How poverty changes your mindset
This is not the first time this article has come up, and as usual I&#x27;ll give my 2c.<p>What qualifies me to talk about this issue? I was raised in the UK on income support, single mother, social housing, low income city etc;<p>Now the situation has changed somewhat in the UK; back then in the UK it was possible to get by without going into debt if you were smart about things and I believe this no longer to be the case, but I am no longer in this system and; to qualify my statement further: it was not possible to be poorer than my mother was. No family and no registered father on record. (He would have had to pay child maintenance if he was on record, the state does not supply this if there is an absence)<p>What I found to be true is that my mother will buy the cheapest thing that will do the job, she will treat her time as unlimited in finding similar quality goods for less money. She still trawls second-hand stores and will not buy anything that needs maintenance.<p>Her cars tend to be 1-step from the junk-yard (even though she has a steady well paying job now).<p>For myself, I select heavily for things that require less maintenance too. I buy extremely high quality things because I assume that my job is temporary and that I will once-again be plunged into poverty, and if anything needs to be replaced in that time I may not have the financial freedom to do so. I do not have anything that requires recurring costs (no netflix, no apple music.. I will not subscribe to anything that is not a utility), I do not take long-term contracts (if there is a choice between 12months at a cheaper rate or month-to-month for 10% more I will pay the 10% more not to be tied).<p>This is my anecdatum, of my mother who grew up working class and became poor through choice, and for me, who grew up poor and became middle-class.