It's a double edged sword in that for some people this is meaningless bullshit, in that they are struggling to pay for groceries, there is nowhere to lower their standards to.

On the other hand I have watched quite a bit of financial audit videos by caleb hammer, and have seen plenty of statistics that shows that simply put lots of people especially Americans are caught up in consumerism and live beyond their means for either status, or because that's where they get their gratification from.

The solution is to accept that no matter what you buy you will be only happy for a fleeting moment, better to embrace minimalism and fuck consumerism, it's also better for the planet, not just your wallet.

Fuck you for suggesting that nuance exists!

/S if it wasn't clear.

Yes this is true, but in a world where people are struggling more and more to buy basic necessities like groceries and pay their bills it's a bit tone deaf.

Yes some people overspend frivolously, but many are just broke after inflation and tariffs

I agree in principle, but the article is worded in possibly the worst way to get this across. It should be more along the lines of "don't spend beyond your means".

Exactly, and it's a cycle. They buy things on credit, carry a balance on their credit cards, owe a lot of money, and the stress gets to them. Eventually they buy things as a way to feel better and relieve the stress.

Trying to "not look poor" or "keep up with the Joneses" can lead to real misery. But, if instead you make a budget and save just a little bit every month it can be liberating.

Fundamentally, the problem is unequal wealth distribution. But, we should also try to help people live within their means while we attempt to fix that societal issue.

Baby is born

Doctor: How did you like your free 9 month trial of life?

Baby: What do you mean free trial?

Doctor: It costs money to live.

Baby: Frantically tries to climb back into the womb.

Years ago I had a coworker ask how I was able to travel so much because we made the same wage.

I was just like I don't do drugs or buy drinks at a bar. I don't own a car and my phone is cheap and paid off. I kept my expenses as low as possible to do what I liked.

Given how expensive renting is now I don't think my frugality would have helped as much as it used to.

Kind of agreeing with you here, although there are people who literally can’t make end meet

I have a step sister, married with 4 kids, and they don’t make much money and live on assistance. One year they sent out a fucking Santa’s gift list to everyone asking for liked $1000 from everyone because they wanted to go to Germany for Xmas.

And the funny thing about those phone plans is that once people get close to paying off their iPhone 213 XLLXQ, the carrier would offer you a “free” upgrade to the iPhone 214 XLLXQ Ultra Big-Boy Edition, which then the person paying for it needs to pay for the entire phone again if they take the bait, which tons of people do unfortunately.

Personally, I’d rather just buy some old flagship phone used, since the features of phones don’t really change much over the years, and I don’t even need a whole lot since I barely use phones anyway unless they’re apart of my kde connect “mesh” of devices

Legitimately, keep having to set the heat lower and lower

A soviet era russian also had access to free healthcare, free childcare, free higher education, cheap (sometimes free) housing, excellent (for the time) public transit, and a safety net for unemployment or old age. Oh and there was ample opportunities to build community ties so that if something did go horribly wrong and you needed that help. Capitalism in decline will give you none of that.

No. The entire premise is a stinking pile of dung, and always has been.

People do not choose to live in poverty. Like, seriously, this a classist myth that has never fucking been true. If people did, they could just choose to stop being poor!! But anybody with a functioning brain knows that billionaires choose for the workers to be destitute. So this entire "if you're poor you shouldn't [x]" needs to just fucking die already.

Overconsumption is off the fucking charts too. We purge yearly, and it's amazing the crap we accumulate and never use. Now we just try to collect money in our accounts to survive.

Amazon is killing some families on impulse control issues.

"Finally he steeled himself to read the final rule again. He had been trained since earliest childhood, since his earliest learning of language, never to lie. It was an integral part of the learning of precise speech. Once, when he had been a Four, he had said, just prior to the midday meal at school, “I’m starving.” Immediately he had been taken aside for a brief private lesson in language precision. He was not starving, it was pointed out. He was hungry. No one in the community was starving, had ever been starving, would ever be starving. To say “starving” was to speak a lie. An unintentioned lie, of course. But the reason for precision of language was to ensure that unintentional lies were never uttered. Did he understand that? they asked him. And he had."

"Once he had yearned for choice. Then, when he had had a choice, he had made the wrong one: the choice to leave. And now he was starving. But if he had stayed… His thoughts continued. If he had stayed, he would have starved in other ways. He would have lived a life hungry for feelings, for color, for love. And Gabriel? For Gabriel there would have been no life at all. So there had not really been a choice."

— Lois Lowry, The Giver

I mean it’s a little more nuanced than that. There’s a lot of ways to reduce costs. For me, not eating out is the biggest saver of money.