Learning what you can afford is a hard skill that no one teaches

Figuring out which vital expenses you can live without is a stressful, sometimes soul-crushing task for anyone who’s had to live paycheck to paycheck. But it comes with one bitter “silver lining.” You never have to figure out what optional things you can afford. Should you buy a Tesla, or is a brand-new Kia more in your budget? It doesn’t matter because you can’t afford either. Does it make more sense to buy a console or build a gaming PC? When you don’t have money for either, there’s no need to spend time worrying about it.

Being in this position for a long time can leave an educational scar. Learning to comparison shop or to create a budget can be skills that get overlooked. If someone spends a couple of decades buying the cheapest food because that was what they could afford, the task of learning which foods have the most nutrients and what they need to make cooking easier — once they can afford to do so — might be overwhelming.

Some research suggests that there’s a link between those who are poorer off financially and those who are less financially literate. While one interpretation of this data is that people are poorer off because they’re less financially literate, the inverse can be true just as often. Being poor means not having the ability to make financial choices; you simply have to throw money at whichever bill is most overdue today. When you lack that level of control, learning the “best” way to spend money becomes an irrelevant skill. The choices are made for you by the situation you find yourself in.

You might’ve heard of the boots theory of economic unfairness, which suggests that being poor can be more expensive because you can’t afford to buy better quality items that last. In my own life, this was true in a literal sense. While working as a cart pusher at Walmart, I went through shoes quickly from the hours of walking on pavement every day. Every few months, my shoes would be so worn down that my toes would get burned on the asphalt during the summer.

Yet, I made so little that I could justify only spending $20 or so on a pair of shoes. Saving for a “good” pair would mean living potentially for months with shoes that weren’t fit to do my job. I got into the habit of buying cheap shoes and, for years after I left that job for better paying ones, I never stopped. Thankfully the shoes lasted longer once I no longer worked outdoors on my feet, but I would continue to buy cheap shoes and wear them until they had holes in them. Plus a few weeks more.