Poor versus Broke
Poor and broke are two words a lot of people tend to use interchangably. They sound like they mean the same thing…but they don’t. I’ve been both poor as well as broke - often at the same time - and have discovered there is a huge difference!
Now, Dictionary.com doesn’t show the difference between broke and poor. That puzzled me, until I realized it is more a matter of connotation as opposed to denotation. The definition of “broke” I agree with: having no money. Yup, I been there…often think I am still there compared to others even though I know I shouldn’t be worrying about anyone else’s income or standard of living.
Poor is more slippery…defined as a state of poverty, lacking in money and resources (paraphrase). It’s a little more than just that: it’s a state of mind as well. Poor people tend to stay poor, have poor money handling skills, and have paltry to no savings. Yeah I have been there also…the first fifteen years of my adult life!
So, what brought this up? Other than yesterday’s introspective post? I was just at the grocery store, and walked down the cereal aisle! In that aisle are two cereals I ate as a kid when we were on WIC: Kaboom and King Vitamin. I hate them both. I have to keep my eyes straight forward and not look at them, or I start feeling poor again. It’s a gut-level, visceral reaction that I just am never comfortable with. Usually, I send my son down the cereal aisle and skip walking down it, but today I was out grocery shopping solo…so I had to go down the aisle to pick up son’s cereal.
Dave Ramsey said on his radio show last week that he can’t eat tuna fish, or even smell it, without feeling poor. Well I am cool with tuna fish, even the cheap cans of it (a favorite frugal meal of mine is macaroni and cheese with tuna fish and some vegetables like peas or corn thrown in).
I just can’t abide by that cheap nasty-tasting WIC cereal. Forget eating it or smelling it…just the sight of it brings back those feelings of financial insecurity…and the first thing I did when I got home was check my bank account balances to reassure myself. I guess the truth of the matter is I am afraid of becoming poor again. I wonder if that feeling will ever go away…especially since Dave Ramsey went broke over 20 years ago and still feels the same thing.
