This might be a bit off-topic, but being the cheapskate I am, I’ve always had an aversion to waste. This morning as I drove to work, I noticed a perfectly good living-room suite laying out by the dumpster. Granted I didn’t get out of the car for an up-close inspection, but this furniture couldn’t have been more than 5 or 6 years old. Furthermore, the set couldn’t have cost less than a few hundred dollars, even if they were bought used. My question is, why throw this furniture away? At the very least, they could have taken the effort of dropping it off at the Goodwill or ask their neighbors if they’d like some free furniture (I’d have taken it in a heartbeat). Instead, a perfectly good living room suite is ruined by the elements.
It’s A Waste Of Money
This is a good example of why the poor stay poor. Sure, it may be easier and even cheaper in the short run to buy new furniture every few years, especially with transportation costs on the rise, but shelling out hundreds if not thousands of dollars every few years for no reason isn’t the path to financial prosperity. Remember how the wealthy tend to focus more on total life-cycle cost than initial cost while the poor tend to focus more on initial cost without regard to the entire product life-cycle. This is a perfect example of not seeing the forest for the trees. A wealthy individual (as well as the people most likely to be wealthy) would have likely bought higher-quality furniture that would maintain its value for years to come. While moving can be costly, it’s still far less expensive to ship a nice couch from home to home than buy a new cheap couch every five years.
Besides, this is not only wasteful, it’s greedy. There are plenty of people who can’t afford nice furniture and plenty more frugal people (like us), who want nice furniture but don’t want to pay much for it. A quick ad on Craigslist and this furniture’s former owner probably could have sold it and had it hauled away. It might not have been much, but it would have been a lot more than zero.
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13 responses so far ↓
1 Amber Jones // Sep 19, 2008 at 10:03 am
I completely agree with you. It does blow my mind that some people can be like that. Like you said, it would take nothing on their part really to post an ad on craigslist, and if they “don’t have the internet”, no doubt they know SOMEONE who does and they could easily call that person up and ask them to post it. And a lot of times, I see people saying that they will not deliver or help load it… and that’s fine. As long as it is getting use out of it. So it would be nothing but a few extra dollars in that persons pocket. *Sigh* Some people….
2 Steve // Sep 19, 2008 at 4:57 pm
I was especially thankful when I was in college and people tossed away furniture, I snatched it up and furnished a perfectly good apartment with furniture that others had no use for anymore.
The real find was a really nice recliner that was perfect in every way.
3 Lise // Sep 22, 2008 at 4:33 pm
I was with you on this article until I got to “this is why the poor stay poor.”
Seriously? Do you think “the poor” have $1,000 to spend on a living room suite in the first place?
I’m sick of “people spend too much” being the constant answer to “what’s wrong with the economy.”
4 Kyle // Sep 22, 2008 at 4:52 pm
I know lots of poor people who spend a lot more than that on living room suites. The comment was more about the mindset that keeps them poor than any specific example. I do not believe there is anything about this economy that keeps poor people poor. There’s plenty of room to improve your situation, even in this economy. The problem is that people look to their job for their financial security, and that’s as far as they look. If they lose their job or can’t get a good one, they give up and say “it’s not my fault, it’s the system” instead of trying creative ways to improve their situation. There is ALWAYS a way.
5 Lise // Sep 23, 2008 at 11:42 am
I just think you have a really high standard of “poor” if you think the poor waste their money on expensive furniture. I say this and I grew up in a trailer park, mind.
Absolutely people look to their jobs for security - which is why declaring bankruptcy is most often caused by a job loss or a serious medical condition, not excess spending, contrary to popular belief.
I mean, I don’t disagree with you that it’s wasteful to just throw out something you don’t need anymore. But I think it has NOTHING to do with the mindset that “keeps people poor.” By the time you’re throwing out a couch, it’s a sunk cost, anyway - what you do with it is more a moral and environmental issue than anything else. You might argue, well, what about the new one they bought to take it’s place? You don’t know that they did. Maybe they’re moving to a smaller place. Maybe they got a great sofa secondhand from their family. Unless you saw the furniture store pulling up to their door, you are in no place to see this action and judge it as a way that people “stay poor.”
I don’t disagree with you “there is always room to improve, even in this economy,” but I think you’re making leaps of logic to say that these anonymous couch disposers aren’t doing everything they can.
I’d also like to point out that there are neighborhoods where people do this because they know it will be taken by someone who can use it - Somerville, a Boston suburb, is one of them, and it is not a “poor” suburb anymore (it’s still where you live if you can’t afford to live in Cambridge - but the price difference between the two has narrowed).
6 Kyle // Sep 23, 2008 at 12:00 pm
No, I’m talking about poor, poor people living on minimum wage. That every single person that throws away a couch doesn’t buy a new one in the future doesn’t mean the vast majority of them don’t. I don’t need to see them actually purchase it to know that. Besides, I was talking about the general mindset of “spend money when you have it, cut back when you don’t, waste in the meantime” that inhibits people from rising out of poverty.
7 Lise // Sep 26, 2008 at 10:52 am
Besides, I was talking about the general mindset of “spend money when you have it, cut back when you don’t, waste in the meantime” that inhibits people from rising out of poverty.
So you don’t think the fact that salaries - let alone the minimum wage! - haven’t kept pace with inflation has nothing to do with why the poor stay poor?
If it’s really over-spending which is killing the poor, couldn’t they just drop the luxuries when times get tough, and be in approximately the same place as if they’d had an emergency fund? (This is kind of a Devil’s Advocate point, mind, as I do believe our standard of living has a tendency to creep up when we do have money, so that cutting back becomes more and more difficult. But I mean, we’re talking about a couch, not a plasma TV. It’s hardly a luxury item. And many of them are not well enough made these days - even if you spend a ton - that they will last that long).
I’m a frugality blogger because I believe in simplifying my own life as much as possible to save some money. I’m not a frugality blogger because I have some illusion that I’m inherently smarter than the poor - just luckier, better educated, and more privileged.
8 Kyle // Sep 26, 2008 at 11:32 am
Well no, because the notion that “wages haven’t kept up with inflation” is a statistical lie. When you say that, you are taking an absolutely true aggregate statistic and applying it on an individual level, which is mathematically incorrect. It’s like trying to say 2 + 2 = 5. IN AGGREGATE, INDIVIDUAL wages for MALES haven’t quite kept up with inflation (wages for females have outpaced it) over the past 30 years. But household income has outpaced inflation by a significant amount, and household income is really the most important number to watch since the household is the decision-making unit, not the individual i.e. if my wages go down but my wife’s wages go up by even more, we are both still better off than we were before. I am not actually personally worse off because my wages have gone down since as a practical matter, my money is my wife’s money and her money is my money (not that I have a wife, this is just an example). Furthermore, those aggregate numbers cannot logically be applied to individuals living in poverty. They say absolutely nothing about whether or not an individual’s wages have kept up with inflation. Indeed, overwhelmingly they have. This is because as workers get older and more experienced, their incomes go up. The stats you quoted do not control for this phenomenon. What those aggregate wage figures actually mean is that, on average, the bottom rung today is slightly worse off than the bottom rung 30 years ago adjusted for inflation. But pretty much nobody stays in the bottom run forever, not even those earning minimum wage. Even the poorest of the poor move up at least a run or two on the economic ladder, pushing their incomes up much faster than the rate of inflation. It’s dangerous to apply aggregate numbers to individuals, because that’s not how they are meant to work.
And no, I don’t think just dropping luxuries when things get tough is equivalent because consumer goods lose value over time. Yeah you can sell your furniture, but you won’t get nearly as much back as you put in and you’d have to forgo the interest you would have earned on your emergency fund as well. Over 30 or 40 years, the opportunity cost of doing this is massive.
9 Lise // Sep 26, 2008 at 12:48 pm
But household income has outpaced inflation by a significant amount, and household income is really the most important number to watch since the household is the decision-making unit, not the individual i.e. if my wages go down but my wife’s wages go up by even more, we are both still better off than we were before.
As I understand it, isn’t this is just the effect of women entering the workforce en masse over the past 40-50 years? If, as you agree, the average male’s wages have not kept pace with inflation, and we assume the same thing for women, then we end up in a situation where prices have inflated based on having two income earners in the family, such that when a family loses one of those incomes, they’re screwed (i.e. the classic two-income trap).
Yes, there may still be pockets of the country where you can live on only one income, but I know I sure don’t live in one of them.
But pretty much nobody stays in the bottom run forever, not even those earning minimum wage.
Someone earning minimum wage at McDonald’s, even if their income increases with tenure, is still not going to be able to live not-in-squalor in most parts of the country.
10 Kyle // Sep 26, 2008 at 1:21 pm
That’s why the minimum wage is higher in many parts of the country. There are only a few states where the federal minimum wage even applies, and they are mostly low-income states. In Georgia, you can certainly live not-in-squalor on the federal minimum wage. Besides, it’s false that McDonalds workers earn minimum wage. They haven’t for a long time. They earn almost twice that starting these days (at least before the recent raise). They were earning at least $2 per hour more than minimum wage when I was in high school.
Aggregate women’s wages have actually increased more quickly than the rate of inflation, as has household income. It’s only single males who have seen real earnings decline, but the decline is very small. Even assuming prices have inflated to 2 income earners, households have still seen large gains over the past 30 years to the tune of doubling their real inflation-adjusted income. The best indication of this two-income household inflation is the real single-male wage. So yes, prices HAVE increased due to two-income households, but only slightly. In my opinion, you can survive anywhere in the country on one income. I know people who do it in Manhattan, and that’s probably the most expensive market there is. They don’t live it up, but they certainly don’t live in squalor.
11 Lise // Sep 26, 2008 at 2:11 pm
I know people who do it in Manhattan, and that’s probably the most expensive market there is. They don’t live it up, but they certainly don’t live in squalor.
Do they have children? Could they afford children, if they wanted them?
I mean, yeah, if I were still living in Haverhill in a $999/month two-bedroom apartment with my husband, we could survive on just his income. But would we have been able to afford kids if we wanted them? I doubt it. (Thankfully, that’s never been a goal or ours).
I know someone who lives on one income in Manhattan, too, in a tiny one-bedroom apartment … but she’s a lawyer. Are you trying to tell me that someone making minimum wage could do that?
12 Kyle // Sep 26, 2008 at 3:03 pm
This might actually make an interesting debate as a series of posts on both our blogs if you’re interested. Perhaps we could each make an opening argument, and then follow that with a post rebutting the opposing argument. It seems like something that would probably garner a lot of interest and draw a lot of comments on both sides.
13 Lise // Sep 26, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Sure, Kyle, I’d be interested in that. Send me an email with more details
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