Posted on 10/21/2014 8:49:47 AM PDT by knak
CULLMAN, Ala. — The love seat and sofa that Jamie Abbott can’t quite afford ended up in her double-wide trailer because of the day earlier this year when she and her family walked into a new store called Buddy’s. Abbott had no access to credit, no bank account and little cash, but here was a place that catered to exactly those kinds of customers. Anything could be hers. The possibilities — and the prices — were dizzying.
At Buddy’s, a used 32-gigabyte, early model iPad costs $1,439.28, paid over 72 weeks. An Acer laptop: $1,943.28, in 72 weekly installments. A Maytag washer and dryer: $1,999 over 100 weeks.
Abbott wanted a love seat-sofa combo, and she knew it might rip her budget. But this, she figured, was the cost of being out of options. “You don’t get something like that just to put more burden on yourself,” Abbott said.
Five years into a national economic recovery that has further strained the poor working class, an entire industry has grown around handing them a lifeline to the material rewards of middle-class life. Retailers in the post-Great Recession years have become even more likely to work with customers who don’t have the money upfront, instead offering a widening spectrum of payment plans that ultimately cost far more and add to the burdens of life on the economy’s fringes.
The poor today can shop online, paying in installments, or walk into traditional retailers such as Kmart that now offer in-store leasing. The most striking change in the world of low-income commerce has been the proliferation of rent-to-own stores such as Buddy’s Home Furnishings, which has been opening a new store every week, largely in the South.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Heh. Just last night I was looking at our furniture.
65 year old desk (my dad’s)
100+ year old table (grandma’s)
Stereo Component Cabinet (goodwill, $20)
Curio Cabinet & glass table (15 years old - mom’s)
Dining Room cabinet - Craigslist
Recliner - mother-in-laws old one.
Rocker - mother-in-laws old one.
(MIL is fickle, will buy furniture, use it for 6 months and go out and buy something different!)
Just last year I redid the master bedroom and got rid of 30+ year old furniture of me and my wife’s from high school and college days. Found a complete set of nice wood furniture on Craig’s List. Took three pickup truck loads - bed frame, two night stands, two lamps, two LARGE dressers, mirror, large cabinet - only 3 years old. Paid $1400 for it all! Got some nice, solid sliding glass closet doors and all the hardware on craigslist for $200.
We are due for a new couch.
I think my wife and I DO have better, thanks to the way we live. I don't mind it a bit. One thing we hardly ever fight over is money, because we ain't in debt over everything we own.
Craigslist, Goodwill, yard sales. These people need to think a little more.
33 years old, kids and a 9th grade education WE ARE SO SCREWED!!!!!
Typical Obama voter!!!!!!!
It worked fine. And at the end of the consulting gig, the rental company was there to pick everything up.
But that's a pretty specific market, and certainly NOT the target for these kind of places.
What fool would pay $2,000 for a laptop that can be had for 1/5 of that? Truly, people are the sum of their bad decisions.
"Some weeks, they couldn’t pay their cellphone bills. They hadn’t eaten out in two months."
Sympathy? None. Truly, people are the sum of their poor decisions.
Looked to me like a handheld CB radio. Article said he was a trucker, so that fit.
As Dave Ramsey says, “Being broke is a temporary economic situation, being poor is a state of mind.”
Mrs WBill just did that, picked up a couple of dressers for $100.
I was a little dubious, but shouldn't have been. They're both solid cherry. Gorgeous pieces of furniture, that we'll be giving to the grandkids a million years from now. A couple of nicks and scratches (they've been used) but nothing that won't come out with a little work and elbow grease.
Great deals to be had....I'm convinced!
Only complaint that I have is that they both weigh a $%$%#@$ ton. Whatever money my lovely wife saved, will go to repairing the hernia I got hauling them in the house. :-)
You can get a refurbished MacBook for $769 - something considered overpriced/luxurious. For $2039 can get a screaming awesome refurbished 15.4-inch MacBook Pro 2.3GHz Quad-core Intel i7 with Retina Display - what I'm using right now, and gloating that it's the best computer in our >30-person high-tech company.
Yes, rental may make sense for particular situations. Being broke and wanting a new (!) couch isn't one.
Going up it too.
Somewhere I've got a picture I took of an orange Lotus (very expensive car) at the Taco Bell drive-thru. You don't accumulate a lot of money for luxurious items by squandering it all on crap.
Alternately, some rich folks have bad taste.
sometimes people are poor because they are stupid.
I will never buy anything new again. Just keep checking and wait for what you want to come along at the price you want to pay.
I wholey agree, pay cash is the way to go, but I also know that like it or not these places do provide a valid service in context to how they operate... do I agree with everything they do? Nope and I agree most would avoid them if they could.
With that said however, when you have to wash clothes for 4 kids, and the payment to the rent to own place is less than the cost of the laundromat, while the overall purchase price is far higher than paying cash, the decision to go this route can be a reasonable move for those with lower income.
And yes the down side is miss a payment and its gone.
The only case I’ve seen that was reasonable was a couple that moved into a house across from us. The movers said, “Yeah, we’ve moved you cross country, but you have to pay us the rest of the bill $XXX to get your stuff to the house.”
So they rented essentials like appliances and beds and couches for the two or three weeks until they got their stuff.
“The movers said, “Yeah, we’ve moved you cross country, but you have to pay us the rest of the bill $XXX to get your stuff to the house.””
-
That moving scam happened to an elderly couple in my complex.
Outrageous.
.
I agree with you in principal, but I also know that there are times, as much as they seem silly to you, there are valid reasons to go the route of the rent to own option for some people.
If you are not handy and can’t fix something by yourself, and you are already paying $25 a week to go to the laundromat, renting a washer and dryer for $100 a month or less is a break even economics and you now have a product you can use, that if it breaks gets replaced/fixed without you spending another dime etc. So you can go get someones hand me down off craigslist and risk that it doesn’t work or has problems and be right back to square one... If you are handy, that’s not a problem, if you aren’t not so much.
I am not saying that rental places are the best solution, often times they are not, but to say that they are never a reasonable solution, or are only used because people want more than they can afford I think is a bit disingenuous. There are certainly situations where the rental to own option is not as bad to the renter as it seems.
I wholly agree its better to save up your money and buy something, but I can tell you, there are times when it does make financial sense within the context of individual lives.. is it ideal? Nope... but when you have bad credit and poor, at times it can be the best option available.
There is no argument that the best option financially is nearly always to save up and buy it for cash, but not everyone is in a situation they can do that, and not everyone is handy enough to repair something that is not functional. Hand me downs and second hand are fine, but again, not everyone can take the risk, or already has concluded the problems they can create are just not worth the time, money and energy and decide that even though it will cost them more in the long run to buy, its a better option for them at that point and time.
Reality is everyones situation is different, and yes, while some people will do some incredibly dumb things like rent to own everything they want, you can’t just blanket whitewash that there is never a situation for folks in this situation to say its never the right option for them.
I can tell you first hand, losing my washer for 3 weeks waiting for a part to come in, I would have happily traded the money I was spending going to the laundromat weekly during that time for a rediculous rental agreement that would have been at or less than the amount I was putting into the machines. I would regain 3-4 hours a week back to myself because I could do it when I was home and free instead of a dedicated trip and an expense.
Fortunately I am not in a financial situation where I would have to do that, and I could if I had to go buy a brand new machine for cash in a worst case scenario. However, to try to argue that had someone of less means decides to do so is making the worst possible move or is only doing it because the want the best and brightest shiny thing is silly.
Exactly. It is a screening technique.
If you advertise for people that have credit problems, or are confused by the details of a purchase or advertise for some other type of vulnerability, it's not because you are going to try to help them, it's because you are going to try to take advantage of them.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.