This is pretty true. I'm always watching my sister-in-law, who can barely make ends meet, buy stupid shit. Big TV, new furniture that she can barely get credit approval for, clothes that have brands and logos on them that are twice as expensive as plain clothes that are usually better quality.
A lot of it looks like compensation for being on the poverty line. Like her self-esteem can't take the hit of buying the sensible items that she needs so she can get ahead. Doesn't realize she's getting in her own way.
I think culturally we're taught to have nice things and that becomes the goal instead of acting sensibly and doing the right things. Would probably need a couple of generations of kids who value a healthy savings account and an on-track budget more than whatever shiny things they encounter in the media they consume. That's a tall order
IME growing up on the poverty line and now working as a dev and living comfortably, I get serious guilt trips whenever I spend money I don't need to spend.
Having the valuable experience of earning a salary of 15K after graduating from college I very quickly learned to translate any expense into number of hours worked.
It’s easy to bust on people for buying TVs and cellphones but that’s not what is keeping them poor. The enormous cost of education, health care, housing, transportation; long term unemployment or underemployment, disability. This is what is keeping people down and why class mobility is so tough.
But she has a big screen TV so she’s irresponsible?
Well, yeah of course all of those things are important factors in what keeps people down. And all of those issues need to be addressed, and the solutions to those issues would probably help her situation immeasurably (aside from health care, we don't have to deal with that).
She is irresponsible though, and short of becoming deeply invested in discovering solutions to all the problems you stated, the best chance she has of helping herself is to become better at managing her own life.
I'm not trying to bust on anyone for buying a TV, I've been there. It's kind of a two sided problem. The really big side with all those societal and government issues, and the other side with the things that people can actually control
A lot of it looks like compensation for being on the poverty line. Like her self-esteem can't take the hit of buying the sensible items that she needs so she can get ahead. Doesn't realize she's getting in her own way.
I think culturally we're taught to have nice things and that becomes the goal instead of acting sensibly and doing the right things. Would probably need a couple of generations of kids who value a healthy savings account and an on-track budget more than whatever shiny things they encounter in the media they consume. That's a tall order