More Americans are financing groceries with buy now, pay later loans — and more are paying those bills late, survey says
More Americans are financing groceries with buy now, pay later loans — and more are paying those bills late, survey says
Consumers are using buy now, pay later plans to pay for essentials such as groceries, as concerns around the economy grow.
You're viewing a single thread.
never understood this. If you can't buy it now will you be able to.pay later?! You need groceries every month
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.
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.
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.
Pads and tampons are always needed.
Socks, razors and soap too.
Get a less shitty bank
Thankfully, Obama did away with the onerous overdraft schemes that banks were doing... Oh wait nevermind, Trump just rolled that back.
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.
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.
I understand the need but you just push the snowball hoping for a miracle.
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.
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.
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.
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
edit: I'm sorry, I'm not american and I was trying to understand some decision. I get it
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.
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.
I am sure they are well aware of the issues with what they're doing... It's just desperation. They likely have kids to feed and shit.
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
Capitalism isn’t paying enough for workers to live off of and they system is papering over it with debt.
There is also zero incentive to change any of this because it's win/win for the people at the top: They get to underpay their workers (more money for them), and then they (or some others in their class) make absolute fortunes on selling and perpetuating that debt.
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.
This has major, "they shouldn't be buying steak with food stamps" vibes.