profound and so very true.

"If you're of the opinion that wealth will bring you happiness, dream on. You're either happy/content by nature (or work) or not – money won't change that. At the richest I've ever been I was the least happiest, consequently I chose to leave TFF and my homeland in search of better things, I'm "grateful" everyday that I found them. I live in Los Angeles, "I see rich people" every day, I can't say the majority of them are happy. They seem to spend inordinate amounts of time talking about their earnings/position and how much they spend. Most of them are medicated in some way, be it through alcohol or the antidepressant du jour. Not only are they not happy, they're dull to boot. To sum up – it's my experience that the same percentage of rich people are happy/unhappy as poor people, status doesn't change anything."


Really, true wealth has nothing to do with money or materials. It comes from within and who you surround yourself with.

[binnie]

Yeah, I don't think it's wealth I'm after but security: knowing that you'll NEVER have to worry about bills and always have a roof over your head would be ideal.

Anything after that would be nice, but I could happily do without it. Just my CD collection and a big stereo would suit me fine...

[scamper]

I don't think you know poor until you move to a third world country and live like them.

[binnie]

I know what you mean, but "poverty" is relative to the conditions of the society in which you live: it isn't an absolute, objective or quantifable standard of living, but one comparative to those around you.

In the UK, poverty is classified as those living at 60% below the average income I believe...

[Shaun Ponsonby]

When I was 2 1/2-3 (and this will always stick in my head)...my dad had an accident at work which caused substantial damage to his spine, from which he has never recovered. He never received componsation for the stupidest of reasons...it wasn't put in the accident book. So, he had to quit his job. My mum couldn't go bck to work, cos, not only was she was a nursery nurse who would have had to go back to college to study it again...which we couldn't afford, but she was expected her third child.

So, we couldn't afford to keep the place we were living in. By this point, we had moved away from the rest of the family, and couldn't afford to get back down there.

So, we ended up living in this horrible homeless hostel for a few months, surrounded by prostitutes and heroin addicts. Not the place you'd want your 3 year old, your 1 year old and your unborn child living. The meals were virtually non-exsistant and the people were creepy. I wasn't even 3, but, unlike my sister, I was old enough to remember what I saw.

Eventually we managed to get in contact with some family members, who came down to pick us up and gave us a place to stay.

Then, my parents (well, my mum) had to fight with the council to give us a home, when they were just giving them to the kind of people who were living in that hostel...what we eventually got was infested with mice and had a backyard that looked, literally, like a tip (in fact, it HAD turned into a tip. There was all kinds in there).

We couldn't afford to get a proper house until 2000, when we finally started revovering financially.

So, yes, I know "poor".

[svrwthr]

Young and making $9.90/hr in 1987. Hooked up with wife with built in family in 88, lost job in 89 with kid on way wife making $4/hr and paying $550 a month rent. Interview opportunity for $10/hr job in field of study but after 9 months of no work and bills piling up took the for sure job by going to second interview at another job at the same time the higher paying job was to interview me. That job paid $6.70/hr in 92. Moved up fast and was making $11/hr in 1 year. Spent like mad we did, until 7 credit card bills maxed out and wife out of job in 93 and creditors wanted money. Claimed bankruptcy with $100,000.00 in liabilities and less than $50,000.00 in Assets. We evened out and got credit rating back by 2003 when I got laid off, wife had to have major surgery. Now the fun part begins. The major surgery was for a shunt from head to stomach. It malfunctioned after a month. Re did surgery. That one failed after 3 more months (mind you she was working for county for good money and I was making $13/hr by then). I had no job and she wasn't working. What surgery are we on, ooH, 3. well take that out to 5 more surgeries over the next three years and me getting back to work at $13/hr 2 kids, mortgage and numerous medical bills in the 6 figure range. Aldi's is a great place to shop but I will never, ever use those fucking food stamps ever a fucking again in my life. low of the fucking low. Ya, I barely kept roof over families head. Ya barely food on table. Kids love Ramen noodles and generic mac and cheese and never having meat (barf). End of 2006 wife still has medical problems and back to work out of her field of study working at Deli for Walmart because she can no longer lift people (She was a CNA). And I have not been at a desk doing mechanical design for years but am making decent money but the bills are still there piling up living paycheck to paycheck having to disappoint my daughter everytime she wants to go do things with friends. Point I've learned through all my shit is, When I think I couldn't get any lower in life, there is always someone worse off. just stick it out.


BTW, nobody is fucking poor here if they have a computer in front of them with internet access. I missed internet the most during my struggles. It has become my crack since the start of my families downfall. Was cheap entertainment for us until I couldn't afford it anymore.

BTW, I like writing in run on sentences without paragraphs. It's called ranting :confused:

[BITEYOASS]

I had pretty much all the basic neccesities as a kid and occasionally was paid for various chores (got paid extra if I was shoveling snow in single digit temperatures). We got whatever we could leisure wise on the cheap. Although I still can't figure out how my parents were able to get by seeing that they never had a college education, worked in service jobs and smoked weed on occasion. One time they considered having a third child, but me and my sister gave em' a WTF look and told them how crazy an idea that would be. On a side note, we had a shitload of books in the house.