Who Are Budgets for, Anyway?

Budgets are not for me, I can say that much.

They are a way to manage money. How can someone manage what they don't have? I might as well learn about investing my money too. How about retirement funds? What a waste of my time.

If all of my money is going to bills, with less than nothing left over, what am I budgeting exactly? Some people try to make me feel guilty about it. The reason why you're so poor is because you are wasting your money and are not spending it wisely. 

Ex...cuse me.


I didn't know paying the rent, car insurance, and utility bills were optional. Didn't know I was wasting my money by paying them. There's one thing people with money don't understand. Just because a person is earning money doesn't mean that it's actually that person's. A poor person is just a middle man between a job that pays little and the necessary bills that demand more than what they make.

Well, you should just get a better job. Uh, so a person would need to take off work--losing money they could be earning in the process--and hunt for a job he or she has no experience for (remember, this person has only been working poor people jobs). This person probably has no connections (poor people know mostly other poor people) to get a foot in the door. In fact, the person would need to have connections just to hear about these jobs in the first place.

Have you tried spending less, using less electricity or living in a smaller place, for example? I'm sitting in a dark, cold place right now because I don't turn on the lights or heat during the day. How's that for you? Moreover, for most poor people, a step down from their current living situations is either a crack house or the street. That sounds like hyperbole, doesn't it? Well, you step into a poor person's house and the usual situation is that the roof leaks, there are large holes in the walls (and floors), the plumbing doesn't work at all, the electrical wiring is faulty, windows are missing, and it's vermin-infested. So when you ask if a person in this situation could lower the quality of life from this, you're asking a lot.

How can a poor person practically be on a budget?