There’s an article at Lifehacker today, poignantly entitled How to Break the Living Paycheck-to-Paycheck Cycle. I read the first couple of paragraphs kinda nodding in agreement and then this:
Living paycheck to paycheck is a problem of your own creation.
No, son. That might be a problem of someone’s creation in some cases, although generally speaking, living paycheck to paycheck is a structural problem called “poverty” or “being working class”. Sure, there are many middle class people living paycheck to paycheck but more often than not, they are middle class from a working class background who actually never experienced something different (I am sure there are exceptions to this but I am willing to say this much: living paycheck to paycheck is very rarely an individual issue but symptomatic of a cultural problem).
But wait, this article gets better when it starts with the actual, concrete advice of how to break this cycle (emphasis mine):
Reduce that cable bill and that cell phone bill. Get rid of unused memberships, like gym memberships or country club memberships.
and:
Don’t Carry More Than One Credit Card With You
and
One major step you can take in getting away from paycheck-to-paycheck living is to downgrade. Do you really need that gas-guzzling car when an efficient one would do? Do you really need that big of a house? Consider moving to a smaller or more efficient version of these things.
Get rid of the country club membership! Of course, why don’t poor people realize that their country club membership is costing them money?! The assumption that people living paycheck to paycheck have more than one credit card (or a credit card at all); the advice to “move”, as if moving was expense free (how on earth can you even afford to move if you are living paycheck to paycheck?!) or that a) everyone has a car and/ or b) that they are in a position to change that car for something better.
Read the rest at the link. It’s like comedy but with a lot of sadness.
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