Thoughts on True Poverty and the Path to Wealth

I came across some notes I wrote to myself in 2016, when I worked seven days a week and felt very alone. I tried hard to keep a $20 weekly budget with notes like these:

Cost of a dozen eggs on sale: 99¢
Cost of one egg: 8¢
Cost of one loaf of potato bread (or 18 slices): $2.50
Cost of one slice of bread: 16¢
 
Breakfast: 48¢ for an eggy sandwich (2 eggs, 2 bread slices)
Lunch: 98¢ with an eggy sandwich at 48¢ and 8 ounces of baby carrots at 50¢
Dinner: 99¢ for can of bean soup
Total spent on food: $2.45

At the time I thought I was doing great with all of these calculations and stratagems, but now they seem so… sad. I was calculating the cost of A SLICE OF BREAD to assure myself it was okay to spend money on. I pretended two fried eggs in between soggy pieces of bread was so tasty I only wanted that for breakfast AND lunch. There’s other notes about why going for the 99¢ white bread wouldn’t made much difference (didn’t actually help the budget that much to make the gross switch). And how many calories I could expect to get each day with my spend.

Granted, it wasn’t that bleak; my weekend catering job meant there was often great leftovers I could eat throughout the week, complementing my Spartan grocery shopping. But the regular menu of eggy sandwiches and bean soup were from a place of fear around money. I don’t want anyone to feel the way I did as I wrote these notes down.

This Was Not True Poverty

Keep in mind that this was the barest brush with poverty I had in my adult life. It wasn’t true poverty; I had stable housing, a steady paycheck, full-time work, and the infrastructure in place to support my access to food and transportation. Oh, and a slew of privileges I either didn’t work for or didn’t work that hard for. It wasn’t like I had other mouths to feed, mountains of debt to pay, or serious illnesses to treat, either.

Through my travels and through reading for most of my life, I knew what true poverty was; I think is what helped me keep cheer in that sad Year of Fear. Sites like Dollar Street show you an unbiased look at poverty all over the world, including looks on the opposite end of the scale for posterity. It’s downright painful to compare them. There’s a lump in my throat when I compare things in the “most loved items” section. Pictures of cell phones, cars, and designer clothes are interspersed with those of buckets, scissors, and thin little blankets.

I try to keep in mind that, in the last century, things have dramatically been turning around for the poorest of us. Extreme poverty has been on the decline since the 90s, spurred and measured by the UN’s “no poverty” goal for 2030. It gives me hope, but there’s still so much more work to be done.

Which is all to say this: even with that teensy brush of financial insecurity and fear, I know I never want anyone to experience that again.

So… Budgeting.

In the Dollar Street link above you’ll see plenty of (too many) families living with next to nothing. Unless they can reach a more prosperous place, there’s not much they can do themselves to improve their financial station. But you? There’s plenty, especially if you earn a high income later in life like me. The biggest thing here is to budget out your money when you don’t make that much; I hope you don’t have to go to the counting-bread-slices phase like I did, but it should be enough to give you freedom about your spending and savings.

It’s also a lifesaver for any financial situation life decides to throw at you, good or bad. Did you get a new job with a 50% pay raise? You’ll know how to budget this new windfall. Did you grow enough in savings only to see it threatened in an emergency? It’s not the catastrophic event it might’ve been, as you can weather the storm.

Your understanding of finance truly shines in how you budget. In a country like the United States, it can be the difference between bankruptcy and treading water. It can also be the difference between treading water and the smoothest sailing you ever did see.

And better pay.

Increasing your income is crucial. That’s why I harp on and on about “resume” this and “LinkedIn profile” that. Budgeting and lowering your spend is only one part of the equation; it gives you wiggle and breathing room. Increasing your income means putting so much more distance between yourself and poverty that you wonder how you ever struggled to breathe in the first place.

Or you would, if you’re eager to forget your struggles from before. Sometimes I think it might be best to forget, because forgetting it is better than romanticizing it or ascribing some kind of virtue to it. Poor is poor. It’s not justifiable and, on average, destroys more character than it builds. In light of that, I keep reminding myself the best path is actually to continue viewing it for what it was, sans rose-colored glasses. It surprisingly wasn’t that long ago that I experienced it; maybe that’s why I don’t feel so distanced from it.

It’s all about perspective, as they say. And mine is never without the awareness that I’m getting it better than other folks around me.

The Opposite of Poverty is Sustainable Wealth

That awareness comes both through opportunity (that I didn’t earn) and preparation (that I did). The starkest difference between the haves and the have-nots is sustainable wealth, as you know. Something I didn’t have in 2016; my most expensive possession was a $115 secondhand mattress, and my occasional treat was eating bread with honey drizzled on top. I could proselytize on this site and say meaningless phrases like “I worked my way up from the bottom of the mountain to this beautiful peak, with nothing helping me except for ~*~believing in myself~*~!”

Which you’ll never actually hear me say seriously, because that’s both false and misleading. The Governator puts it best by tackling the idea of a “self-made man”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta2zW-llIgo

I hold no illusions that I live such a nice lifestyle solely because I willed it into existence. No, instead I got help from several people along the way on how to catch a recruiter’s attention. How to negotiate. How to invest and grow your wealth into the six figures so soon after college. Having people teach you how to avoid true poverty means never having to return to it again, even in little brush strokes like mine. Once you have your community to teach you and elevate you, there’s so much more that’s then open to you.

Including helping those worse off.

I’m not sure if I have a point to this particular post, except to point to true poverty as a frame of reference on your path to wealth. Remember the plight of our lowest peers, and use it as motivation to lift up others while doing your thing. Without as much desperation in the world we’re all better off; we all have a better shot at reaching the ideal future and standing the test of the time forever.

Photo credit: Ethan Dow via Unsplash