"Inadequate income and persistent poverty have always been the most formidable obstacles to asset development.... If every dollar is going to necessities, saving and investing are impossible."
~ Betsy Leondar-Wright et al.
I don't know about you, but the top three expenses in my household every month are debt, housing, and food -- in that order. So imagine if I never had enough earning power for banks to extend credit to me in the first place; I wouldn't be able to accrue debt, so my biggest expenses would be housing and food. Now imagine I didn't make quite enough to cover the cost of housing and food, or made just barely enough to cover those basic needs... the first fever or cough that starts going around can easily wipe out any meager savings I've managed to stash away.
When there isn't enough money to go around, families are faced with two options: increase their income, or decrease their expenses. The best practice is a combination of both. Typically, wage raises are tied to yearly performance, so families could be waiting as much as 12 months for any type of increase, and possibly receive just 3% to cover "cost of living" increases at that. So they aren't really getting ahead, they're actually staying behind as the price of goods, services, commodities, and taxes will rise faster than wages. Wages chase inflation, so families often can't get ahead by staying in the same jobs waiting for a yearly raise.
The government does offer assistance to families who are the least fortunate among us, but not every family qualifies, and assistance can be cut off if families begin to bring in additional income, forcing them right back to square one.
I'm not here to fix policy problems like these. That's beyond my scope of control at this time. But what I can do is offer helpful life hacks to decrease a family's food expenses to help smooth the transition when government assistance begins to cut back.
That's how HUGS can help society today -- by teaching America's impoverished families to create their own sustainable gardens, cultivate a sense of self-reliance, and harvest an abundance of natural resources.
~ Betsy Leondar-Wright et al.
I don't know about you, but the top three expenses in my household every month are debt, housing, and food -- in that order. So imagine if I never had enough earning power for banks to extend credit to me in the first place; I wouldn't be able to accrue debt, so my biggest expenses would be housing and food. Now imagine I didn't make quite enough to cover the cost of housing and food, or made just barely enough to cover those basic needs... the first fever or cough that starts going around can easily wipe out any meager savings I've managed to stash away.
When there isn't enough money to go around, families are faced with two options: increase their income, or decrease their expenses. The best practice is a combination of both. Typically, wage raises are tied to yearly performance, so families could be waiting as much as 12 months for any type of increase, and possibly receive just 3% to cover "cost of living" increases at that. So they aren't really getting ahead, they're actually staying behind as the price of goods, services, commodities, and taxes will rise faster than wages. Wages chase inflation, so families often can't get ahead by staying in the same jobs waiting for a yearly raise.
The government does offer assistance to families who are the least fortunate among us, but not every family qualifies, and assistance can be cut off if families begin to bring in additional income, forcing them right back to square one.
I'm not here to fix policy problems like these. That's beyond my scope of control at this time. But what I can do is offer helpful life hacks to decrease a family's food expenses to help smooth the transition when government assistance begins to cut back.
That's how HUGS can help society today -- by teaching America's impoverished families to create their own sustainable gardens, cultivate a sense of self-reliance, and harvest an abundance of natural resources.
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