Can you be poor on a one hundred thousand dollar income?

[Wayne]

Akin to your general response: don't incur those bills if you don't want to have to pay them.

It's a mentality thing - I earn lots so I deserve lots more than the others.
I read an article a while back discussing this - 'rich' people get more trapped because their expectations get higher.
Poor people just want to survive.
Apparently the stress on the rich is huge with worrying how they are going to pay for the illusion.

[Wayne]

If someone is earning $1mil, and spends $1mil, this person will be broke.

Unfortunately too many in society are in this category or worse.

It's when they earn $1mil and spend $1.01mil that they get caught.
spending < income = OK
spending > income = trouble

[Perry]

Ahh, that famous and oft-quoted recipe for happiness in the sage words of Mr Micawber in Charles Dickens' David Copperfield:

"Annual income twenty pounds; annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence; result: happiness.

Annual income twenty pounds; annual expenditure twenty pounds and sixpence; result: misery."

[Wayne]

Ahh, that famous and oft-quoted recipe for happiness in the sage words of Mr Micawber in Charles Dickens' David Copperfield:

Yip - still works.
They knew a thing or two about poverty and personal responsibility back then.

[sparxNZ]

When I was an apprentice I started on $5.50 an hour.
I never desired any nice things. I was happy with a crappy car as long as it was reliable. Old clothes - no worries, they fit, they're comfy.
Cell phones weren't a thing then, but when they did become a thing I bought a simple one not the most expensive one you could get.
Most of my peers through that period made more money than me but many of them lived week to week because they spent it all. I lived comfortably. I never took a loan for anything that didn't make money.
A few years after I got trade qualified I jagged a job in the mining industry. I worked with guys in NZ who were on $100-$150K and were still poor because they just spent it all. Some of them were in debt with no assets.
I still stuck to the old "only borrow if it's for investment" rule.
I moved to Australia in 2008 and worked in the mines there, most the guys on my crew were making $180K plus benefits and super, about a $200K AUD package and believe it or not there were quite a few who were living week to week. wtf. One bloke just knocked his missus up time and time again until he had 6 kids under 6 years old and couldn't afford his mortgage, car and personal loan payments.
I stuck to my rules in Australia too.
I retired at 37.
Many of the guys I've worked with who earned more than me at the time and had more potential than me are still making the same poor choices. You can be poor no matter how much you earn if you're irresponsible or stupid, or if you just make poor choices that bake a certain amount of financial burden into your future.

[Perry]

Well done!

Ye olde saying:

Back then, he lived like most people wouldn't
So that now, he lives like most people can't.

And as we know, Labour would say:
It's just so unfair, isn't it?

[PC]

It's the old saying:
Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.

But it just doesn't fit with the socialists world view.

[Sportsvee]

Or the current saying: there's no place for personal responsibility here sunshine 😈