And this is why I find it utmostly important to save up a safety net and not live beyond your means if you can. Spending more than you earn isn't sustainable anyways but if your essential costs are less than your income for a particular month, I'd save that surplus for a rainy day. This adds up and it's how I got by living in Southern California from 2010 - 2015 making $45K or less during the entire time up until I was let go, and by that time, I had more than a whole year's worth of salary saved up which afforded me the safety net to find my next job. Had I blown away my surplus money from my meager paycheck every month, I would have faced far more dire consequence when I lost my job and I don't know if would have recovered.

I’ve experienced living in poverty in my childhood.. my dad immigrated to the US from China with next to no savings in the 80s and my family (him, mom, and I) lived off of a meager grad student’s stipend as our sole income. Yes, we were poor and there were plenty of times when we couldn’t afford food to eat but I don’t remember him dealing with payday loans because he couldn’t pay rent, parking tickets because he couldn’t pay parking, etc. Maybe it’s a lot more “expensive” to be poor today than then?