sad and distraught. She wasn’t making a scene and was not drawing attention to her self but she was in tears and was quietly hurting which made it easier to empathize and wonder what she could be going through.

She had a luggage type bag with her and at one point she opened it up to grab something which gave visibility into what was in there. All I could see was what was on top which was a roll of toilet paper, paper towels and signs of household supplies. My presumption was that this may have been all of her belongings and was leaving a bad situation.

I felt really bad for this lady and contemplated giving her cash. Because a $50 was the lowest bill I had, I chose to debate in my mind whether to give it to her or not.

I wasn’t intentionally looking but just happened to notice she had on brand new, clean white Jordans. I then noticed she had a very nice looking new iPhone. At this point, I’m now looking for other signs of spending. She had long, well done nails, noticeably fake eye lashes and was just overall very well kept as though she takes care of herself. At this point I decided that she may not need the $50 bill I considered giving.

When I was a child, during the pinnacle of the Jordan shoes era — my siblings and I could only dream of having a pair of Jordans and had to watch others enjoy receiving the latest release year over year. My parents were adament about living within their means and never cared to keep up with others.

My wife has her nails done maybe twice a year, in an effort to avoid being wasteful on a “nice to have” and instead focus more on our needs.

My wife has never spent money on fake eye lashes. She considers them unnecessary and wasteful.

My wife rarely (like once a year) shops for clothes etc…

My point is — I remained sympathetic for whatever happened to this lady. She was genuinely sad and hurt — however, if you can spend money unnecessarily on expensive shoes, fake eye lashes, nails, brand new phones etc… you’re simply not doing all you can to improve your financial situation.

People need to be ok with going without. Instead it seems that most people feel entitled to all of life’s luxuries while also expecting to not be in trouble financially.