How to Become Poor: A Proven Formula for Poverty!

Imagine you were born in the year 3090. A millennium and sixty-six years from 2024. In the thirty-first century, humankind would have probably been able to have advanced astronomically in every area. That is, from science to religion, education, healthcare, travel, technology, business, and whatnot.

We may even have added space travel, colonising other planets, teleportation, impeccable gene editing, and human cloning to the list. Please allow your imagination to run wild. Think about finance, for instance. Maybe that year, humankind will be so rich that conversations about poverty reduction surely ended about seven centuries ago.

What that would mean is that you would be in a world that suffers from an affluent dilemma or wealthy conundrum. In simpler terms, “rich people problems.” That is a possibility because, while wealth can provide many advantages and opportunities, it does not shield individuals from facing various challenges and problems.

More money, more problems—remember? When this happens, you may hastily think that becoming poor may have fewer troubles, which is quite understandable. After all, not having an actual knowledge of what impoverishment is like (being born in a poverty-less era), you may mistakenly think it is a viable option.

Bear in mind that in 3090, humankind may have totally eradicated the external factors that may cause poverty. Such as discrimination, inequality, natural disasters (because man would have the technology to control even the environment), social exclusion, and geographic factors like living in places with a high cost of living, unemployment, etc.

So, you head over and speak to some kind of advanced artificial intelligence about actionable steps you can take on your own to get the results you need. Your question will be, ‘Jarvis? How does one become poor?’

The first answer Jarvis would give you would be to live above your means. Spend everything you earn. You can’t stay healthy, lean, and fit if you eat everything, right? That works the same way with money earned. You can't be wealthy if you spend it all. Do not, in any way, delay gratification.

If you feel like buying the iPhone MMMXC Quantum Max, do so. Yes, go ahead and go on that costly time-travel expedition. Spend, spend, spend. Especially if it’s beyond your means. Every income should be disposable if you want to achieve genuine, flawless, undiluted poverty. You need to do this so there's nothing left to be saved or invested.

The thing is, you can maximise your savings by cutting down on expenses. To become poor, you have to do the exact opposite. So don’t have a budget; buy on impulse and spend everything, including money that you've yet to earn. To be genuinely poor, you have to get to a place where you have high-interest debt to pay off. Over time, it piles up, and you're ushered into abject poverty. 

Another thing Jarvis would tell you is to be friends with people who are worse off than you. There is always someone you’re doing better than, just like there are those who are doing better than you. Now, should you become friends with the latter, you are likely to pick up on their habits and start becoming like them. So what you want to do is to be friends with those people you're better than.

They'll bring you down to their level eventually, and you can go ahead and find another group worse off than them to join. Don't underestimate the power of the company you keep. You will become like them sooner or later. If they use and abuse drugs, you'll follow in their footsteps. And of course, if they aspire to become poor, they'll assist you in ways that will astonish you. 

Jarvis will also recommend that you take your health and well-being for granted. Do things that will compromise your physical, spiritual, emotional, and mental well-being. Don't set aside time to exercise. Renounce physical activity of any form. Don’t read, even when your schedule is free. Instead, call some like-minded friends on the phone and discuss the lives of other people. Don’t learn anything new.

There's always something to learn, but believe and act like you know it all. Never entertain self-improvement, self-development, or whatever self-whatnots there are. Don’t invest in knowledge or education. That’ll only make you wiser and humbler, as well as put you on the path to financial success.

So you’ll want to despise knowledge in every form, especially financial literacy. Simply put, if you are going to create poverty, you will want to be intolerant of anything that can help your well-being. 

Jarvis will likely tell you not to help others in any capacity. Wealth is most often a by-product of your contribution to the lives of others. By enriching others, you also enrich yourself. By providing value to others, you gain wealth. So to become poor, never lend a helping hand to anyone; not to your family or your friends.

Keep your hands tied behind you, metaphorically speaking. You may think this won’t get you to the poverty aisle, but it will. You could also decide to offer help, but you need to do it by not setting boundaries so as to jeopardise your financial well-being. You could, for instance, give your debit card to a stranger and ask them to buy whatever they like at your expense.

You could share your bank details or any financial transactions and statements online. People who feel the need to take other people's money will be very grateful to you. Since they will take your money despite being wealthy, because of greed—which is still a human trait even in 3090—you’ll definitely become poor. 

To become poor, Jarvis would advise that you exchange your time for cash, especially for low-skilled employment. There’s no shortage of low-skilled labour, so workers in that enterprise hardly get paid enough. When you exchange your time working at jobs like that and you're unable to get enough time or payment to acquire more high-level employable skills, you will definitely become poor.

What you earn won’t keep up with inflation, for instance. And since you will definitely hate the job, which will leave you frequently stressed, that will only result in you making very bad financial decisions. Which will, in due course, make and keep you poor. 

Now imagine, once more, that you were born in 3090. A millennium, six decades, and six years from 2024. Unlike Jarvis, I would advise that you take a time-travel expedition to Earth. Come around in 2020, when COVID-19 is at its peak. I’m sure when you get back to your own time after a year’s stay, you’ll be wiser.

However, if my advice is too hard for you to take, then live above your means, keep bad company, disregard your health, be selfish, exchange time for money with low-skilled labour, and Bob’s Poverty's your uncle.