This game is a bit amazing to me. I can totally see its usefulness for students or for people who have never considered how tough it is to be poor. But it's one that I've played more than once in real life - unemployed, $1,000 in the bank, job prospects minimal. It is incredible that some people have so little understanding of being among the working poor that they'd need a simulation like this to figure out what that's like.

I sat down and watched my 9 year old play this game at least a dozen times. I found that not only did it give him a perspective on money, he had a better understanding of what the poor go through each month. It really hit him when we got to the grocery selection because there was so much that didn't appear on the list that are regular features in our house hold. When he thought about what potential dinners might be, he was not impressed. I don't know if I see this at a university level because honestly by that age they should have more common sense but as far as teaching younger children the realities of poverty, I think that it is a great teaching tool.

Rolleyes. As someone who lives at that income level (below poverty level), it chaps my ass that this game is so two-dimensional. "Tough choices," seriously? It's a "tough choice" to let your child be emotionally and maybe physically abused by teachers and other kids who are ALSO essentially imprisoned for the crime of being born into a society terrified and contemptuous of children? Unschooling: it's the more intelligent choice.

Yes, you know, life IS a lot harder if you refuse to give up the ideologies you've been raised in. Carnism, ageism and a car-centric mentality are all really crippling to someone who's already struggling. But my sympathy wanes for people who, when faced with the fact that their ideology, in addition to hurting others (as it always has) will hurt them, refuse to look at the ideology itself.

Capitalism sucks. Think about it until you're able to grasp that the only way you can possibly survive is to reject the system. Then change.

Oh, I've played a game like that before. Every day.

I help people get in contact with social resources (help apply for food stamps or utility funds, find employment centers or food banks, stuff like that) and I haven't met a single person who has $1,000 in the bank to begin with. Most rely on social networks (family or close friends) instead, which of course I'm guessing isn't an option in the game.

While I like the idea of the game, I found it a little bit unrealistic in the frequency of the money-costing events. I have never had a month with quite that many unpredictable expenses (my mom, my pet _and_ my co-worker getting sick in a month, and my car breaking down, and my landlord raising the rent, etc.). The "how will you make it through next month" makes it even more unrealistic, because if I had all these problems this month, certainly I wouldn't have them again next month.

Also, some of the costs have an air of irresponsibility to them. Speeding tickets, pets (which a lot of people don't have because they can't afford them), not being good enough at math to help your kid (or not being willing to go though the text and learn it). Also, why can't you take public transit? Why can't your kid walk to school?

I'm not saying that it's not hard to live on minimum wage, I just think they could have picked a better set of events, and maybe made the game longer (a year) and made the events less common, to make it more realistic.

Wow. That's a very low hourly wage for an adult to earn. o_O If companies can really pay that little (and for temps? Shouldn't they be earning *more* per hour?), no wonder people are struggling.

This is a nice indication of how hard it is to make ends meet, but that's a rather skewed situation. A)insurance. I just went to Anthems website and made a simple health insurance quote and it was 93 dollars. But here it says 275 a month? That's a difference of just under 200 dollars which I could use for rent, groceries etc. Secondly, in college I couldn't afford my own place, so I rented with someone else which saved me a ton of money. Finally, I agree that the salary is close to what you would earn without any experience or proper education, BUT, and this is a big 'but'... I know that I worked two jobs to support myself for a while, and also worked more hours.

I'm happy that someone is showing the hardships of poverty, but honestly this is rather skewed to run into a car, have your dog sick, your kids sick, etc. Oh and I type at 70 wpm and I failed the typing test. Hmm.

Wow want a great game! They should make congress the senate and those other tossers play this sadly I wish I made 300 a week now add higher rent renters insurance because they make you double the gas! Because only new york runs a transport right.
The sad thing is the people that make the decisions for us just can't phantom living on even a 1000 a month just as we can't phantom why someone that wins the lottery isn't happy? Money may not buy happiest but it will pay saddness to go take a week off.
This game is an optomistic look at my checkbook because having 1000 dollars in the bank is a life savers let's put this game in expert mode you are late on every bill by a month you have medical bills and no car but are still paying for one because some douche in a saab was texting and plowed into you breaking your leg in 14 places and because your late add 15 bucks to all utilites lucky you! Add social workers that tell you god doesn't close a door without opening a window! Which make me wonder why god wants me to jump to my death? Did I mention that because you have no money or way to get any you are now in default on your student loan good luck!

I am curious - has ANYONE passed the typing test, or is it set up so it's impossible?

A comment on the typing test only- I initially failed it twice, having passed the not particularly stringent real life temp agency typing and aptitude tests I required to get a temp job (in the UK). I'm not a superfast typist (50wpm or so maybe), but on my 3rd try I managed okay by simply paying more attention to getting the typing exactly right than concentrating on the speed itself. However, I still quickly ran out of money and failed miserably in the game.

The poor are so disadvantaged that even when they have enough money to pay both their gas and electric bill they are only allowed to pay one of them.

I thought this was really interesting coming from a Canadian perspective.. Not only healthcare, but is it legal in the States to make employees pay for uniforms and dropped dishes? And landlords can't hike the rent that much without notice. Is this just trying to suggest that, when in this position individuals are forced to pay for things that wealthier individuals would be able to sidestep (through court processes)?

I've lived my life without a car or a driver's license (and I'm now in my 50s). I've lived in several places where people told me that I would absolutely need a car. They were consistently wrong. I did end up paying more for housing, but not as much more as the cost of owning a car. I haven't had to live on poverty-level income since being a grad student, but I did not find it that difficult then. Lentils, beans, and pasta were (and still) are cheap. It would have been tough if I had not had student health insurance, though, as individual health insurance was somewhat expensive then and has gotten extremely expensive now.

It has helped that I have chosen to live in "college towns" where walking and bicycling were socially accepted, and drivers were not murderous thugs.

I like the concept, but the execution is a bit weak. First of all, they eliminate the possibility of many choices. You are clearly expected to be moving, as you choose your apartment, but there is only one possible city to choose. There is no possibility to choose a city that is closer to your family who might help you, or one with better public transportation. Food service, at least, is everywhere.

Wht's more, you can live within 1 mile of your place of work, but are still driving, with the attendant difficulties of cars... There is no option to go car-free, even living close enough (and paying associated prices) to work to make is feasible even in a place like Houston or LA where cars are often considered essential. Car problems are not more common far from work, only gas is.

Then you have the disasters that come up... Some, like the dealings with the landlord and the employer attempting to force you to pay for a dropped dish, are blatantly illegal and would be easily dealt with if you have a basic understanding of your rights. Others, like heart problems and family deaths, do occur, but how many people do you know who have a relative die, an elderly parent get horribly ill, have a heart attack, lose a close friend... all within the first month of starting a new job?

There is no option to not have a child to begin with, which presents poverty as happening to PARENTS, not single persons, and is a narrow view of life. There is also no option to be disabled, supporting a parent, etc.

I never got this far, but others who tried it and managed to be successful found that often you were not permitted to pay off multiple bills even if you had plenty of money to do so. It is designed to guarantee you fail whatever you do, but it does so in such an unrealistic manner, while assuming you made extremely poor choices leading up to the event.

I agree with the premise-- I am also living on poverty wages-- but the overall reaction to this by all but the very poor and very liberal is "They can't even present a realistic scenario to support their position! The only way you can be poor is by having terrible judgment!"

This is my fucking life. This is really depressing. Right now me and the rest of my friends are in this exact situation. We're college grads working temp, food service or retail jobs to make ends meet. Does that mean we're poor? Are the majority of people really better off than this?

I wanted to share my experience to show how easy it is to slip into student debt.

I had to move really far to the city so I could go to school (there were several serious reasons other than distance that I couldn't live with my parents). I subleased a room in an apartment from someone who turned out to be pretty violent and actually ran me out in the middle of the night.

I scrambled to find an apartment a couple weeks into the school year. Now living by myself, the expenses were doubled, and the loan I was given was only enough to pay for what my needs were when I lived with a room-mate. I worked so much to afford my apartment that my grades slipped and I had to withdraw at midterm (rather than have a "fail" on my record". Work was pretty far away so I was losing about a quarter of my night's income on cabs each shift (by the time I got off buses weren't running, I live closer to work now). My job pays 30 cents more than minimum wage and the amount of hours I get really aren't enough to live on. I feel really fortunate that I got to keep my college group drug insurance and that I have free healthcare, otherwise I wouldn't be able to work at all. Mostly I only get two shifts a week, but sometimes they will surprise me with six days of work (because of the nature of the job I cant really negotiate the schedule). The sporadic nature of the scheduling makes it hard for me to get secondary employment.

Now student assistance wants me to pay half of the loan back right away, all at once but I simply don't have the money. That puts me on probation for any more loans, meaning I wont be able to go back to school this year. I now have about a quarter of what I owe them in the bank, and that's enough to pay my rent and bills for one more month. My parents would help me but they are having trouble making ends meet themselves. It feels like a brick wall at every turn.

I don't know that it's that hard to explain the problems of poverty. The difficulty is getting folks to care.

Therefore, it is important to understand the attitudes towards poverty of students ... economic situations and help them better empathize with future patients.

spent is insanely broken and filled with glitches, you can beat it in like 3 seconds by putting this in console before even pressing accept the challenge:

Spent._winGame()

Doing it before pressing accept the challenge causes it to restart after, doing it after it loads after clicking find a job after clicking accept the challenge will not make this happen.

spent speed running is getting so good bro

Spent will EVENTUALLY be beaten in under 45 seconds

Anyone wanna list their discord to speed run this shit?

The touch-sensitive controls allow for Snow Rider 3D quick adjustments, adding an element of skill to the sledding experience.