To Affirm or not to Affirm, the answer is none of your business
Listening to the news this morning, they had a story on the buy now pay later apps like Affirm.
At the end of the story, the expert says, the basic rule of buying anything (and he said anything) is, if you can't pay for it in full, you don't need it. That really hacked me off.
I do get what he's saying. I do. But....did this guy buy his house for cash? Does he buy cars for cash? Has he ever put anything on a credit card?
The people I know who use this app, most of them do it because they have no other choice. To say if you can't pay for the whatever you're buying outright that you don't need it, shows a total lack of knowledge about how life is for people who make so little an hour, that buying a $60 pair of shoes or a $100 rug, is something that has to be planned for and budgeted.
I'm so over the bash the poor mind set that we have in America. It's ok for someone who doesn't make a lot of money to want a decent pair of shoes. It's not shameful to not be able to afford something. It is not shameful to pay over time.
What is shameful, is telling most of America that they shouldn't have decent things. That they should be ashamed of their life and do something to get out of it. Like most of them aren't desperately trying to do that every day.
The group of Americans that should be shamed over things like this, are the businesses who put together business models that leave their employees living this way, and the banks that give them those loans. (Should they really be starting a business if they can't pay for it outright? See how ridiculous that sounds? Hits different when they're speaking of you, am I right?)
It is not ok to shame people into living this life that has literally no nice things. No creature comforts. No nice coffee, no nice phone, no nice purse because you have a sub par job and don't deserve anything. Do they make these statements while they're buying their $8 Latte using their credit card that gives them airline miles? Or is it while they're complaining that no one wants to work anymore, in the coffee shop selling $8 Lattes?
At the end of it all, if they don't pay the bill, there are penalties in place. Leave it there, Nosey Nancy. This has nothing to do with you.