I don’t disagree with anything you said. My post was basically saying they aren’t doing themselves any favors by their spending decisions. Many could buy TP in bulk, but instead choose other trivial purchases.

False. It was not a bootstrapping post. I can’t write a definitive playbook to success, but I could write a book about what not to spend money on (and what to spend money on) when you’re poor.

Maybe they are, but it isn’t toilet paper. That’s all I was saying. There are plenty of people who could buy it in bulk or on sale, but just don’t. So they are artificially inflating the cost of TP for people living in poverty. I take issue with the idea of implying “TP costs more when you are poor” when in many cases…

So that’s the only way to gain “a friggin idea” of how things work? Unlikely to be true.

I wasn’t ignoring the advantages of wealth. I just wasn’t focused on that aspect. I fully agree there are inherent advantages for people with money. All I was saying was that people with less money tend to not make the most of what little they’ve got. Many of them are not actually unable to buy TP in bulk. They just…

Definitely? I didn’t know I was up against a psychic here. Somehow you missed that I never even implied “get a job, loser” much less said it. I was mainly speaking about how people spend the money they have from their jobs. Not sure how you missed that. Must’ve too been busy using your psychic powers to discern my…

I never said lazy and stupid. Also, you didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. It is purely a baseless assumption that I know “precious little” about how things are in reality.

And my point - rather obviously - was that if you can afford lottery tickets and cigs, you can afford to buy toilet paper in bulk. I understand economics of scale, but I refuse to believe it is out of the reach of everyone who is poor. I’m sure it’s the case for some people, but I’m also sure there are people who…

I can see where it would be a hurdle as well, but that doesn’t mean that spending money on those items isn’t a poor decision.

False. I read the whole article and, given the tone, I assumed it was implying something. I didn’t rag on the author, either. I just said that often poor people could buy the bulk toilet paper, but often choose to grab a lottery ticket or cigs instead and settle for the 4-pack.

There’s a difference between a generalization and anecdotal evidence.

That’s an easy way to write off an opinion. Keep your head in the sand and you’ll be ok.

There’s a lot of evidence to the contrary, starting with SAT scores...

I said “a lot of poor people...” and I also said there were surely execptions. Do you disagree?

I don’t fail to understand that. It makes sense. But it’s still a bad decision, no?

True, it’s definitely a generalization. I wasn’t trying to hide that... I wasn’t about to delve into each and every possibility. And maybe I read too much into your article/post - I realize it didn’t specifically call out causation, but I thought the post was intended to imply that people are systemically kept poor…

I never said it was “always” that they made bad decisions. I said there are exceptions and you are one of them.

Let me guess: you think all financial planners have to have been poor in order to be qualified to make decisions?

I read most of that, but did eventually skip to your TL;DR. You think the plausible scenarios you listed make you smart? I can think of exceptions as well, dimwit, which is why I specifically said, “there will be exceptions.” And yes, I agree, there are people in those exact situations you listed. They are the…

When in a situation like that there are dozens of data points beyond the two that you listed. I’m pretty much like Sherlock Holmes ;)