Because of an unprecedented family emergency near Thanksgiving, I had to change my initial plans of staying at Harvard for the break and had to find last minute tickets to fly home. If it were not for an emergency, I would never buy tickets so close to the actual flight date. I usually start looking for tickets months in advance, hoping to notice trends in the sale of tickets so I can buy the cheapest ones possible. It is so hard going to school so far away from home, because of my financial status, it's not possible for me to just fly home if problems occurred. It is just extremely inconvenient.
Because of my need to find the cheapest ticket possible, I have to sometimes connect three different flights and fly for ten or more hours in the air when it should only take, at most, six hours to fly from Boston to Oakland. To me it is more important to save $50 instead of spending that extra money to fly home as soon as possible. I was once talking to a friend who is from a pretty affluent background and he told me that time is so much more important to him. He said that he thinks that it's ridiculous I'm willing to waste so much time to save only $50. Yet to me, $50 can buy around 10 meals at McDonald's. It can feed so many more people than what saving a little time can do. I guess these are simply my lower class tendencies.
People of upper class statuses try to maximize their time whereas people from lower class backgrounds try to maximize their money. Due to the fact that people from a higher social class don't need to worry about money since they have enough that they can feed a couple of generations even if they don't do anything. Yet, they do not understand how important every single penny saved can be to a poor family.
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