Yep, the bar is set that low for some folks.
when I worked at that same place -- the small construction company -- the general feeling amongst the employees (office staff and work crews) was that you SHOULD spend every dime you had before your next paycheck arrived. It was almost as if they believed they wouldn't be allowed another paycheck if they hadn't completely utilized their last one. I remember a conversation with my immediate supervisor (the one who always wrote checks against her paycheck before even receiving it) in which she talked about her son (who was in the military) buying an expensive sports car. She said she entirely approved of the purchase; she said she told him he SHOULD spend his money on something fun and frivolous now -- before he grew older, settled down and had bills to pay. I asked her if it wasn't wise to save from a young age, build a nest egg against the day he'd leave the military and want to buy a house -- she looked at me like I had two heads. Why would you save BEFORE you were ready to make a purchase?
The reason the bar is set low is because people don't get called on their fallacious reasoning often enough.
Disagree. I know people who run short each and every payday -- and those same people find themselves in full-on crisis mode because of things that should be expected:
The car needs new tires, the toddler had to go to the emergency room. Thing is, some people go through these things ALL THE TIME, yet they don't change their habits. I think the real issue is, The penalty for lack of preparedness is not high enough to bother them.
So I had to get a payday loan; it's not like that interest would've allowed me to retire anyway. So I had to ask my mother for money for the kids to have winter coats; she grumbled, but she gave it to me. Somehow, some way they make it through -- yet it doesn't bother them enough to change their habits.
The other thing is that a lot of people really don't "make a connection" between their spending and their financial security. It's crazy, but a lot of my low-academic students don't "make a connection" between attending school /studying /taking notes and their grades. They seem to think that passing or failing is
just kind of something that happens. Some people have all the luck, and they always pass -- not me; I fail sometimes -- no, it
couldn't be connected to my 16 absences and never taking home books. It's cause Mr. Jones hates me. I think these people grow up to think the same way about money.
(1) The "false dilemma" in which a person is forced to choose between two things as though they are the only option. The fallacy of the excluded middle, for example ("the answer must be black or white, there's no such thing as gray") excludes moderation and middle-of-the-road type options because only the extremes are valid.
I've heard that called Fallacy of Forced Choice. Teenagers love this in the classroom: If you don't extend the deadline for the paper, I will not graduate. No, if you do all the rest of the work, this missed paper will hurt you grade but not keep you from passing ... much less graduating.