“In a world where only the strong survive, only the strong survive,” — Starship Amazing.
Despite the comical nature of the song title by the chiptune synthpop duo from Anchorage, Alaska, you can’t but see the truth in it. Living entails a lot of struggle in order to survive.
And it doesn’t matter where you live—living in a progressive and civilized part of the world doesn’t save people from being poor and living in poverty. But not all hope is lost.
Redditors have been discussing this, in the form of an r/AskReddit thread where user u/Metforming[Runs] asked those who used to be poor, but have managed to make it big(ger) in life, to share products, activities, or just things that they can now afford, but ones that made them realize they should be available to all, regardless of financial status, like a human right.
One modest handful of upvotes later, the post drew some attention and generated enough good points to get the internet talking about the things that actually matter.
Bored Panda invites you to read though the best responses from the AskReddit thread, upvote the ones you loved the most, ponder life, share your thoughts, ponder some more and (optional) share some more in that order. Or just share the things you think should be in this list in the comment section below!
More Info: Reddit
#1 Women’s Hygiene Product Availablity
This is a little TMI but I just noticed how many “fancy” pads I use now that I can afford them. When I was making barely enough to afford rent, I would buy the cheapest pads and try to wear them for as long as possible. Female hygiene wasn’t really taught well to me and my feminine health was just never taken seriously.
So I think I used maybe 3 pads a day? I didn’t realize that I was allergic to the material and had a lot of skin issues because of that, as well. I just thought it was part of the “pain of having a period.” Never even tried the fancy pads.
The first thing I bought when I had more money were the “fancy” pads.. just to try them. The kind made with special, hypoallergenic material and has no bleach. I go through like 10 a day just because I want a clean one every hour. It’s f*****g insane how much my experience with a period has changed.
Oh, and good f*****g toilet paper.
Image source: Metformin[Runs], Sora Shimazaki
#2 Having Space
Dr_Julian_Helisent said:
Space. I grew up sharing beds and bedroom with three other sisters. Imagine four kids shoved into a queen bed. Now I have a 1500sqft home and only share my bedroom/bed with my husband because I want to. It’s so freeing
Blackrose06 replied:
As an introvert, having my own space for the first time felt like the biggest luxury. It was a small one bedroom apartment but it was luxury to have it all to myself.
Image source: Dr_Julian_Helisent, Kelly Quinn
#3 Veterinarian Services
My dog got hurt last week. Rushed her to the emergency vet. She got some stitches. The bill came to $800.
As I slipped our debit card in the pinpad, I turned to my husband and said “honestly, I can’t believe that’s our bank card and we’re not scrambling to check if we can split it between our remaining Discover balances.”
Puppy is doing fine now :)
Image source: lizard_ladder, Travis Wise
#4 Free Time
The biggest thing for me is just free time. At one point I was working 7days a week. My weekday job barely paid enough to pay my bills. I needed the weekend job so I could afford groceries, gasoline, and other necessities. It was brutal there for a bit; the only days off I had were when one of my jobs was closed for a holiday. There’s a lot more detail about this but to keep a long story short, I was hired by a job that pays me enough that I only need the one. Having time on my weekends back has done so much to increase my quality of life.
Image source: scholasticsprint, Chris Winters
#5 Buying Better Things
Being able to buy higher quality items That last 4x longer. I remember grocery shopping and I could get double the amount of food for 20% more which would be so cost effective but just couldn’t afford that extra 20%
Poor people aren’t bad with money, they just don’t have enough to make the ‘smart’ financial choices. We know that it’s cost effective to spend a few more dollars, we just don’t have the dollars.
Image source: Ill_Task_257, Shareef Taliparamba
#6 Access To Dental Care
Dizzy_Sprinkles_9294 said:
Dental care. And happiness.
dragongrrrrrl replied:
DENTAL CARE!!! It is so important! The more I learn about how much dental care is connected to physical health problems…it just blows my mind. Plus, your teeth are like the one part of your body that can’t fix itself even a little bit.
Image source: Dizzy_Sprinkles_9294, SunnyView Dental Follow
#7 Social Life
A social life….
That sounds dramatic but I was paying for my own toiletries and clothing by the time I was 12. I remember looking around at my classmates in highschool and thinking they were “silly” and “immature” because I left at noon to go work at McDonald’s and help feed my family. I wasn’t in clubs, I didn’t go to my prom, I just worked.
Now I graduated college and have a decent job and for the first time ever I can regularly hang out with friends or just read a book or something. Rest and Fun are not luxuries. They are necessities.
Image source: Beautiful_Tomato7754, patilincortes
#8 Enough Food And Warmth
Ha-bah-bah said:
Being warm and being able to eat till your full
Used to freeze all night, had tensions in the shoulders/back because I would shake most of the time.
lolarent replied:
On the flip side, I love the luxury of not having to eat every last bite because “food is expensive, you need to eat it all up!”. If I’m full, I will stop eating now.
whattheefftiff replied:
Yes, HEAT! We’d frequently have stretches without heat growing up and now I’m like “I don’t care what the bill is, I am gonna prance around this house in shorts and a tank even when it’s 10 degrees out”
Image source: Ha-bah-bah, ACM Design Architects
#9 Healthy Food
msstark said:
Healthy food. I’d go weeks on frozen meals and grilled cheese, and was severely underweight.
Animasylvania replied:
Seriously. I just realized today that the reason I might have gotten so ridiculously sick from a common virus when I was a teenager was because I was being neglected and didn’t have the food I needed.
It really messed me up and I still have health problems from back then… I just think it’s wild how much growing up in poverty/neglect can impact the rest of your life.
Sorry to ramble. I just put this together today and I’m kind of pissed.
Image source: msstark, www.Pixel.la Free Stock Photos
#10 Good Footwear
HeidiFree said:
Good shoes. Such a difference in how your feet and legs feel. Sad they are at least 100 dollars these days.
Agonist28 replied:
Not always having holes in my shoes is new for me now. I still get the $30sh dollar ones but I can buy a new pair every couple of years instead of every 5 or so.
It took a long time to not brace for impact when it started raining or if the sidewalk was wet. Walking with warm dry feet in the rain still feels like magic.
Image source: HeidiFree, Chris Gladis
#11 Buying In Bulk
Something that hasn’t been mentioned yet is items in bulk. Buying in bulk saves you money but the problem is having that “extra” money to buy everything in mass quantities. It’s so helpful when you have multiple people using supplies and eating food but not everyone can front that extra in order to buy more to save money. So they have to spend more to get less. It’s a vicious cycle and I hate it. I buy everything I can in bulk from feminine products, toilet paper, and certain foods. It saves so much and you also have to have the space to store it all…..Which leads to someone else’s comment about having more space.
EDIT: to add, when I was growing up we were too poor to afford to buy in bulk at places like Costco and Sam’s Club so this stuck out to me. I use to by my clothing at the dollar store, so no big bag of toilet paper for us.
Image source: SkitzoFlamingo, Tim Patterson
#12 Having The Right Bra
Going to a boutique (not mall brand) bra shop and getting properly fitted for a bra.
So many women wear the wrong size. I was one of them. I wore what sorta fit and was cheap. The amount I was “off” on my sizing was astonishing.
The first time I did this, I could only afford a single bra. And that was the best fitting bra I had ever owned to that point. Seemed like such a “luxury” to do this but now see that it is/was absolutely worth it to spend a few more $ on a proper bra in my proper size.
Image source: GooseOnTheLoose0, Martijn van Exel
#13 Not Having To Improvise Your Own Hygiene Products
I grew up in poverty in the north of England. My dad couldn’t afford feminine hygiene products so I would have to improvise, and he couldn’t afford to keep the house stocked with food.
I now love having access to feminine hygiene products whenever I need them, and full cupboards. I made do with what I could before, I was very young when my dad’s financial struggles started and just accepted that we couldn’t afford to do certain things.
It’s very, very different to how I grew up. The heating is a big one too. If I’m cold, I can put the heating on. More often than not there would be no money on the metre at home to do that when I was young.
Image source: SeekingBeskar, Anna Shvets
#14 Being Able To Pay The Bills
I’ve said this to my friends several times. But my luxury is knowing that the bills are paid and I don’t have to juggle money. Having the weight of all that worry and anxiety removed from your shoulders is so liberating.
Image source: SomeNeedleworker321, Stephen Dann
#15 Access To Laundry
groovy_woovy said:
I’m not even “middle class”, but easy access to laundry. I’m not even talking having an in-unit washer/dryer (which seems like a pipe dream, lmao), but even having a washer/dryer in the same building is vital.
cstaylor6 replied:
Having a in home w/d is seriously a whole life changer. My washer leaks but even with the clean up it’s way easier than going to the Mat.
Friday-Cat replied:
God yes! I used to take my underwear into the shower with me and wash them and anything else I could hand wash because I didn’t have laundry and and had to take everything out to the laundromat, which I did as infrequently as possible. I would re-wear pants and skirts several times and probably I smelled. I now was pretty much everything after a single use and having unlimited access to laundry has been life changing.
Image source: groovy_woovy, Kelly
#16 Pain Medication
Raindrops_on_r0ses said:
Medicines (like Tylenol or Pepcid)! Growing up they were unnecessary because you can tough it out.
Metformin[Runs] replied:
Woah, this is such a big one. When I had to go to the doctor a few years ago.. she looked at me like I was crazy for not taking any pain medication for what I was going through.
She said, and I quote, “You don’t have to live your life unmedicated. When you finally get medicine, you’ll see the massive difference.”
Image source: Raindrops_on_r0ses, Mike Mozart
#17 Grocery Shopping Without Worry
samjski said:
Going to the grocery store and not having to budget, put things back or decide between two items.
patpatpat_pat replied:
When my wife and I were in our early 20’s, not married yet, barely scrounging every penny to barely (and not always) get by, we had to budget groceries to a fucking T. We lived next to 4 different grocery stores, and we knew how much certain groceries cost at each one. Keep in mind, this is based on 2013 pricing, but we would have to get produce at the 99 cents store (basically an ultra dollar store that had groceries), meat at Albertsons (cheaper there for some reason), certain condiments and drinks at Kroger w/ our card, and the rest at Winco or Walmart. We were having to feed both of us for about $150/mo and we weren’t getting assistance (idk why, we should have).
I often forget about this type of thing and the absolute convenience it is to walk into whatever grocery store I have the willpower to get myself to and just…. get what I need. I don’t even really splurge. Those days scarred me. I’m not even rich now, just mid/upper middle class. I take this for granted so much. I remember how we would have arguments because a brand name (that half the time was the same thing), wasn’t as good, and we couldn’t budget the extra .75 cents for the real thing.
Image source: samjski, Wendy Harman
#18 Water
Being able to use water just once. I grew up I’m the Arizona desert and we didn’t have a well. So, we had to haul water from a business that would let us use their well for a fee. So, ever drop had to be used multiple times. Washing water was used to flush the toilet with a bucket or water the garden, etc. Toilets weren’t flushed until they were almost overfill. Not having to worry about whether there will be water to drink or wash with is huge.
Image source: Icy-Cheesecake8828, Shawn Henning
#19 Quality Healthcare
Quality healthcare providers, dental and eye care, my own place, not worrying about having to choose between food or my health, ability to relax and not be in survival mode all the time, buying new clothes and shoes, being able to take off work, escaping abusive situations.
Image source: wanderingwriter__, The IET
#20 Health And Hygiene In General
– New beds and pillows : ours had been passed down since my mother was a child.
– an education: I worked instead of going to school so my parents wouldn’t lose our house. I regret it daily and would never subject my children to that. But let’s be honest, I’m not having children.
– doctors appointments : like not just for emergencies, which we rarely went to unless it got out of control or we were dying, but I mean check ups, shots, antibiotics for infections etc. we typically healed but I have some lifelong damage from others.
– the freaking dentist : this was a luxury in our house. We could not afford check ups let alone braces or root canals. So I was 27 before I went to my first dentist. It took eight weeks of every Monday going in for them to work on a new area of teeth. Cost me thousands to fix but thankfully it was fixable for the most part.
– fruits and veggies : a human needs to eat more than the least expensive canned food and microwave meals. My parents both worked two jobs with 9 kids between the two of them. They couldn’t do better. Thankfully they’re much more well off now that we’re all adults and out of the home. But my mom still finds eating veggies difficult. They mess with her stomach. It changed how her body breaks down food. Thankfully I love them because they’re like candy, something I never got at as a kid but really wanted.
– new shoes every six months to a year until you’re an adult. Kids feet grow too quickly not to. I have messed up feet now. We all scrunched into what we could and passed down what we could. We made it work and only the eldest got new after a long struggle trying desperately not to need new shoes.
If I think of any more I’ll add an edit. I’m one of 9 and only two of us escaped poverty. “Anyone can escape poverty but not everyone can.”
Image source: Acceptable_Banana_13, Quinn Dombrowski
#21 Private Bathroom
Altruistic_Peach_791 said:
A bathroom I don’t share with 4 other people.
fkntiredbtch replied:
Shared a house with 11 people growing up. When my husband and I got married I told him I would only share a bathroom with him if there were two sinks, otherwise his bathroom would be the guest bathroom.
Image source: Altruistic_Peach_791, Hotel Le Plaza
#22 Warm Clothes
phonehome186 said:
Warm clothes for winter and a good wintercoat.
tvp204 replied:
I bought myself a new coat last year when I was 26. First new coat since I was 11 or 12. I’m so much warmer now it’s not even funny.
MyLife-is-a-diceRoll replied:
Postmark has literally saved my freezing a&s the past couple winters.
I just picked up a used higher end ski jacket for dirt cheap to replace the snowboarding parka I managed to find a couple years ago.
Image source: phonehome186, Live Once Live Wild
#23 Having Enough Food
Just having three meals a day, I can now buy/eat whatever I want. Venezuela 2014-2016 was tough. Another I can think of, are haircuts and proper outfits. Is hard to adapt to whatever the cheapest clothing is
Image source: BenitoCameloU, SnugglePilot
#24 Car Insurance
Car insurance. I was able to buy a beater after years of savings but spending $70 a month was damn near impossible. I drove like a little old lady and still have a fear of traffic cops even when I’m doing nothing wrong.
Image source: Wonderful_Row8519, Luca Masters
#25 Having Clothes That Fit
Having clothes that fit. Growing up most of our clothes came from yard sales or stores that sold “irregular” clothing. My bras never ever fit and most days I would have welts in my skin from wearing them all day. I didn’t have new clothes until I started making my own money.
Image source: PhotosByVicky, allispossible.org.uk
#26 Hair Conditioner And Body Wash
Hair conditioner & body wash.
Growing up in poverty meant only having access to cheap drugstore shampoo at best, or dish soap at worst… my skin and hair is much happier for having the extra products these days!
Image source: Ghost_toys, Lars Plougmann
#27 Affording An Expert
The ability to pay an expert to do things for me. For instance, my sink broke recently and I was able to pay a plumber to come replace it instead of having to do it myself. I picked the sink I wanted and within an hour it was installed and everything was cleaned up. It would have taken me a day or two to figure everything out myself to make the repairs, and the work wouldn’t have been done as well. There are so many things I learned to do because I couldn’t afford to have an expert do them and being able to trust a professional to install things is such a huge relief. There are a lot of tweaks I want to make to my house, and I can plan and budget to have a professional build a pantry or install drywall, and the results will be so much faster and nicer than if I have to do it myself. It’s a huge change from being poor and having to do things clumsily with the cheapest possible materials and hating the results.
Image source: chiefladydandy, viviandnguyen_
#28 A Proper Jacket
a good, high quality jacket. it seems a little silly but going from sweatshirts to many years later, a high end jacket to keep me warm in the winter honestly made me sad how I wasn’t able to afford one when I was younger because I could’ve been so much warmer.
alas, I’m incredibly thankful I have one now
Image source: kaminloveyou, Laura
#29 House Cleaners
House cleaners. Even just once a month if that’s all you can afford but especially if you want to live in a clean home but are too overloaded mentally to clean.
Not only is it a time saver, allowing you to spend time on other things, but often they clean things you don’t get to because you’re so busy trying to keep up. Also a lot of mental health issues get in the way of cleaning. My house cleaners add to my mental well being.
Image source: Hes9023
#30 Car Ownership
Having a car. I no longer need to walk 10 blocks to get groceries and then carry everything back with my bare hands.
Image source: alivebutawkward, Erica Fischer
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