Rich or Poor?

[Salty Booger]

At what marker would you define rich and poor. I had a coworker who told me that, as a kid, he didn't know they were poor until he asked his mom. My personal opinion is, if I have food, shelter, clothing and some money, I'm doing pretty well. Would that make me rich? Relative to somebody who is hungry, living in a tent, wearing ragged clothing and having no money whatsoever, yeah, I think it does.

Do you consider yourself to be wealthy?
Where do you draw the line between the two?


Photo by Levent Simsek from Pexels

 

[McBell]

You appear to be drawing the line at material things.
What is your thought on non-material richness/poorness?

 

[Salty Booger]

You appear to be drawing the line at material things.
What is your thought on non-material richness/poorness?

I was trying not to draw any lines and want to leave that to others. Material needs will always be a part of life. For me the question is how much do I need to be happy. Most everything I own will fit inside the trunk of my car.

 

[ChristineM]

I know a guy, he visits our village every few weeks. What i believe Americans call a hobo, British call a tramp and in France he is a
clochard. He's ever so slightly not all there and travels with an imaginary dog. He's a wonderful character always happy, even when shouting after his dog to behave. I like to spend a few minutes talking to him, he's a wealth of local stores, he sleeps in the fields, even in winter. He doesn't have money, no real friends, no family that he will talk of. But he considers himself wealthy, he is doing precisely what he wants, he has the forests and fields, the seasons, he is free.

 

[Sunstone]

Rich and poor are relative or comparative terms, which means the 'marker' between them is never fixed and firm.

Second, rich and poor are ambiguous terms, which means they can refer to money, but not just money. i.e. one might be rich in commonsense, or poor in love, etc. etc.

 

[JustGeorge]

Its been a discussion I've had with my oldest kid many times.

When he was younger, we were considered dirt poor by Midwestern American standards. So he got that in his head, and he dwelled on it. I remember asking him what needs he had that weren't met. He got quiet and couldn't really think of any. And then I asked him to go through his room and see how many belongings he had. He had quite a list. And then I told him about real poverty, and asked him what he thought. "I guess we're rich, then!"

He sometimes gets upset that we(my husband and I)don't aspire to have top of the line vehicles, and cutting edge technology. He is very materialistic. But we've explained to him that our values differ, and when he's an adult, he is free to pursue these things. And then I remind him he better get a good job, or find a rich spouse...

Personally, I find the greatest 'wealth' to be having 'just enough'. If you don't have enough to be secure in meeting your physical needs it is hard to be content or healthy. On the other hand, having more than you need often leads to stress and frustration. What is too much or too little varies from person to person, but in each case you'll know when you've found it.

 

[Salty Booger]

On the other hand, having more than you need often leads to stress and frustration.

I get a kick out of the concept of storage rentals--having so much stuff that a person needs to rent storage space for it.

 

[McBell]

I was trying not to draw any lines and want to leave that to others. Material needs will always be a part of life. For me the question is how much do I need to be happy. Most everything I own will fit inside the trunk of my car.

Define "own"

I ask because where I live there are an awful lot of people who make the claim of ownership but upon losing their job, the rent to own places empty their homes of all they claim to own.

Intrerestingly enough, you still focus upon material.

I quote Dolly Parton:

And oh, I couldn't understand it
For I felt I was rich
And I told 'em of the love
My momma sewed in every stitch
And I told 'em all the story
Momma told me while she sewed
And how my coat of many colors
Was worth more than all their clothes
But they didn't understand it
And I tried to make them see
That one is only poor
Only if they choose to be
Now I know we had no money
But I was rich as I could be
In my coat of many colors
My momma made for me
Made just for me​

 

[JustGeorge]

I get a kick out of the concept of storage rentals--having so much stuff that a person needs to rent storage space for it.

Yeah, that baffles me, too. I rented one once, when I found myself evicted and had no where to put my belongings, but it was temporary. Some people have them as permanent fixtures, though.

 

[Salty Booger]

Define "own"

I ask because where I live there are an awful lot of people who make the claim of ownership but upon losing their job, the rent to own places empty their homes of all they claim to own.

Intrerestingly enough, you still focus upon material.

I quote Dolly Parton:

And oh, I couldn't understand it
For I felt I was rich
And I told 'em of the love
My momma sewed in every stitch
And I told 'em all the story
Momma told me while she sewed
And how my coat of many colors
Was worth more than all their clothes
But they didn't understand it
And I tried to make them see
That one is only poor
Only if they choose to be
Now I know we had no money
But I was rich as I could be
In my coat of many colors
My momma made for me
Made just for me​

"Possessions" then.

 

[Daemon Sophic]

I know a guy, he visits our village every few weeks. What i believe Americans call a hobo, British call a tramp and in France he is a
clochard. He's ever so slightly not all there and travels with an imaginary dog. He's a wonderful character always happy, even when shouting after his dog to behave. I like to spend a few minutes talking to him, he's a wealth of local stores, he sleeps in the fields, even in winter. He doesn't have money, no real friends, no family that he will talk of. But he considers himself wealthy, he is doing precisely what he wants, he has the forests and fields, the seasons, he is free.

As long as his health holds, yes.
Putting aside the happy hobo idea, I consider someone to be poor if they are missing any of the following.
1. Assured access to enough clean water and nourishing food at least twice a day for every member of the family.
2. A home; sturdy, insulated, and heated enough to allow the entire family to sleep unafraid of the worst seasonal weather (barring tornadoes and other natural disasters).
3. Access to health care, enough to treat common diseases and disorders.
4. Enough clean clothing (and sewing supplies) to go to work and to school without large holes where they shouldn’t be.

Being rich is a different matter, and harder to define. There is a large zone between rich and poor (although that zone has thinned a lot over the last 50 years: i.e. the middle class is disappearing).

 

[Nakosis]

At what marker would you define rich and poor. I had a coworker who told me that, as a kid, he didn't know they were poor until he asked his mom. My personal opinion is, if I have food, shelter, clothing and some money, I'm doing pretty well. Would that make me rich? Relative to somebody who is hungry, living in a tent, wearing ragged clothing and having no money whatsoever, yeah, I think it does.

Do you consider yourself to be wealthy?
Where do you draw the line between the two?

View attachment 45894
Photo by Levent Simsek from Pexels

Wealthy enough is when I don't have to worry about money.
Poor is when I don't have enough money and have to sacrifice to make ends meet.

 

[Sunstone]

I get a kick out of the concept of storage rentals--having so much stuff that a person needs to rent storage space for it.

A friend and I were building a deck for someone once. He let us store our tools in his garage -- but there was almost no room for them. His garage didn't even have room for his cars. Floor to ceiling storage boxes. Then I noticed that one or two rooms in his house had been turned into storage rooms. But the real kicker came half-way through construction of the deck. One day he let drop that he had two -- not one, but two -- large storage units "out by the freeway".

The weird thing was, SB, that he was only an extreme example of what my friend and I saw over and over on nearly every house we built a deck for. Folks these days buy tons and tons of stuff, then end up storing it. Not even giving it to charity. Just storing it.

C'est la vie.

 

[McBell]

At what marker would you define rich and poor. I had a coworker who told me that, as a kid, he didn't know they were poor until he asked his mom. My personal opinion is, if I have food, shelter, clothing and some money, I'm doing pretty well. Would that make me rich? Relative to somebody who is hungry, living in a tent, wearing ragged clothing and having no money whatsoever, yeah, I think it does.

Do you consider yourself to be wealthy?
Where do you draw the line between the two?

View attachment 45894
Photo by Levent Simsek from Pexels

Best I can tell that the labels rich/ poor as about as accurate and reliable as the labels right/left.

Without understanding the exact position of the one using the label, they are completely worthless.

 

[Salty Booger]

Yeah, that baffles me, too. I rented one once, when I found myself evicted and had no where to put my belongings, but it was temporary. Some people have them as permanent fixtures, though.

I suppose I am a minimalist: car, bed, clothing, computer and a few books.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

I consider myself wealthy when I have the luxury of considering such concepts as 'what is wealth, really?', philosophy, religion, time and motivation to write, and my laugh is ready.

I am poor when my thoughts are more dominated by the need for food, shelter, companionship, healthcare and safety.

Simples.

 

[sun rise]

I never strongly thought of ourselves as rich/poor but as "middle class". That is, until I traveled to India in the early 1970's. I remember seeing people who had nothing but the clothes they were wearing sleeping along the road with perhaps a bit of burlap to cover their heads. By the standards of that time and place, every Westerner is wealthy. I was told by someone there not to give money to beggars because some mangled their kids to make them more 'marketable' in getting money. I've never forgotten that.

Things are very much better now than they used to be there but the lesson remains. By world standards, I'm really wealthy. By American standards, probably upper middle class since I have enough savings to presumably last as long as I do.

In terms of other kinds of wealth, I count myself as wealthy. I could start with a wife of 51+ years, decent health for my age, wonderful friends and so forth.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

I never strongly thought of ourselves as rich/poor but as "middle class". That is, until I traveled to India in the early 1970's. I remember seeing people who had nothing but the clothes they were wearing sleeping along the road with perhaps a bit of burlap to cover their heads. By the standards of that time and place, every Westerner is wealthy. I was told by someone there not to give money to beggars because some mangled their kids to make them more 'marketable' in getting money. I've never forgotten that.

As a poor Uni student who took his first full time job teaching in 1997, I thought of myself as working class (my familial background) with middle class aspirations (hey, first uni degree in our family!)

That teaching job was in a very remote part of Papua New Guinea, completely divorced from most things we'd recognize as 'civilization'. People were paid the equivalent of 20c per hour for basic work, up to 50c per hour if they were a foreman.
My $25k US starting wage (tax free) looked quite a bit different in that light. I was immediately amongst the most wealthy men in my (very, very small) corner of the world, and had to consider how I'd use my wealth.

Pretty challenging stuff for a 21 year old (which of course was the whole point in going there...)