Awww! You guys are so sweet... sheesh, $20 max and I'd get a really pretty secondhand dress, another $10 and I can make sure it's clean before I use it. I just want a NICE dress, not the huge fluffy white "Bridekenstein" thing. (Which wouldn't go with my guy's best jeans and t-shirt anyway! And no, he is not wearing a tux, by BOTH our choices. *grin*)

But yeah, a lot of the poor are poor because they don't understand how to use money. But some are poor for other reasons.

Seriously, when I get a leg up I'll be quite ok, because I do understand money. My only debt despite being poor all my life, is the $659 for emergency dental work from last month. And we're not paying that back until quite a bit after the wedding!

There is poor and stupid. I'm sure some of that is desperation though. Especially if you have kids it might be difficult to say no to what all their friends consider to be bare basics, if you're too frazzled to realize what you're getting into. Things cost less if you can get them at once, but that doesn't work if you need it immediately... like a car to get to work in an area where transit sucks. So then you get it on rent-to-own and pay twice as much as someone with more money would have paid, because of the interest. I knew a young mother like that, working a min-wage job and not having enough to feed her kids because just getting to work cost so much. The world is weird that way.

And if you're going in over your head just to get a plain table and a decent stereo, why not go in over your head a little more to get a sweet dining set and surround sound? I guess that's how they think. I'd rather not get in over my head though, I've seen that.

What are the choices though? Give in and die a little more each time you go to work, give in and be on welfare which is even worse, or try for something meaningful that may never pay enough to actually support even the most basic basics of health, home, food, clothing, transportation, creativity, and communication?