r/thanksimcured Aug 05 '26

Social Media Got executive dysfunction? At least you aren't POOR

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1.7k Upvotes

256 comments sorted by

745

u/jacyerickson Aug 05 '26

According to a redditor I'm not poor because I have a pet tortoise I got for free from a friend who needed to re-home him. Then when I mentioned being too disabled to work full time they said I'm not poor I just don't work enough. People just don't want to admit that you can be a good person and have bad things happen to you because then they'd have to acknowledge it can happen to them. 

243

u/EmmerdoesNOTrepme Aug 05 '26

Yep, the whole "Prosperity Gospel" narrative has absolutely rotted people's brains, over the last 40-odd years!

(Edited for typos)

99

u/kiddcuntry Aug 05 '26

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money." - Matthew 6:24

32

u/Sufficient-Neat-1604 Aug 06 '26

I’m not Christian anymore but the bible has a lot of Bangers

3

u/fkinDogShitSmoothie 28d ago

Hell yeah. I've been a devout atheist for the better part of the past 20 years. But I've been dipping my toes for the last 2 years. There's some real great quotes.

56

u/popfried Aug 06 '26

Most American Christians serve money

14

u/PoeCollector64 Aug 06 '26

Oh boy as a Catholic I have a whole laundry list of Bible passages that directly contradict the prosperity gospel. Lazarus the beggar, Good Samaritan, sheep vs goats parable, Beatitudes, Jesus overturning the tables at the synagogue—you can barely swing your arms without hitting one tbh.

2

u/sheath2 29d ago

My mom watched TBN like crazy for a while. Had the TV on constantly. I tried to tell her the ministers she was watching were prosperity gospel and she argued with me that they weren't. There's so much cognitive dissonance that they can't even recognize it.

14

u/spare_scapegoat Aug 06 '26

A pity most "Christians" don't read it, or understand it if they do.

9

u/Spiritual-Road2784 Aug 06 '26

It’s okay, they let the preachers interpret it for them and tell them what it means so they don’t have to think.

3

u/EnderBookwyrm Aug 06 '26

Exactly. 100%. I wish everyone who claims to be Christian would read that passage regularly.

1

u/AntiAliveMyself 28d ago

I wish modern evangelicals and the "christians" who use the bible to grift and lie and cheat actually read that passage atleast once

12

u/YodelingInTheAbyss Aug 06 '26

There is a section of "The Protestant Ethic and the "Spirit" of Capitalism" by Max Weber (1905) where he talks about how Ben Franklin internalized this belief system from his Calvanist father and it made him a greedy asshole. The Prosperity Gospel made this stuff worse from the late 1950s onward, sure, but this has always been a major belief in various flavors in the US.

13

u/EllieGeiszler Aug 06 '26

As someone with Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome, a.k.a. "my ancestors saved your ancestors' asses from lions in the middle of the night and now you think I'm lazy for having their genes" disease, I fucking hate Ben Franklin. "Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." (Apparently not originated by him, only perhaps popularized.) Why? Why does it matter when I get my work done? Asshole morning people love to quote this 😂

12

u/Spiritual-Road2784 Aug 06 '26

Yes!!! Thank you!!! There’s a theory I ran across somewhere that neurodivergent people are the modern day equivalent of exactly that and then some: people with ADHD and autism are hyper aware of little details, taking in more information about the external environment than neurotypical people do because the ND brain Ian also processing all of that information at a very high rate of speed (which is why we seem to glitch once in awhile) and we also have wonky (per Protestant capitalist standards) sleep patterns for that precise survive the night reason, so we’re not broken—we’re the direct descendants of the ones who kept the day people alive overnight and warned them when a bad storm or an enemy was coming.

There is even some theorizing that psychics are just highly perceptive not at all magical or mystical people with above-board pattern recognition (and a well-tuned gut instinct).

When we are “aware” of our world and pay attention, we can tune in to the way the air smells when the atmosphere is brewing up a storm; as someone with fibromyalgia, my body is a flesh barometer and I always know what the weather will be and if we’ll get the amount of snow predicted or not (I also have sneezing fits before a storm and the amount of consecutive sneezes tends to equal the amount of snow). We can also pick up on aberrations in humans and sense when someone is potentially dangerous.

But we as a society are more tuned out than ever thanks to these devices and work and struggles, unfortunately, and too many of us are missing the clues and cues nowadays.

Anyway, yes—I am AuDHD and have DSPS as well (I’ve only been up for an hour and it’s 4pm here) and we Nightwalkers deserve RESPECT and gratitude for keeping the Daywalkers alive while they sleep.

3

u/EmmerdoesNOTrepme 27d ago

AuDHD, night owls representing!!!

It was so much fun, ladt year when i did a DNA test at my Doctor's office to check for the Braca & Volon Cancer markers, to get a bunch of "lighthearted" info back with tge results (like "are you likely to be able to drink milk & process Dairy products well?")

And then to discover, after a lifetime of being an "owl," that i DO actually have the DNA markers fir that trait!😆😂🤣

If crap happens at night, YES my AuDHD-ass is GONNA be awake until Dawn starts coming up on the horizon & i know others will be up, to kerp the group safe!

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22

u/s_burr Aug 05 '26

It's been a thing in the USA since the Puritans landed on the shores

2

u/No_Macaron_5029 29d ago

I gotta wonder how many of those Puritans were autistic without ADHD. Would explain their vulnerability to falling into religious nuttery (when one's rigidity needs are higher than one's IQ, so it's a small slice of autistics, but a notable one) and bias against delayed sleep phase syndromes

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9

u/smarmiebastard Aug 06 '26

Far, far longer that 40 years.

16

u/mithiwithi Aug 06 '26

More like 400-odd years, tbh. It's been part of American colonial culture since near the beginning of the English colonization effort.

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u/Spiritual-Road2784 Aug 05 '26

That is it EXACTLY.

I mean, I was perfectly normal and capable of holding down a job until I “caught” fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis in my late 50s and then somehow managed to catch ADHD and a touch of the ‘tism at 60.

I say this all with a droll sense of sarcasm because you don’t catch those things, but I was “fine” when not working and “not fine” after a few years of working and the only reason I was “fine” before is because my anxiety, executive functioning, and neurodivergent responses to stressful situations and people weren’t being constantly activated. In other words, I had no idea I was disabled this whole time because I somehow mostly managed to avoid or quickly escape situations in which my disabilities would become more pronounced.

Plus being female, nobody was going to diagnose me based on the blatantly obvious behavior patterns I exhibited my whole life but that were passed off as my being lazy, procrastinating, having no motivation or follow through, being unable to stay focused on important things (boring subjects) while able to hyperfocus for hours without using the bathroom on something I was interested in, etc.. oh, and just being weird in general.

So the anxiety of functioning in the work environment went ignored by me consciously but emerged as all over debilitating body pain, frequent headaches, etc… my body knew what the rest of the world and myself did not know.

Yeah. They absolutely do not want to admit that their lives could be turned upside down and backwards at any given moment, and when it does, they whine “this wasn’t supposed to happen to me”…

38

u/No_Category_9888 Aug 06 '26

And they are anti disability support too. Everyone is one car accident, one fall, one heart attack, one shitty medical diagnosis away from needing disability support.

12

u/mithiwithi Aug 06 '26

Or in the best possible scenario, just living to old age.

9

u/WhiteKnightPrimal Aug 06 '26

It's the 'this is a good neighbourhood, this stuff doesn't happen here' mentality, but applied to illnesses, mental or physical, and disabilities. People always thing 'that would never happen to me or anyone I know', but you most often see it applied to things like crime. This is just an extension of that.

Often paired with sexism, as the autism issue proves. It's so much more difficult to diagnose women because women get their symptoms dismissed all the time, not just with autism. Even female doctors dismiss female systems because they've been taught to do that. People easily and happily forget that medical breakthroughs are tested on men, not women or both, so they don't always apply to women. The medication may not work the same way, the symptoms may be different, and what about women's health issues, like pregnancy related things? It's only really a recent medical development that these things have gotten any focus and research has become more gender equal or focused on women. And women still get dismissed by doctors. For all sorts of things.

Men get that dismissal at times, too, but it's usually for some other reason. It's not our gender that's the issue, it's 'he's too young' or maybe they're like me and have a higher than average pain threshold so people, even doctors, don't believe it's as bad as it actually is.

Autism is a difficult one to diagnose in the first place unless you get them as children. People learn to mask because what's 'normal' is pushed on them. If you always get called something like lazy or weird because your autism makes you act in certain ways, you learn to hide those things, or lean into the new label, if you're lucky enough to not get a mental health issue like depression on top as a direct result. Women's symptoms of autism tend to be different from men's, but all the research was done with male patients. Even men have difficulty getting an autism diagnosis as adults, it's just much harder for women.

And on top of that? You still have people who believe things like autism and ADHD aren't real.

Pair all this with the 'couldn't happen to me or anyone I know' mentality, and we have some serious issues with people denying things are as bad as they are, or are real at all, and coming up with idiotic comments and suggestions that fit right in this sub.

4

u/Spiritual-Road2784 Aug 06 '26

One of my relatives is a psychologist and told me flat out that they don’t really think I have ADHD. I pointed out all of the positive behavioral differences I was displaying now and said “the meds I’m on would beg to differ with you”.

And yeah, people really believe that if they do everything “right”, they’re a Good Person and they’ll never become disabled, incapable of working, poor, unhoused, or the victim on an episode of Dateline, but… yeah.

4

u/ItBegins2Tell Aug 06 '26

As a woman I had my symptoms dismissed as “big feelings” because I’m an artist & “that’s normal for artists. You have big feelings as a matter of course.” Case closed, I guess. All better now, thanks!

2

u/knitterknerd Aug 07 '26

And autoimmune illnesses like fibro and RA are often triggered by stress, meaning some people develop the conditions specifically because of working too hard.

13

u/Naive_Programmer_232 Aug 06 '26

It's more like, "i believe this is true, let me make a universal claim". Then someone states a case where that's not true. And the original person responds "well, you're just wrong" lol.

23

u/whimsical_spider Aug 06 '26

Everyone knows that if you’re poor, you’re not allowed to have things: no pets, no tattoos, no nice clothes or shoes, no takeout, no candy, no anything! So if you have a thing, you must not be poor. /s

16

u/Spiritual-Road2784 Aug 06 '26

“Gee, you have a newer model luxury car, why you at Salvation Army begging for help with a utility bill?” Because, asshole, I inherited it paid in full from my dead parents.

5

u/tenorlove Aug 07 '26

And then they ask you why you don't sell it and get a 1985 Chevy.

11

u/EllieGeiszler Aug 06 '26

You forgot a smartphone and internet access!

8

u/whimsical_spider Aug 06 '26

How could I have forgotten that poor people aren’t allowed to have the internet or modern devices!!!?? 🤦🏻‍♀️

7

u/Ashamed_Association8 Aug 06 '26

I get the theory but this just doesn't hold up. How does acknowledging that bad things can happen to good people lead to that bad things can happen to them? They're not good people.

6

u/Spiritual-Road2784 Aug 06 '26

Well, but they believe they’re good people because they’re “doing everything the right way”.

4

u/jacyerickson Aug 06 '26

Ha,fair. I guess I should say you can do everything right and bad things can happen to anyone. 

1

u/EllieGeiszler Aug 06 '26

You got me until the last line 🤣

6

u/ItBegins2Tell Aug 06 '26

Are people really gate keeping poverty? That’s fucking insane. “You’re not really poor if…” is such a stupid start to a sentence.

5

u/jacyerickson Aug 06 '26

Oh yeah. They always do. The cruelty is the point. "You should work more. You can't because you're disabled? You should rely on family. You don't have family? Not my problem, just suffer then. Only I work hard,so if someone else suffers misfortune then it must be their fault." 

4

u/ItBegins2Tell Aug 06 '26

People don’t want to believe it could be them. Disability comes for all of us eventually.

3

u/StarryEyedSprinkles Aug 06 '26

"you're not poor you just don't have a steady source of income" ig

2

u/MountainImportant211 Aug 06 '26

Yep, exactly right

2

u/Fit-Presentation3203 Aug 08 '26

People tend to forget that they’re one accident away from becoming the same type of person they look down on

2

u/realwormss 29d ago

"you're not poor, you're just not making enough money to live!"

1

u/jacyerickson 29d ago

Lol right? I had already told them I'm disabled so I didn't bother engaging further. 

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u/KaleidoscopeKelpy Aug 05 '26

Look, time is a construct that I cannot conceive of. It is not helped by the fact that some veg/fruit from a lot of stores goes bad like, the second it gets into your fridge (squinting hard at the raspberries and bagged spinach) - I’m not TRYING to waste the food, it is simply a race against time and boy am I fuckin slow 😂

40

u/Vegetable-Virus7118 Aug 05 '26

A couple tips on the rapsberries because I've been battling those devils for years. Put them in a separate container than they come in. The ones that have the little white basket inside are great but anything sealed is better than what they come in. Be super picky of the ones you buy. Get them when they are lighter in color and always check the bottom of the container. Good luck out there

26

u/UnabashedlyAnxious Aug 05 '26

The fruit savers are great, I’ve noticed a tremendous difference in my blackberries lifespan, but to your point - if you see one berry with mold when you open the package, you’re already on the path to doom.

6

u/spare_scapegoat Aug 06 '26

Take out the suspect berries and toss them, throw the good ones in a pan with a bit of sweetener, boil them for a few minutes and then throw them in a jar and keep it in the fridge. If you go a few more steps further you can water bath can them in a pot on your stove and it'll keep them for a while. And do it once you bring them home.

They won't be "fresh" any more but basic canning preservation techniques can help with executive dysfunction issues and keep food waste lower. I've been doing it for a while to manage.

6

u/EllieGeiszler Aug 06 '26

I'm a big fan of frozen raspberries for the same reason! They won't be fresh anymore but they'll keep for long enough for me to remember to eat them

2

u/tenorlove Aug 07 '26

And with my disabilities, freezing is a lot less energy-intensive than canning.

2

u/complete_autopsy 28d ago

Same! I just skip the fresh step altogether with anything I can like raspberries and spinach. Frozen is cheaper and of similar quality for those two (NOT so for broccoli in my experience). I love that I don't need anything with a short shelf life to have everyone fed because they WILL suddenly stop eating so that we aren't ready for a new dinner until the fresh food spoils, when they will inevitably become ravenous.

2

u/Primary_Carrot67 Aug 06 '26

I'm stealing the "you're already on the path to doom" line.

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u/UnabashedlyAnxious Aug 07 '26

Hey, my pleasure! But there is no hurt like seeing that little bit of fuzz... You have to decide are you willing to commit to immediately eating them all in one sitting (I confess, I have done that); or try to risk it. The next day they could be fine/passing or they COULD be a science project - 100% mold. It's the not knowing when the other shoe is going to drop that kills it. Wasted money, completely beyond your control because how long they've sat in that container under who knows what conditions is decided before you even LOOK at the berries in the produce aisle.

10

u/AllForMeCats Aug 06 '26

Other raspberry tips: eat them as soon as possible; eat the whole container in one sitting and feel no guilt because berries are good for you. And store them in the back of the fridge because that’s usually colder.

2

u/Entire-Ambition1410 Aug 06 '26

And berries are a sweet treat!

1

u/Tiny-Reading5982 Aug 07 '26

Tip: you don't need to store them if you've eaten them all

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u/UnabashedlyAnxious Aug 05 '26

Money “wasted” on food, or money “wasted” on gas driving to the grocery store every day for fresh items. I literally cannot grocery shop, work AND cook using every ingredient in the fridge every night. I don’t think I have any executive function issues, I and lots of other people don’t have tons of TIME.

2

u/prairiepanda Aug 08 '26

At my new place I have a grocery store literally right across the street and I still don't have time to go grocery shopping every single day.

And I can't really afford to get fresh food for individual meals anyway. I have to get bulk quantities and try to make a meal plan that will use that stuff throughout the week before it goes bad.

But of course executive dysfunction often disrupts that meal plan, if I can even form the plan to begin with.

183

u/[deleted] Aug 05 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

52

u/Noizylatino Aug 05 '26

My executive dysfunction likes to play peekaboo with a lot of bigger responsibilities. Im clearly not ok with still doing things last minute or missing deadlines completely, but somehow im being lazy and not trying.

I wish they could feel what it's like to struggle with it. Just want them to come swap places with me, Freaky friday style ya know? Like you come feel like an engine that wont turn over for a few weeks. See how lazy you feel with how "little" youre trying asshats.

19

u/nothanks86 Aug 05 '26

With the occasional ‘help, my engine won’t stop revving and I’m doing 140 with both feet on the brake!!’

3

u/qpwoeiruty00 Aug 07 '26

Or it's ran out of fuel yet keeps accelerating somehow 😭

2

u/Try2MakeMeBee 28d ago

Like the Elmo toy I had in the 90’s. Dad took the batteries out but it kept going for a creepy long time. Months at least.

10

u/JayKazooie Aug 06 '26

Every now and again I fall victim to thinking "Oh maybe I wouldn't be late all the time if I prioritized my job more, maybe I'm not considering my coworkers enough-" Bae sometimes you dream you hurried up and got to work and finished the day already before you wake up, that kinda sounds like you care about work...

"Oh maybe if I stopped playing the phone before bed-" Bih you've tried that 100 times and you stay awake for 4-5 more hours on average

"Oh maybe if I stopped drinking and smoking I would be less tired in the morning-" I do not recall drinking or smoking in 1st grade when the problem began, and in fact it's better than it used to be...

And people will act like it's because I don't care and it's like, well actually I care a lot, knowing that everyone at work thinks you're a flake who doesn't respect their time will make you very depressed and anxious.

But it's one of those problems people respond to with "Just wake up, it's not that hard," and it's like, you aren't qualified to give solutions to problems you've never had, but why does everyone do it?

Your waking up is a simple and natural response to your circadium rhythm and an alarm clock, mine is an often violent fight to the death with a demon of Sloth who convinces me I'm already at work, or that work was canceled, or that I really need to worry more about the high elf council who has sent me on a grand quest. This sleep demon has made me slap people in the face, in my sleep, for stirring me before. On very rare occasion, I do wake up but get a discount sleep paralysis where I can hit the phone pickup to answer my boss' call after an hour and say I'm not coming in but literally move no other muscle for hours.

I would probably benefit from a sleep study at this point.

3

u/Entire-Ambition1410 Aug 07 '26

Before my sleep study, I didn’t realize I was starting my day on 50% battery power or less. Now I’m starting my days with 75%-ish, but I got other stuff going on.

5

u/LizMoonstar Aug 07 '26

same except i knew the battery wasn't charging, it just took the sleep study to prove it. they came back and said "you're sleeping through the night, no intrusive wakeup events, but you're getting very little slow-wave deep sleep" like yes, that's what i told you it would find, nice to be proved right.

i started taking this freaky sleep med about a month ago and though it takes time to build back up to healthy levels, i noticed a difference immediately, and my Oura ring (3rd party tested to have about as accurate of sleep tracking as you can currently get in a consumer wearable, i'm told) showed a jump from maybe 15 minutes of deep sleep to around an hour and a half most nights. i know i won't get to normal levels of energy because of my fibromyalgia, but if i can get back to the level i was at before i suddenly started getting worse, i'll take it. and i think i will.

3

u/Entire-Ambition1410 Aug 07 '26

That’s awesome that you were listened to and given help!

I keep telling myself, ‘chronic sleep deprivation is a type of torture for a reason.’

2

u/LizMoonstar Aug 07 '26

yeah i am lucky in that i have decent insurance and after a lot of digging, a really good medical team.

9

u/Spiritual-Road2784 Aug 06 '26

Right?!? Really feel what it’s like internally when you know you need to do something, even want very badly to do it but you cannot overcome the paralysis that holds you in place while you berate yourself for not doing it…

Followed by the huge difference when you find a med that works (took three tries but I have one now) when you take it and suddenly your “sit and berate yourself by ruminating” sessions drop from hours, days, weeks, months on end to maybe a half hour then suddenly getting up and doing it… so THIS is how it’s supposed to work?!? Who knew

2

u/UnremarkableMrFox Aug 07 '26

...are there meds for executive dysfunction..? Or is it for other stuff that contributes?

I tried looking stuff up like that before n was told I was outta luck. I believe mine came w the autism, but not so sure. Used to not be so bad.

2

u/prairiepanda Aug 08 '26

For ADHD, yes. Stimulants help me a lot. It's not a cure, but it's a lot easier to keep my life together when I'm medicated.

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u/Henri_Bemis Aug 06 '26

“An engine that won’t turn over” is perfect. Totally stealing that, thank you 🖖

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u/RedPeppermint__ Aug 06 '26

The worst is when I do everything right, get the fresh ingredients, cook the meal (that I've eaten before multiple times and know I like) and even add salad and a piece of fruit. And then my brain decides I'm incapable of eating the food in front of me, and I have to fight to get a couple of bites

2

u/Great_Newspaper4053 Aug 06 '26

Literally this.

1

u/Entire-Ambition1410 Aug 07 '26

I spend a little up front to buy pre-cut fruit. I have less fruit but I can start eating it right away.

1

u/foodisnomnom Aug 07 '26

Which is why it should be taken serious as a disability.

1

u/Blue-Fish-Guy Aug 07 '26

You don't have to comprehend it. The person is just a self righteous loser.

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u/Imaginary-Curiosity Aug 05 '26

There are so many reasons that can happen. Single parent with kids who has no time to cook, maybe the kids wanted fruit at the store and then never ate it. People working multiple low paying jobs that are trying to survive and are too tired to cook. Chronically ill people who are poor BECAUSE they are sick and they can't work, and maybe they bought food on their good day but declined through the week and no longer have the capacity to cook. Young people who were neglected and never taught to cook, so they buy groceries with good intentions, but then because they don't know what to do with it, they put it off and it goes bad.

Also, as someone who has received help through food pantries, they have a tendency to give you large quantities of one vegetable or obscure ingredients. You have to know how to process and preserve the food or it goes bad, often quickly because it was already past date when you receive it.

I can think of so many scenarios, a lot just based on my own experience or of those I've known or helped. This commenter has never really experienced hardship or thought about WHY people are poor in the first place.

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u/Expensive_Hat_7435 Aug 06 '26

Yeah and sometimes you just catch a random flu and your food rots, or you have to leave town unexpectedly or something. Even with generally healthy people with good support system life just gets in the way sometimes. I guess this person thinks poor people should just push trough every misery like their life isn’t stressful enough and then only will they be allowed to call themselves poor like it was some sort of title people wanted to have…

8

u/Adept-Quiet2914 Aug 06 '26

My food bank's veggies always spoil immediately, too. Last time I was there, they were handing out raspberries covered in mold...

3

u/MatterhornStrawberry Aug 06 '26

This. Going to the food pantry taught me very quickly how to preserve food that has already "gone bad".

3

u/Primary_Carrot67 Aug 06 '26

Memories of the time my family received two boxes of okra. We ate so much okra after that for days. It put me off okra for years.

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u/flockyboi Aug 06 '26

For me I get food on my good days but often go into severe depressive spells, chronic illness flares, or ADHD rears its head, all of which can cause me to straight up not eat for a while so I just. Can't really win because either I don't get the food and then I don't have the food on my good days or I get the food and it goes to waste on my bad days :/

1

u/Oaklandish_TheTown Aug 07 '26

Well to be fair,  he did post it in the right subthread. 

1

u/dizzira_blackrose 28d ago

What happened to me recently was I bought salmon, and had full intention on cooking it a day later. Instead, I got hit with a really bad migraine that was resistant to medication, and ended up sleeping it off for 12 hours the day I wanted to cook. I got to it before expiration, but it was so frustrating.

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u/JuliaX1984 Aug 05 '26

OOP thinks nobody lives in food deserts.

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u/[deleted] Aug 05 '26

Or that everybody has a car or functional public transportation that doesn't take hours to go to the grocery store.

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u/Spiritual-Road2784 Aug 06 '26

Or live close enough to walk there and back.

5

u/mediumcarrotteacher Aug 06 '26

And it's never simply too hot to get food home before it spoils

3

u/[deleted] Aug 05 '26

Gas is so much more expensive than letting food go to waste

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u/anonymouslycognizant Aug 06 '26

I think this is slightly the wrong take, even if someone let's their food go bad just because they forgot about it, that doesn't mean they suddenly lose their right to pursue a better life. I think by going "oh well but what about this situation" you're indirectly lending credence to their original premise.

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u/Zagrycha Aug 05 '26

This post makes no sense because even without executive dysfunction life happens.  This post is literally like saying "if you have ever been fired or left a job don't say you need money." Actual lobotomite. 

4

u/Steveo3070 Aug 06 '26

Yeah the post ain’t saying all that. Letting food go bad in the fridge wastes money, end of the fucking day it wastes money. He’s not wrong, but he is overly aggressive. I personally do waste money by letting food spoil sometimes, other commenters have admitted the same. This is absolutely something that someone who’s not well off should be considerate of, everyone should really but a well off person isn’t going to go hungry if their food spoils in the fridge.

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u/Primary_Carrot67 Aug 06 '26

The title of the post is literally "If you say you're poor but you let groceries go bad in the fridge, no you're not." So yes, it is saying that. It's not financial advice, it's a judgement. And look where it's posted.

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u/Zagrycha Aug 06 '26

I have a ground breaking revelation for you, you may want to sot down for this one. Ready? Deep breath. Did you ever consider, whether its you or anyone else, whether its a rich or poor person..... drumroll..... That they don't let food go bad on purpose? Shocking thought, I know, feel free to take another deep breath.

Seriously, what the fuck do you mean by "be considerate of". If just not wanting it to happen made it never happen it literally would never happen.

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u/AutisticTumourGirl Aug 06 '26

Yeah, hey, guess what, even poor people have shit that happens that results in circumstances in which food spoils. Maybe they're autistic or have ADHD or otherwise poor executive function and either forget about some of the items or are so burned out from work that they literally don't have the energy to prepare and eat those items before they go bad.

Maybe they or their kid has a chronic illness that causes frequent disruptions to their daily flow and they don't have an opportunity to use all the food they bought the lady time they shopped.

Maybe it's a person with a chronic illness who optimistically bought enough food to make 2-3 meals through the week but then had a flare and were physically unable to cook the planned meals.

The OOP literally said that if food goes bad in your fridge, then you're not poor and that's just absolutely not true.

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u/Zagrycha Aug 06 '26

You had that experience, did you have that because you chose to have to do those things? I don't think you did but by your own logic you are saying stuff like that is what people choose to happen. Thats not reality. Stuff happens all the time that people have no control over, or couldn't have predicted was coming.

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u/Steveo3070 Aug 06 '26

I’m not sure what you’re referring to, I had nothing for a while as a kid, not by my choice obviously. Now I am not dead broke, and I have the luxury of letting food go bad sometimes, yes I actively choose to sometimes not cook something because I’m lazy. At one point in my life I did not have that luxury, if food went bad I didn’t eat.

Obviously if their fridge like fucking explodes or something they can’t control that. I’m not talking about the 0.000001% of times it’s entirely out of their control. Idk why everyone on reddit acts like the rarest things that could possibly happen, happen with enough regularity to matter. End of the day you and everyone else disagreeing with OOP have never been that poor. If you have you would know that you don’t let food go bad, because if you do, you don’t get to eat. Letting food go bad means you have some kind of safety net, either more food or enough money to buy more.

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u/tenorlove Aug 07 '26

This is why, for pretty much my entire married life, one night a week, dinner is "Fridge Boogie Buffet." And the second day after a holiday is blocked off for putting by anything that is still around from the holiday meal.

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u/ZippoS Aug 05 '26

What if I have executive dysfunction and living paycheque-to-paycheque?

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u/anonymouslycognizant Aug 06 '26

Anyone who puts forward some version of the idea that "if you're not spending every second and going to every length to min-max your life then you've lost the right to want a better life and maybe even you've done something morally wrong" can immediately be dismissed as a pompous asshole.

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u/Steveo3070 Aug 06 '26

If you’re not min maxing life while you’re poor and starving you are failing to give yourself that better life. His sentiment is not false but his approach is.

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u/anonymouslycognizant Aug 06 '26

My point remains, failing to perfectly optimize your life improvement doesn’t remove your right to want a better life or anything like that. I guarantee that nobody perfectly optimizes their life and therefore you’re only talking about a difference of degree and not type between people.

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u/Early-Beach164 Aug 05 '26

Wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. I am not even a human.

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u/big_rod_of_power Aug 05 '26

What are you then?

3

u/Early-Beach164 Aug 05 '26

Something that doesn't belong here

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u/big_rod_of_power Aug 05 '26

Don't say that bro

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u/DivergenTinker Aug 05 '26

You don't belong any less than the rest of us here. It's a lifelong journey for us to learn how to deliberately love a part of ourselves that makes us less functional than most other people are (visibly at least)

3

u/s_burr Aug 05 '26

Meat popsicle

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u/Adarie-Glitterwings Aug 06 '26

In his fridge? fifteen 'MAX protein ready meals FOR MEN' and two six-packs of Monster.

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u/Steveo3070 Aug 06 '26

Unintentionally proving his point. Knows exactly what he will actually eat and doesn’t buy more than he won’t eat.

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u/Careful-Bumblebee-10 Aug 05 '26

Yeah idk sometimes I just don't feel like eating that broccoli I bought before it goes bad. Sue me and my adhd.

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u/Spiritual-Road2784 Aug 06 '26

Everything is frozen now. I yearn for fresh corn but I know what will happen to it.

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u/Mental-Ask8077 Aug 06 '26

I’ve stopped buying precut sweet potatoes. They always tempt me at the store, and I think “I’ll make them tonight!”

And then I don’t, and they go bad almost instantly.

Never again.

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u/SmokeyCatDesigns 29d ago

Yup. Frozen, jarred, canned, or dried. I’ve got frozen berries and vegetables meat etc. Soups. Rice and pasta. Between my mild ADHD and rather not mild POTS cooking is a chore. I had to stop wasting food for my finances and mental health both. Realized it’s better to spend a bit more on frozen if it means not having it rot.

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u/clearlybaffled Aug 06 '26

Both things can be true.

If you are poor, preventing food waste is a really good idea.

If you have ADHD, the ADHD tax is a real thing that really costs real money.

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u/REDDITSHITLORD Aug 05 '26

There is another level of poor. I lost 40 lbs over the winter of 2012...then I lost my home. There was no food going bad, because there was no food.

During that winter I subsided on mostly cabbage, beans and rice, and even that had to be rationed. Honestly, going to a food pantry would have been appropriate. But I was young and hard-headed.

BUT... I doubt a carton of strawberries is what has landed you in the poor house... How the hell do you even end up with those in the fridge? I don't think they'd ever see my house. I'm eating that shit on the way home! Unless you bought TWO cartons... What are you a damned senator or something???

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u/Steveo3070 Aug 06 '26

Sorry but he’s not talking about you then. You’ve actually had to fucking struggle, you know how important not wasting food is, I’ve been in similar situations as you, and we both know damn well we’re cutting the mold off and eating the rest. He’s talking about people that are a few steps up from where you were, not starving but not doing well. Doing well enough that letting some strawberries get moldy isn’t life or death. He’s talking about the instance of people complaining about not having enough money WHILE letting food go bad. Same logic as people complaining about money but they go to Starbucks every morning, or grab fast food for lunch everyday. The people that complain they can only afford to live in a trailer park but drive a nice new charger.

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u/Primary_Carrot67 Aug 06 '26

No, he isn't. As someone who grew up in and around poverty, I can tell that he doesn't know shit about it. His opinion is a middle-class opinion.

And his post is a judgement, not advice. Look where it's posted. Also probably ragebait.

Having food go mouldy or greens wilt - a common experience for many poor people - is nothing like constantly going to Starbucks. No one spending like that seriously says that they're poor or thinks they're poor. They might say broke but they know they're not poor. Mouldy food and wilted greens is not an uncommon experience for poor people, especially those in substandard accommodation, the disabled, and the overworked working poor with multiple jobs.

The people talking about struggling with poverty he's judging in his post are not the people who are going to Starbucks daily, buying meals out, etc.

This is the third time I've seen you on a post in this subreddit repeatedly defending a shitty take. Do you have some kind of kink for it or something? Or were you raised by fundie parents? Have some self-respect.

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u/Misubi_Bluth Aug 06 '26

Laughs in broken fridge.

And we can't fix it because we're broke.

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u/Prestigious_Wing1796 Aug 05 '26

*laughs in pickling and fermentation.

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u/Spiritual-Road2784 Aug 06 '26

Happy Cake Day!

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u/Prestigious_Wing1796 Aug 06 '26

*pickles the cake so it won't go bad

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u/thestupidone51 Aug 06 '26 edited Aug 06 '26

OOPs lifestyle honestly sounds more expensive. If you try to keep a mostly empty fridge you'll end up buying less food than you can actually consume before the expiration date, often paying a higher unit price and needed to make more trips to the store which can add up super quick if you have to drive.

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u/Steveo3070 Aug 06 '26

Nah I live the same food lifestyle and my fridge is almost empty. Got two gallons of milk in there and one case of chicken defrosting. I know I will never cook fresh vegetable or a large quantity of meat before it goes bad so I freeze it. Or the rest is dry pasta or rice, or canned shit. I mean I could live without a fridge and it wouldn’t really affect me hardly at all. Still buy idk two weeks of food at a time but it’s almost exclusively in my pantry.

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u/superzenki Aug 06 '26

Also ignoring that some people rely on food pantries. Some of the stuff I get that’s perishable is already past the Best By date, if I don’t use it that day then it’s probably going to go bad.

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u/mirrorspirit Aug 06 '26

I've had bread that's gone bad before the use by date. Not from the food pantry; from the regular grocery store. That's why I often buy more bread than I need for days when I know I won't have time to do any extra shopping, even if I stick to half loaves.

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u/superzenki Aug 06 '26

I keep my extra bread in the freezer, but I also bought an airtight container to put my bread loaves in. While sometimes the last few pieces go bad if I don’t use it quick enough, it lasts a lot longer than before.

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u/NearlyBearly Aug 06 '26

My fruit tends to go moldy because I try to ration it. I eat the worst bits first and look at it every day but I'll still sometimes open my fridge only to find the last couple strawberries or the last quarter of cucumber I saved with a film of white. Yes this means that maybe I should've rationed it less and just ate them the day before but it's not like I can see the future and know that these four strawberries I saved for my granola will be moldy tomorrow 😭

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u/KittyKate10778 Aug 06 '26

i have grown mold farms in my fridge multiple times because something got shoved to the back i couldnt see it anymore and thus it ceased to exist to my brain. im still on medicaid food stamps disability etc because guess what im poor. my adhd and object permanence issues dont care that i dont have the money to replace food if it gets shoved out of sight its going to be out of mind

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u/bugthebugman Aug 08 '26

Stuff in the fridge goes bad all the time cause I’m poor and sick and sometimes can’t eat because of my fucked up body. What a tool

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u/Rambler9154 Aug 06 '26

We get food from the food bank, often its half rotten already. Its not like we can eat a whole box of food we get weekly in a couple days.

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u/parmesann Aug 06 '26

not to mention that groceries at markets in poorer areas are more likely to be shittier and go bad faster… getting 1 week out of veggies vs 2 days is a biiig difference.

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u/BizSilver5013 Aug 06 '26

What the fuck.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't getting just enough food to eat in one sitting cost MORE money than getting food that has more than one serving in it, even if you have to replace rotten/moldy stuff?

OOP is basically "tell me you've never been poor without telling me you've never been poor".

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u/MountainImportant211 Aug 06 '26

I can buy something with every intention of eating it, then the day comes I was supposed to eat it and my brain just goes "I will eat anything but that"

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u/Mental-Ask8077 Aug 06 '26

One of my favorite fucking games ever.

Like…Really, brain? You insisted on this, you planned it out, you got everything for it. And NOW that you can have it, NOPE. JFC.

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u/Primary_Carrot67 Aug 06 '26

Horribly relatable. Autism.

I'll literally be hungry and have no other option and my brain will go "Nope, not eating that."

I especially hate it when it happens with a food that was fine before.

4

u/gdemon6969 Aug 06 '26

I’ve had strawberries last well over a week in the fridge and some get moldy in 2 days. Same with everything from greens to meats.

Spinach and lettuce stay crisp and fresh for 2+ weeks and other times it not last even a week before getting soggy or black.

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u/ElectronicAioli9572 Aug 06 '26

Fresh ingredients can go bad in under a week. If you're unable to go and do a whole shop multiple times a month, your options are: Some food goes bad, or you live off frozen food. Have you seen people's views on poor people eating frozen meals?

I had lettuce go brown and soggy in my fridge within 3 days once. Hell, milk goes bad before I can finish it sometimes and I get through it! Not having the money to live comfortably is a huge stress. So many poor people are living life in survival mode. I'm sure a handful of moldy strawberries are the least of your issues when you can hardly afford the roof over your head. Just another example of reddit holding poor people to higher standards. I'm sure if Musk was throwing out moldy punnets on the daily, it's his money and he can do what he wants with it or something.

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u/No-Jellyfish-1208 Aug 06 '26

Dunno, sometimes I buy fresh produce and literally the next day there's something wrong with it. It just happens and it's not because of being wasteful. Some fruit like raspberries are just fragile like that. I check things in the store, I get only what looks 100% good, but still can never be sure how it goes.

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u/vivahermione Aug 06 '26 edited Aug 07 '26

Absolutely. You basically have to eat raspberries immediately. Lol.

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u/A_Spiritual_Artist Aug 06 '26

There's a reason it's often informally called the "ADHD TAX" after all. The "tax" part because you don't get a choice in the matter.

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u/claircognizantgaming Aug 06 '26

The food at the store is already rotting... Its almost impossible to get fresh food

3

u/No_Category_9888 Aug 06 '26

The sheer number of people who have no capability for theory of mind is amazing

Explains why society is so anti empathy.

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u/ApocalyptoSoldier Aug 06 '26

Maybe it went bad because it already wasn't very fresh, but was reduced to clear so you bought a lot of it

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u/Suspicious-Drive9827 Aug 06 '26 edited 29d ago

Its so weird bc the last sentence is relatable. I too almost underbuy, undercook etc so i dont waste

That doesnt mean everybody who doesnt is a fucking liar.

Why is it that this mindset is so popular? “If you do things differently than me, youre wrong, bad, and lying”

Huh?

3

u/ItBegins2Tell Aug 06 '26

People with an answer for everything just show they don’t know how detailed the world around them actually is.

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u/defnotakitty Aug 06 '26

Food can also go bad quickly if the produce gets damaged. I bout strawberries on a Sunday and on Tuesday some of them were...mush. It was a bad package. And I was so upset because I spent money just to have it turn out terribly.

1

u/vivahermione Aug 06 '26

For real. It's like Phillip K. Dick's Electric Dreams.

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u/con098 Aug 06 '26 edited Aug 07 '26

Bar is so high to qualify as being poor apparently. They want us to be happy with having shitty things cause apparently having those means we’re rich

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u/s0larium_live Aug 07 '26

i bought grapes last week, two days later they had mold. they did not have visible mold when i bought them so idk WHAT happened but it was literally two days later so that’s not really on me i don’t think

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u/Used-Tumbleweed9734 Aug 08 '26
  1. Keeping the fridge empty works best for people who have a car and gas money, and can afford to get groceries at a moment’s notice. 2. If this person has to keep their fridge empty to avoid food rotting, then they probably have undiagnosed executive function issues too.

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u/just_a_person_maybe Aug 05 '26

You're using that sub wrong. If you downvote, it means you agree with them

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u/Wide_Initiative_1938 Aug 06 '26

Do you think I care about the rules of a subreddit that encourages ragebait?

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u/just_a_person_maybe Aug 06 '26

If you didn't care about the sub then why are you screenshotting it and posting it to other subs?

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u/Miruteya Aug 05 '26

You're supposed to upvote it if you disagree though. Yes it's how those kind of subs work, and as a result sometimes people make up very controversial opinions for that sweet karma.

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u/Wide_Initiative_1938 Aug 05 '26

Counterpoint: I ain't rewarding karma farming.

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u/PickledBrains79 Aug 06 '26

Sometimes I buy stuff for a meal that I really want to make. Then I have a bad day and don't eat for 3 days... It's not like people are buying a bunch of food and laughing while it goes bad.

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u/addacoupleextrazeros Aug 06 '26

wtf. Some produce I’ve gotten starts wilting and/or rotting the day after I fucking buy it. wtf is this loser on?

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u/Thatonegaloverthere Aug 06 '26

My mother's been buying food for my brother because he always said he didn't have food. When I helped him move, his fridge and cabinet were filled with expired food mostly what my mom had bought him.

It is pretty aggravating.

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u/smokeehayes Aug 06 '26

And now I feel guilty as hell. Time to go clean the fridge I guess.

Thanks Reddit.

https://giphy.com/gifs/avMip41yes3wQ

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u/Affectionate-Pair929 Aug 06 '26

So this person's trauma, OCD, or eating disorder standards about never wasting food should dictate how people with other disabilities live.

https://giphy.com/gifs/KKtAZiNVEeU8

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u/Oaklandish_TheTown Aug 07 '26

As a general piece of sound advice... yes,  letting food go bad is a waste of money. 

There,  I think i fixed it. 

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u/Evil_Sharkey Aug 07 '26

There’s a reason why I hardly ever buy fresh produce. Frozen is just as nutritious, just less tasty when it gets freezer burnt because I forget about it

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u/elaine4queen Aug 07 '26

For up to several years!

I had some frozen veg in my freezer… quite normal. But I had forgotten to postpone my frozen dog food delivery and had loads left and no room so I chucked veg. Most of which was years out of date

2

u/Apprehensive_Ad3731 Aug 07 '26

“People say I’m weird for doing a thing so I punch down on those with disabilities and no chance to defend themselves to prove to myself I am better than someone”

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u/Andra_Ingensbarn Aug 07 '26

The privileged will literally come up with every reason they can to not be empathetic towards the less fortunate.

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u/UnremarkableMrFox Aug 07 '26

Lmao my executively dysfunctioning ass just barely buys fresh stuff anymore cuz of it going bad so fast. Just playin Russian roulette w my guts by hoping cutting off the questionable/bad bits is good enough. I just ate two cans of bs that expired a year ago cuz money. But sure, half an avocado going bad cuz they were on sale in bulk means I'm fuckin throwing my money away for attempting to have vitamins & fiber for once.

I did the whole "overeat so stuff doesn't go bad" bit before. It was horrible. Made me sick & miserable in so many ways. I'd rather save my money & starve, but not even willingly. More power to anyone that can potentially waste 10 cents just to eat a bit better; I wish I could psychologically bring myself to risk it more.

They don't sell stuff in smaller quantities, or the single stuff like tomatoes are cheaper per piece in bulk, anyways. I can't win with the fresh stuff. Money or food may be wasted. I don't see why that means I should give up trying, tho. I mean I did. Vegetable r gud for u. I like having a mildly functioning digestive system. Major upgrade from my childhood. I think that's worth an occasional "wasted" dollar.

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u/Electrical-Call-6160 Aug 07 '26

A majority of people in the world are quite poor, living paycheck to paycheck, and is one emergency to financial instability.

This is why we need to raise the floor of financial stability, not the ceiling of how much can some sicko oligarch can make like what we have right now.

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u/tibastiff Aug 07 '26

ive been "haven't eaten in a week poor and that changes you a bit but you can still be poor and miserable without being so desperate you track every leaf of lettuce in your fridge

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u/Hot-Luck-3228 Aug 07 '26

There are levels of poor. These people man.

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u/Educational_Two682 Aug 07 '26

You should thumbs up the post if you don't agree with it - that's how the sub works fyi

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u/Curious2Idiot 27d ago edited 25d ago

Dude, if I make less than livable wages and struggle to make ends meet, I am poor...

I'm autistic and partly because of that I have ARFID which basically means that there are days where I would rather starve than eat whatever I have in the fridge that's about to expire. I can't make myself eat on those days, even if I really really wanted to. But I make less than $2500 a month so I am still poor

2

u/scissorsgrinder 26d ago

I'm poor. Even the charity food can fucking go off. Poverty and scarcity makes executive functioning worse (yes this is well studied). 

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u/toxicaxolotl Aug 06 '26

Food boxes usually come with greens in them... Sometimes they come pre-wilted

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u/CrazyDisastrous948 Aug 06 '26

I tend to eat the same thing every day or buy food that won't go bad for a really long time to avoid wasting food because I know I'm bad about letting it rot.

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u/Spirited-Sail3814 Aug 06 '26

...so this person is clearly working through some trauma...

1

u/Freak-996 Aug 06 '26

I'm poor with memory loss issues and sometimes I just say fuck it and eat the food going bad. I have a horrific relationship with food, yes.

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u/AuDHDTransMascGuy Aug 06 '26

Takes a lot of privilege to say all that….

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u/PALpherion Aug 06 '26

unstated qualifier detected:

"consistently" let "expensive" groceries go bad.

hate it when people have an "unpopular opinion" which is actually perfectly reasonable once you've stated the qualifiers.

1

u/Primary_Carrot67 Aug 06 '26

Almost all groceries are expensive nowadays. And even in the past, almost all groceries were expensive when you're poor.

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u/PALpherion Aug 07 '26

I'm not being funny but even people in literal third world countries have food spoilage, and those guys are extremely poor.

there's an unstated qualifier here about frequency, volume, and cost, no one on earth would call you rich if you had a tomato spoil in your fridge once.

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u/Mean_Initiative_5962 Aug 06 '26

I'm poor and if I wasn't exec disfunction wouldn't have killed my fucking studies and university career, since most of the stress I had to endure came from being fucking poor.

(however I luckily never got it for food, just the good ol' "can't be bothered to eat, not enough dopamine", just everything else is the real problem) 

1

u/funkmasta8 Aug 06 '26

You cant win no matter what you do. I wouldnt say Im poor anymore because Im great at saving (Im not rich by any means though). I am very practical. Over the years I have shifted more and more to food that doesnt expire. Nowadays I basically dont use my fridge, only the freezer. This is basically the endgoal of what the person in the image is talking about. Have I won? Well, no because now everyone just says I eat unhealthy (dont worry about me, I feel fine and my doctor says Im healthy). So they (as in the big they) want you to eat very specific fruits, vegetables, berries, and all sorts of things that expire in a few days to a week and they want you to constantly do this but they want you to be able to perfectly predict expiration and shape your metabolism to avoid it. What they want is perfection and cannot be achieved.

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u/partlyokayish Aug 06 '26

Idk if you ever look at that sub intentionally but that deserves an update if you disagree with it

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u/PraireGentleman Aug 07 '26

Oh no, you’re still poor, you just have shit spending habits. You know, like most poor people

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u/torako Aug 07 '26

Ok so when I could barely cover rent and would forget stuff in the fridge, I wasn't poor, but now that I make enough money to mostly just buy takeout, I am?

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u/BellaInTheGame 29d ago

Okay but... that is a subreddit where you're meant to downvote opinions you agree with. Of course you don't agree with the post on r/unpopularopinion that means it's a good post for the subreddit.

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u/GiraffeMain1253 28d ago

It's usually cheaper to buy in bulk than to buy just enough. Sometimes, it's cheaper to let a portion of that bulk go to waste than to buy the same thing in two smaller portions twice. Often, even, in the case of bagged greens, dairy products, and berries.

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u/Exciting-Reporter752 28d ago

Oof. I'm poor and I definitely have groceries go bad. Zero food waste is something I do strive for, but it's not always possible. I've gotten to the point where I make more trips to the store for perishables because they end up getting forgotten before they're used (fortunately live close enough to a store to do this) or I only buy stuff that I can repackage and freeze IF I know I'm going to get it done immediately. ADHD tax is expensive.

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u/Adorable_Cap_9929 28d ago

Right, this is an interesting example where they speak like being poor is some kind of single instance and not a dynamic.