17 Ways That Being Poor Is Way More Expensive Than Rich People Realize
Reddit user u/Paratrooperkid recently asked the Reddit community to share how being poor is actually expensive.
Here are some of the most eye-opening ones:
1."Many banks charge a monthly fee to have an account with a balance under a certain level, like $1,500. It's literally a poverty fee."
Netflix
2."If you can't afford your own laundry machine or an apartment that comes with one, it costs like $10 in quarters to do laundry. EVERY TIME."
TBS
"Also add to that altering your schedule around laundromat hours and time to commute, and all the time you waste waiting around for it to be done because you can’t get other stuff done like you would if you had laundry appliances at home."
"We moved into a house that didn't have a washer and dryer. Went to the laundry mat and somehow spent $45 to do six loads."
3."Cars. Maintaining an unreliable junk heap is very expensive and a sinkhole. If you can't afford a reliable vehicle, your financial progress is going to be a lot slower. Missed shifts, unexpected expenses — it sucks."
Pop TV
"Or you can't afford a car at all and walk or take the bus for so many years (and can't afford good shoes) that it damages your feet, causing chronic pain, so you have to spend $500 on orthotics that are somehow deemed medically unnecessary."
4."Poor people can’t pay for childcare. The wealthy rely on underpaying people to take care of their kids."
Fox
5."Having to buy cheap shit that breaks fast because you can't afford good-quality stuff (clothes, shoes, electronics)."
TLC
"Especially shoes. You need good shoes to work in, but you can't afford good shoes, so you buy OK shoes that break after three months. After four pairs of OK shoes in a year, you've spent more than if you'd bought one pair of good shoes."
6."Not being able to save by buying in bulk. Even though it costs less per unit, the TOTAL is higher."
NBC
7."You live in a food desert and, besides being more expensive, all the options are highly processed foods that lead to obesity and other expensive and life-shortening health problems."
NBC
8."Uber driver here. I live in a major city with shit public transportation. I can’t even tell you how many rides I give weekly where the Uber ride one way costs more than the passenger's hourly wage. I drive tons of people working part-time shifts that pay $12 an hour when the ride just to work costs $20. I feel very bad for them. It’s not like I am making the big bucks driving Uber, but paying $40 to get to and from work when you only make a few hundred a week doesn’t make any sense to me, but this is the reality for many."
Bravo
9."I’ve never had the money to spend on dental work, so now I’m spending thousands more to fix everything that was neglected."
NBC
10."Chase has a $35 overdraft fee."
NBC
"Before online banking was a thing, I was in college full time, working three part-time jobs, about 30 hours a week. I’d be so burnt out from my schedule I’d forget how low my checking account would get sometimes, and one time I overdraft and got charged $40. Here’s the thing: They would send you a notice via mail, which took three to five days. In those three to five days, you’d get more daily overdraft fees. By the time I got the letter for the first $40, I had accrued $240 in overdraft fees."
11."Rent versus mortgage. The bank says you're too poor for an $800 mortgage payment, so you have to pay $1,500 on rent instead."
Showtime
—Anonymous
12."The monetary burden of poor people is staggering, but the stress is just as bad — if not worse. Owing money that you don't have is incredibly stressful, as is struggling to perform a shitty job just to barely scrape by. The mental burden of being poor also requires money to cope with and, since professional help is expensive, it often ends up being dealt with in an unhealthy way..."
Universal
"Things like drugs can cause additional health issues, as well as potentially risking fines or jail/prison, so it's a slippery slope."
13."If you have a low credit score, you have to pay a $300+ deposit in order to get the power turned on at your place."
Hulu
"This is true in Las Vegas, and there's only one power company — NV Energy."
14."How about the fact that homelessness is illegal..."
Global TV
"I got fined $200 for being asleep in a car park the other week. How can it be illegal for a human to be asleep?"
15."Not being able to afford preventive medical care leads to huge medical bills later. I’ve seen it numerous times where people put off routine exams/procedures, and then come through the ER and end up with an amputation — or even death — because the illness had progressed so far before they sought treatment."
ABC
16."Higher interest rates anytime you borrow and lack of assets to borrow money against. You can't get ahead."
Universal
17."The hardest part of being poor — for me — was the 'cost' of time. My weekly grocery trip took almost four hours. Time spent looking over fliers and making a list of what I could afford, walking to the closest bus stop, transferring to another bus, an hour of shopping and tallying up my total to make sure I was within budget, waiting up to 20 minutes for a bus home (including another bus transfer), and then walking home with all my groceries from the bus stop."
MTV
"I would often go without groceries because I didn’t have time to get to the store and was stuck making macaroni 'n' cheese without butter or milk because that is what was in the pantry."
Note: Some comments have been edited for length and/or clarity.