Literally what russians were doing while being loud on internet about how sanctions don’t work. You can look foward to anti theft tags on bread soon.
What about shaving items and deodorant?
…yup done already.
And butter locked up
Odd to think if you can’t afford food now you could afford it later plus interest.
First off, I fully agree with you. But how people are lured in is that there is no interest if you pay on time, so it’s advertised as interest-free. But obviously the business model is built upon people not paying on time, and as such one should calculate that cost into it…
Also odd to think people can put off eating until they have the proper funds.
I am talking more about the people lending the money, not sure why they think this would be sound lending. People will do far worse then default on a loan to keep eating.
Money is like stamina - you usually have much more than you think, but accessing it is not without a serious toll. Extreme example - you can probably sell an organ to cover your debt. And there is a wide spectrum of things you can do before reaching that point, many of them crossing the legal, ethical, and humane border.
The original BNPL creditors are not going to make you do them. They need to be legitimate, customer-facing businesses. But they can sell your debt to collection agencies, which will be more willing to put pressure on you. And if that doesn’t work - there are always gray market collectors to sell it to.
Oh, I guess I was assuming the vast majority of these folks (I’m one of them actually) are using credit cards, so the loaners don’t really know ahead of time.
I can’t open the article (forbidden) but I am also assuming this is about the new DoorDash and others eat now pay later crap.
Yeah, “buy now, pay later” usually refers to installment plan services like Klarna and Afterpay. Credit card companies have a different business model.
The business model for those services is basically to do all the shady shit that credit companies can’t do anymore because they’ve been around long enough to become regulated.
Going back to the original point about thinking people will be able to pay later. I doubt that’s the goal. My impression is that their income is meant to come from two places:
- garnishing people’s wages forever and getting them on interest that they can never repay (won’t work on everyone, but maybe enough for margins)
- laundering and selling these subprime loans by bundling them with better loans, like the mortgage industry pre-2008
Steve Carrell: HEY… THERES A BUBBLE!
The people in power will soon come to realise we are all just 3 warm meals a day away from anarchy.
What kind of psychopath has three warm meals a day? You cook three times a day? Or do you eat out three times a day? I believe the latter to be more crazy.
I do share the intended sentiment however.Breakfast: Coffee and toast
Lunch: Toasted sandwich or reheated dinner leftovers
Dinner: Something home-cooked
As someone who usually prefers a hot meal over a cold one, that’s my standard fare. It’s not a crazy effort.
I’m more worried that they know
I keep on wondering who the fuck has the money to be using things like grubhub. I realize its a non sequitor for this article but I really don’t see how these businesses stay in business.
Credit card debt is a pathway to many abilities some would consider unnatural
I have used it a bunch over the years because I hate talking to people, but I never use delivery so I think it’s only a few extra dollars over calling it in in average, plus some places do offer “discounts” and Amazon prime allows grubhub premium for no charge which removes more fees and gives you credit for pickup orders. The discounts aren’t much but can bring it down to what it costs by phone and sometimes a little more. I used to throw a few bucks for tip, but i have decided not to do that anymore because I pickup and it’s mostly from pizza places which I wouldn’t tip if I call it in so why should I this way.
Of course, these days, I barely get takeout or go out anymore because, like the article talks about, money is too tight to reward yourself anymore…
My experience is that there’s always a hidden surcharge with DD or Uber eats. Like fries are $3 if you call it in yourself, but are $3.30 or something in an app. A couple years ago I had a $10 off $40 coupon and dash pass from my credit card. Total after fees for pickup was like $55 and just calling it in myself was $45.
Not saying it’s impossible to save using them, but good luck.
Yeah the place specific delivery is usually not to bad I mean in particular the internet ones like grubhub. Im sorta aware of the discounts but im fed up with that model. I do wonder if it will work for them long term as im not sure how many folks will do it without the discount whereas uber and airbnb that can sorta compete because they are a tax dodge there is no real tax advantage gurbhub and ilk can lean on to compete with folks just picking it up themselves. I think they are hoping to decimate the pizza and chinese places drivers.
People who don’t really understand credit cards or have a cognitive disconnect between cost and value when fulfilling their sustenance need.
When people get hangry they don’t make good choices.
Roaring 20’s pt 2
My neighbor gets everything delivered, but I have no clue what he or his wife do. If my spouse made the same as I do, we could afford to do all that delivery stuff. But it still makes no sense
I have friends that talk about getting food delivered nearly daily, plus groceries and whatnot. I am so frugal it makes my asshole pucker to think about delivery fees PLUS them getting your order wrong so often PLUS the food is cold and takes way longer than simply driving there. And then in addition, we actually need the human contact. But I’m not gonna criticize my friends to their faces. Just here.
That seems backwards to me, I would absolutely tell my friends if I thought their life choices were harmful.
Same. If my spouse made the same as me and did not have all the medical issues I guess I could but we would not. Likely would just live in a nicer place.
never understood this. If you can’t buy it now will you be able to.pay later?! You need groceries every month
If you are at the point where you are buying grocoeries in installments, who cares about paying it back. What good is a good credit score if you cant afford to buy anything anyways. Just survive any way you can at that point
Cost of living is too high, put it on credit.
Your alternative is starve now.
Either way, this is about to get a lot more bonkers in roughly the next 30 to 60 days as Just In Time delivery… kinda just, stops working, and grocery stores will have to both raise prices and ration items per customer per week to deal with shortages and try to minimize in-store injuries and deaths.
Go look up a compilations of black friday shopping stampedes.
Imagine that, but for groceries, every time a grocery store restocks… for the forseeable future.
That’s probably part of why the capital class want fascism. Because if that happens in a democracy, they would have their capital expropriated.
Historically speaking, basically, yes, the capitalist class essentially always sides with a nascent fascist movement as it is opposed to making any truly meaningful concessions to workers.
But it is important to note that fascism is, or arises from… an ostensible capitalist democracy … in decay.
It arises as a reaction to the over exploitation of the capitalists.
The fascists are always incompetent idiots at actually running anything, actual policy… beyond being brutally indimidating and violent bullies.
But! They promise growth and stability.
Morons believe them. Many of these morons… are the capitalists.
This works well for a while, but eventually, fascist mismanagement leads to the capitalists actually having a whole bunch of their businesses collapse, as the economy broadly suffers, or maybe its war time babyyyy and oh well turns out that its also bad to fund endless foreign invasions and/or be invaded yourself.
But, by then, its too late.
The capitalists sided with the fascists initially, to avoid structural concessions to workers… but now that everything is fucked, and/or dear leader / the party has some incomprehensible zany nonsense plan… well now the capitalists mostly get either outright or functionally nationalized, and lose even more than if they had just gone with the comparatively more minor concessions to workers.
Poison chalice.
Prisoner’s Dilemma, game theoretic suboptimal outcome, that humanity just keeps replicating with minor variations and new flavors.
Thank you for the explanation. I hope it doesn’t turn into nuclear war. What’s happening in India and Pakistan doesn’t look good.
Yeah… fingers crossed, I guess.
Can you elaborate on this? Just In Time delivery? Is this a US thing?
Edit: okay, I looked it up and I understand it now. The ripple effect already happened though when big box stores told Trump to fuck off with the tariffs, because their shelves are empty.
Yeah, put super simply:
Minimize needed actual storage space and time a thing spends in storage… by relying on very frequent and consistent logistics.
Its very efficient in the sense of minimizing operating costs…
But it is also extremely fragile, a minor perturbation can fuck shit up for weeks or months.
… And we are getting… well basically the most major disruption in the history of JIT as a logistics paradigm.
Really thought we would have learned that JIT is a horrible strategy after covid… That was only a few years ago…
America follows Seinfeld rules:
No hugging.
No learning.
… Larry David is even writing poignant political satire pieces just right in the New York Times now!
There was an episode of Comedians in Cars like a decade ago now, Jerry just muses something like… God, is NYC just gonna be nothing but corporate coffee shops and banks?
Yes. Yep. That is what happened.
If you’re living paycheck to paycheck, it takes one unexpected expense and suddenly you’re hustling to get food on the table. The cycle then repeats itself.
I’ve been there. It’s expensive to be poor with little to no way out.
You need a car to work. Cars are expensive. You get a old clunker.
You work and live check to check. Maybe $50 or $100 left over after taxes and expenses. Not really possible to have an emergency fund.
A single injury or car breaking down and you need to borrow money. From family, friends or some shitty company.Oh and then your yearly raise comes around at $1/hr that barely covers your rent increasing let alone inflation.
The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. … A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. … But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socio-economic unfairness.
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Yep. This tracks.
My issue now with products is planned obsolescence. Any things aren’t made to last like they used to. They also have extra technology in them making them harder to repair. Appliances, cars and more.
Whoops some bill auto-drafted unexpectedly
Your account is negative now, oh and throw a $25 fee on top.
Looks like you’re scrounging for dinner tonight. And the rest of the week. Maybe skip some meals because you have no choice.
Shit sucks ass.
Once I bounced a check to our water company and they refused to take checks or credit cards from me for a YEAR as a punishment. It was a one-time accident after paying on time for around seven years. I literally had to drive my ass down there with cash. It’s a small rural water service, not a big corporation - they chose to be complete assholes even after I explained the situation (we had a baby that month and forgot a monthly $ transfer in the chaos).
Same mistake probably cost us $120 in overdraft fees. Society financially punishes people who need money the most and rewards the people who have plenty. It’s ridiculous.
I once had my electricity bill bounce, and they forced me to pay a deposit of $250. So the amount I owed went from $100 to $350. Plus a late fee. And they never return the deposit until I had paid on time for 2 years.
That was a bad time.
Get a less shitty bank
Getting a checking account with no overdraft fees is definitely a plus in those situations
Recurring charges like utility bills are often processed regardless of overdraft protection status - ultimately at the bank’s discretion, and you can be sure they’ll pick the option that gets them the most fees. Overdraft protection only seems to stop you from using your card for a new transaction with insufficient funds.
Yeah I meant banks that allow overdraft but charge no fees, Ally for example.
Using a credit card is also a good option, just as long as the budget is managed correctly to avoid running up more and more debt.
Peanut butter and bread it is!
Food banks are a godsend in these situations. Don’t donate money. Find a local community center that offers assistance and donate foodstuffs. Things like rice, canned beans and mixed veggies are always welcome.
From what I understand food banks would rather your money than those nasty old cans in the back of the pantry
Actually, yes. Donate what food you can, but I promise they have enough cans of beans, bags of rice, etc to last until Jesus comes. Especially because different areas have different people - one local pantry might just need a little bit of everything, while another one on the north side of your city needs a lot of vegetarian and halal options because of the people it serves in that area. Especially, donating money lets that food bank get things that aren’t strictly necessary, but can make life that much more bearable - pastries, cookies, candy, snack foods, etc. Sure, it’s not healthy and I can hear you all sighing from here, but imagine this is your sole source of food for the month. Having a package of shelf-stable Little Debbies or whatever can seriously make your day just a little more bearable, instead of going “oh boy beans and rice for the 23rd time this month.”
Dog and cat foods are good things to donate, also sanitary items.
I understand the need but you just push the snowball hoping for a miracle.
Then you’ve never been poor and living paycheck to paycheck.
There are times when it’s either find a loan from someone or not eat for two weeks because something in your house broke and that’s unfortunately a reality for many Americans including myself at one time.
I understnd financing. The problem is financing groceries. So you cover the unexpected and finance groceries. what about next month?! Unless you get a way to make more money to cover the difference you going ro have to finance again plus interests
Welcome to the Sam Vimes Theory of Socioeconomic Unfairness.
That’s the kind of choice of surviving that comes with living while poor in America that happens way, way too often.
Girl, if they don’t eat they won’t make it to next month! This isn’t a financial decision, it’s a survival decision.
Some people don’t have the option, and end up relying on these services. It’s similar to the payday loan trap. Being poor is expensive.
Capitalism isn’t paying enough for workers to live off of and they system is papering over it with debt. Problem is debt isn’t a sustainable way to do it since it has to get paid back. We’ve been seeing sketchier and sketchier things happening in finance and when these loans don’t get repaid (and this article is a sign we’re getting close) the whole house or cards comes tumbling down
The idea is that if you are throwing a party or buying something big, then this will be useful for those purchases.
It isn’t a good idea, though.
Probably should not be throwing parties when they are poor
Yeah man, fuck people just trying to throw a birthday party for their kid. People need to suffer more
Also living miserly won’t actually get you out of poverty so what’s the point?
You can’t not live life. You can’t budget your way out of poverty
yes, however you absolutely can budget yourself into it.
I get 5% cash back for using ny credit card to buy groceries. I use the card and pay it off every payday. Free money.
Those benefits are usually your own money + the money of those who fail to make payments since merchants have to increase their prices to compensate for credit card fees.
They indirectly steal from you, launder the funds and present it back to you as a “benefit”, but only if you’ve been a good boy.
This is a similar principle to modern loyalty programs. In exchange for your personal information and your eyes (advertising), you get to pay slightly above the regular price and accumulate ✨points✨ while other schmos get a jacked up price that pays for your points (or the value of your points is built into the price of the items you purchase).
Not exactly. Card benefits come directly from fees charged to merchants, which is why processing fees vary wildly from card to card and the merchant has no clue what their fees are going to be per transaction (though this is starting to change with services like Stripe charging a flat percentage+ transaction fee). Interest and the like are pure profit for CC companies. You as the cardholder receive the benefits even if you carry a balance.
I think a lot of people don’t realize what a big piece merchant fees are. This is why so many places just don’t take AmEx.
https://www.bankrate.com/credit-cards/business/why-american-express-isnt-universally-accepted/#why
“Visa and Mastercard tend to charge credit card processing fees between 1.15 percent + $0.05 and 2.5 percent + $0.10 per transaction. American Express charges 1.43 percent + $0.10 to 3.30 percent + $0.10 per transaction. That means if a business sells $10,000 in credit card transactions per week, they could pay around $115 to $250 in Visa and Mastercard fees versus around $143 to $330 in Amex fees.”
Now that CapOne is trying to buy Discover, I have no idea what that will mean…
and since you’re paying through the cost of groceries etc whether you get the benefits or not, you may as well get the benefits
Yes precisely, and merchants increase their prices to account for those unknown processing fees since it varies wildly from card to card.
If you carry a balance, you will pay interest, hence reducing the value of your rewards.
The people who subsidize rewards are customers paying cash/debit.
The prices are higher to cover the Visa Infinite or whatever premium card merchant fees.
Absolutely, they get shafted the most.
Putting food on layaway?
So much winning /s
I grow a lot of my food in a fairly small space, and it’s quite easy. There’s also a community garden a few blocks away. Everything else is avoiding corporate supermarkets as they seem to have the worst quality at the highest price for meats, baked goods, etc. So I’m rarely doing a grocery shop and notice my money goes much slower.
If you’re struggling to get groceries, assess your receipt and look for alternatives. Reducing spend while increasing quality is definitely a thing with staples.
