Ahh, Olive Garden. I hope you won't mind a slight tangent involving Olive Garden, one of Paul Graham's essays, and a sneaky business deal:
In one of his essays[1], Paul Graham wrote, "I think most businesses that fail do it because they don't give customers what they want. Look at restaurants. A large percentage fail, about a quarter in the first year. But can you think of one restaurant that had really good food and went out of business?"
Yes, I can name a restaurant that had really good food and went out of business -- it was all of the Olive Garden locations in Ontario, Canada, about 15 years ago. They were always busy, always had a line-up to get in, and pretty much everyone I knew liked the food a lot. Then suddenly, without explanation, all of the Olive Gardens in Ontario shut down.
Much later I learned that Olive Garden USA had shifted some large debts to its Olive Garden Canada subsidiary, and allowed the Canadian subsidiary to go bankrupt, freeing the parent corporation of the debts. (So businesses fail for odd reasons even when they have excellent products and masses of loyal customers.)
Yes. In fact I know a shitload of restaurants with excellent food, that went out of business. In the restaurant business your are more in the real estate business than in the food business. Location, Location, Location is everything. And how much you pay for it.
Just my experience, but my first world poor friends, without exception are all bad with money. They have little understanding of how money actually works, have terrible spending habits, are incredibly risk averse, and carry a "money is evil" mindset.
If it's possible for you to live within your means (edit: putting aside illness, addictions, felonies etc), you can build wealth at a good rate in the first world. You may never be a multi-millionaire, but you can be financially secure and stable.
True.
"but my first world poor friends, without exception are all bad with money." ROTFL. What about your third world friend? This may give you an idea.
Read this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17218250