How does simple living help those in poverty?
I guess it depends why you are in poverty. If you are indulging in junk food instead of slow food, and using cable TV to lull yourself instead of getting regular TV and watching less, then I think simple living can help you. (-: But I think I know where you are coming from. It always used to frustrate me when I’d read certain articles in a women’s magazine. The teasing headline would say something like, “Save yourself $300 a year painlessly!” And then the story would be about something stupid like, “Bring your own coffee instead of stopping by Starbucks.” Yeah, at the time, I was drinking tap water. You can’t get a cheaper beverage than that, so that kind of advice was doing no good at all. However, here’s another view of your question: if the rich and the middle-class do more simple living, they’d have more money to give to charities, which could help the real poor. Unfortunately, the kind of person who advocates simple living sometimes turns out to be the preachy type who thinks poor
