"What do insanely poor people buy that ordinary people know nothing about?" [View all]

[Liberal_in_LA]

Interesting threads. thousands of contributions.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2sbi17/what_do_insanely_poor_people_buy_that_ordinary/?utm_content=buffercd273&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

I was so poor once that I would go to Long John Silvers and order a water and crunchies (which used to be free) then sit there and watch the people that would dine in.
It was amazing how little they ate. And then they would leave without dumping their tray off in the trash.
Fries, hushpuppies, chicken, fish... all untouched. No I didn't eat a piece that was bitten off of.
I once saw a woman order a 2 piece fish and more for her kid, that ate 1 hushpuppy and a few fries, and then left the rest of it there. It was the best I had eaten in weeks.
Glad that's behind me now.

I got a pay day loan once... I had super shitty credit at this point, was desperate for money so I could pay rent and buy food. Somehow I got approved for a loan for $4,200, which I took, stupidly, that would have cost me almost $8,000 to pay off if I paid the minimum. I didn't have a choice since I needed to make rent, buy new tires for my car, registration and smog for my car, and pay back somebody I owed $1,000 to.. It was a bad time. Luckily I was able to get somebody in the family to help me with a co-sign for a debt consolidation loan for me at a very nice low interest rate. Otherwise to this day I would still be living with and paying through the nose for a very bad mistake, but it's hard to use the word "mistake" when talking about something I didn't really have a choice on.

The point is, NEVER get a pay day loan. Find another way if you can.

Hauling food out of the dumpster at 7-11, because they threw away piles of chip bags that were a day over their expiration. (Manager caught us one day, they apparently told the employees to stab a hole in each chip bag after that. NBD, we just had to sniff each bag to make sure nothing was contaminated). Checking neighbors' trash bins - rescuing half a damn pizza some idiots had ordered the night before, then threw away after a handful of slices. Hauling in furniture from alleyways - my littlest sibling, my sister, received a twin bed mattress that had a grotesque brown stain on it, looked like someone had shit a gallon of wet feces onto it. No fucks given, we scrubbed that fucker with bleach over and over, and she slept on it for years.

And then there were times when the welfare checks or food stamps didn't arrive, and the trash bins were not producing food. I grew up in a fairly rural area. When that happened?

I know that in winter, Grey Squirrel tastes fucking gross. Sure, people from the South can claim that their brown and red squirrels are delicious, but I would rather eat shit out of a pig's ass than eat another bite of goddamn squirrel meat. Or jackrabbit. Or goddamned dandelion greens.

I guess I'm just saying that it's not what "insanely poor" people BUY, since they're insanely poor - they can't fucking afford to buy ANYTHING. You can keep the electricity and rent paid, or you can.... nope, there is not other choice. Food? Medicine? Clothing? Furnishings? Blankets? All of this is shit you can pull out of the garbage.