I was dealing with one of my low-end renters this week. The husband gave the rent money to the wife to deliver. It was $50 short. She has a drug problem. He seemed disappointed, but coughed up the additional money.
Last month when he delivered the rent she shouted from the car, “Don’t give it all to him!” He shouted back, “You stupid b@tch, do you want to be homeless?” If she had $1,000 she would probably end up dead. (Oh, they have two kids as well. That doesn’t seem to matter.)
You could give them $5,000 per month. I guarantee it would not improve their life one bit. Probably, it would get them in even more trouble. He has no driver’s license, due to multiple DUI’s. She is on probation for grand theft. They spend every penny they get. They have every cable channel and a house full of new furniture and TV’s. The air conditioner is set at 68 degrees.
I, on the other hand, own nine houses, have no TV or cable beyond internet. I am constantly fixing my own cars. If you gave me an additional $1,000, I’d put it in my 401k. I would probably never qualify for the gift and the people who would will probably be hurt by it.
That’s what I was thinking. Do I need anymore stuff? The only areas in my life that I feel like I’m not devoting enough cash is saving for retirement and contributions to my Church.
I already eat too much, all my basics are covered and accumulating more stuff just causes me stress.
OK, I may buy more ammo.
Like Dave Ramsey says, being broke is a temporary state of things, while being poor is a state of mind. The people you described will always be poor regardless of how much money they have.
I have cousins like that. Wouldn’t really matter how much money they have because they have absolutely no knowledge of how to manage it. No drug or drinking problems. They have a stupidity problem.
Had a cousin visiting here from out of state and he wanted to go see them. We got there and no one was there so I called her. They had taken their empty cans to the recycle place and gone to Taco Bell. No food in the house but they had that meal taken care of. The cousin from out of state said....I could’ve made that can money last longer than one meal. I just shook my head.