I am in the stupendously unique and enviable position of deciding not to go out to dinner too often in order to save money for travel plans I have later in the year.
That may sound odd, as doing something so basic as “saving my pennies” seems like a very elemental part of financial management. But when you’re poor, it’s not.
When you are living paycheck to paycheck, and those paychecks barely (or flat out don’t) cover your full expenses just to stay alive, then saving money for a trip you can’t afford to take in the first place makes no sense. If you have an extra $40 from working under the table or having a lower utilities bill than you were expecting, you are going to spend it. Usually on prosaic things like stocking up on cold medicine (hoard that shit!) or a set of new underwear, but sometimes you get really crazy and decide to throw caution to the wind and do a 2-4-1 dinner special at Olive Garden.
The logic here is unique to being poor. Most people who have never been truly poor would say, “well save that $40! You do it enough you’ll have money to travel! DUH!!!!”
No, it doesn’t work like that. Because if you save $40 a few times, and have (say) $300 in the bank, then guess what you are going to tap when your kid needs a doctor, or you miss a week of work due to being sick, or the car breaks down?
If you don’t have that $300 in the bank, you’ll find a work around. You’ll borrow or beg to get your kid to the doctor, you’ll stretch pennies to make up for lost work, you’ll take the bus until you can work extra hours to pay for the car. But if you have $300 in the bank, you’re going to spend it – not doing so because of a vague plan to “travel later this year” is not acceptable to anyone.
What most proponents of “save your money!” don’t understand is that the very act of saving money presupposes an existence-level income, which most people in the US today don’t really have, especially if they have kids. It assumes that if the car breaks down, you can afford to fix it without much impact on your day-to-day expenses, and that any special savings you have “for travel later this year” will be immune. It also assumes that calling out sick for any lengthy period of time will not devastate your over-all finances, which for most people getting paid by the hour, it almost certainly will.
None of that is true. The spending habits of the poor are based on a very “right now, right here” mentality because experience shows that planning for the future is both futile and frustrating. It may make sense, to those who have never experienced poverty, to sock away every extra dollar they can find, especially if it comes in a large bundle like a tax return. Those of us who have lived with poverty all too intimately know that it’s more important to spend that money on things like new tires, new shoes, cold medicine and dry goods…while we can.
At this point, in one of the few times in my adult life, I am able to pay all my bills with enough left over to cover things like new shoes, vitamins, good coffee beans, movies (Captain America 2!!!) and eating out with friends more than once-per-paycheck. So, you know, I’m good. I’m doing okay. Which means, if I save $40 here and there, I can actually save it for things I want. Like travel.
I’m pretty excited about that.
