I got dragged to hell because I had the audacity to call out my employer for not paying their employees a living wage while having “nice” things on my social media - a bottle of whiskey, a lush face mask, pictures of food I’d made. if you did the math, it’s pretty obvious that those things were either 1. very expensive to me that I had to save up to buy or 2. purchased by someone else. I was even criticized for having glasses (which took me 3 paychecks to save up for and, with an eye exam, frames, and FREE lenses, cost $70). there’s this assumption that if you’re poor, starving, and in desperate need, that you’re going to focus on saving more for the future - when in reality, you’re treating every day like it’s your last because you don’t know how you’re going to be able to afford to keep going.
poor people, especially those who’ve been poor their whole lives, justify “splurge” purchases like a tattoo or a bottle of booze as a little reprieve from the stress. an $8 face mask or making “fancy” biscuits from bisquik and food someone else bought are little staples of self care - the illusion of normalcy to keep you going. what you may see as splurging, poor people see as survival.
what’s often ignored is how intense the guilt gets after a “splurge” purchase and the stress that comes from minor inconveniences. when you can’t pay your electric bill on time and a list of everything you’ve ever bought that wasn’t a necessity flashes through your mind. when you can’t afford to get a tail light fixed and it makes you consider selling the whole car - which you need - just to avoid the risk of a traffic ticket you know you wouldn’t be able to pay. when you grow to hate yourself because you should be able to survive, yet somehow you can’t seem to do even that right, and how you don’t deserve to be comfortable because you can’t see that the odds of being able to survive on a full-time job are stacked against you just because the only jobs you’re qualified for are minimum wage and “minimum” no longer means “living.”
if you try to shame a low income person for their splurges or use those purchases as proof that they’re not struggling, you are automatically revealing that you have no idea what it’s like to be low income. even if you used to be low income and you try to criticize those who currently are, you’ve lost touch and are better off digging up some empathy in lieu of some snarky hot take. train yourself to see “splurge” purchases by low income/persistently poor people as life jackets, not yachts.
snowghoul
yousharknotpass
blakekathryn
ellievsbear
stormborns
theartofmadeline
vaporwave
prguitarman
