History Main / PerpetualPoverty

** A running joke, at least in Italian stories, is that Donald puts everything on the tab, and now has an enormous debt to every grocer, tailor, repairman, etc. in Duckburg. Paying off all his debt seems to be a case of FailureIsTheOnlyOption, and his debtors can get downright brutal. Yet he's hardly ever evicted from his big suburbia house. ... Because his landlord is Scrooge. Donald pays the rent by doing any chore Scrooge has in mind for him, from being recruited to life-threatening adventures to polishing every coin in the Money Bin.

*** Played straight in ''Homers Enemy'' when Frank Grimes is shown to be incensed that a buffoon like Homer can skate by in life and still afford better food, a bigger house and 2 cars, whereas the hard-working Grimes has nothing to show for it except "this haircut!".

* In ''Franchise/{{Noob}}'', Gaea and the Noob guild itself. Gaea has a few schemes going on to make extra money, but she loops back into being a StarvingStudent between her investements into the MMORPG everyone is playing and CrackIsCheaper (just check out that bookcase in her living room). The Noob guild is in that situation partly due to Gaea always finding a excuse to not contribute to its fund.

*** Their need to scrimp on one occasion became so great that one night of the week became "chub night".[note]Chub is a type of fish which at the time was inexpensive.[/note]

*** Their need to scrimp on one occasion became so great that one night of the week became "chub night".

* In ''Series/{{Noob}}'', Gaea and the Noob guild itself. Gaea has a few schemes going on to make extra money, but she loops back into being a StarvingStudent between her investements into the MMORPG everyone is playing and CrackIsCheaper (just check out that bookcase in her living room). The Noob guild is in that situation partly due to Gaea always finding a excuse to not contribute to its fund. When they do have game currency to spare, their PsychoForHire HonoraryTrueCompanion suddenly remembers that she's a mercenary and wants to get payed for that dungeon run she joined on her own initiative (unsuprisingly, she's Gaea's best friend and roommate).

** The Weasleys' situation never seems to improve, even after the five oldest children move out. Although the Weasley twins are Aversions. Once they receive seed money from Harry at the end of ''[[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire Goblet of Fire]],'' they become wealthy in short order (and all the Weasley siblings become [[BadassFamily very successful in their chosen fields]], even if those fields don't always pay well.)
** Actually, I'm not sure if they did blow the lot of the Prize draw winnings, since a trip to Egypt from the UK isn't THAT expensive, and a Galleon is 5 galleons to the pound. They won about 5K, and the trip to Egypt wouldn't have been that much (probably 2-3K.)

*** We don't know the exact laws regarding inheritance in the Wizarding World; it wouldn't surprise me if Lupin couldn't inherit any money from anybody, Not to mention Sirius probably wanted to prevent excessive scrutiny of his bequests; The Ministry can seize bequests temporarily for examination and have refused to hand them over where they can come up with an excuse before ( Gryffindor's sword in DH should have gone to Harry by the terms of Dumbledore's Will, the Ministry insisted it be displayed at Hogwarts - then again, they had the perfect "excuse" since the sword belonged to Hogwarts and not to Dumbledore. It was just Dumbledore's way to tell Harry it'd be useful against Voldemort) I can easily see them insisting a Werewolf not inherit money. As for Sirius helping Lupin out, Lupin is staying in Sirius's house.
**** In fact, one fanfic has James [[LoopholeAbuse using a loophole]] to give Lupin a home: because James couldn't bequeath any house to any Werewolf, he ''rented'' one to Lupin and declared the rent to be paid for the rest of Lupin's life.
*** Although Harry does comment in Half Blood Prince that he looks thinner and shabbier than ever which could be linked to Sirius no longer helping him out.
*** WordOfGod does say that James used his family fortune to support both Lily and Remus.
** The Weasleys did use a lot of the money to buy new things for the family, in addition to the trip. The amount of money they won was a descent amount, but wouldn't have solved their problems.

** At one pont when Chris is showing a video to try and prove the Evil Money's existence, among the other things shown is Lois stealing from Chris' wallet, showing that the the Griffins might not be able to really financially support each other.

* Akihisa Yoshii, the lead of ''LightNovel/BakaToTestToShoukanjuu'', lives in a state of finances that get actively pushed to the limit. He has to eat salt and sugar water for energy, has no hot water in his shower, and divides up his meals into 1/64ths so he can survive. His situation improves somewhat after his big sister moves in, but not by much.

* The Weasley family in ''Literature/HarryPotter'', whose wands, books and robes have been handed down through seven children in order to save money. Despite this, the Weasleys have no problem letting Harry and Hermione (both well-off) stay with them for all or part of the summer. They even manage to hold on to their Perpetual Poverty despite winning the lottery in ''Prisoner of Azkaban.'' Rather than buy new robes, they opted to blow the lot on a trip to Egypt. This could be simply because the Weasleys feel that a family trip is more important than material possessions, though; and it was the first time they'd seen Bill, who worked there as a curse-breaker, in years.
** The Weasleys' situation never seems to improve, even after the five oldest children move out. Although the Weasley twins are Aversions. Once they receive seed money from Harry at the end of ''Goblet of Fire,'' they become wealthy in short order (and all the Weasley siblings become [[BadassFamily very successful in their chosen fields]], even if those fields don't always pay well.)

* The Weasley family in ''HarryPotter'', whose wands, books and robes have been handed down through seven children in order to save money. Despite this, the Weasleys have no problem letting Harry and Hermione (both well-off) stay with them for all or part of the summer. They even manage to hold on to their Perpetual Poverty despite winning the lottery in ''Prisoner of Azkaban.'' Rather than buy new robes, they opted to blow the lot on a trip to Egypt. This could be simply because the Weasleys feel that a family trip is more important than material possessions, though; and it was the first time they'd seen Bill, who worked there as a curse-breaker, in years.

* Ragna from {{Blazblue}} tends to be this as so long as the meal is free, he won't refuse.

* Viciously deconstructed in John Cheese's ''Cracked'' article "5 Things Nobody Tells You About Being Poor" in which he outlines just how insanely hard escaping from poverty is and how there are almost endless landmines in the process that prevents people from ever escaping it.

** This is more an issue in the early seasons when they're interns and residents (a clear case of TruthInTelevision). When they finish their residencies, money doesn't seem to be an issue nearly as much.

* Apparently there is no need for money in the ''RaveMaster'' universe as you never see the main characters working, and tend to spend all their money at the casino. This is very obvious in one episode when they lose ALL their money at the casino and are complaining about being broke while sitting in a first class cabin on a train before going to the food cart for lunch.
** Of course, they bought those train tickets before losing their money at the casino. And Elie always wins said money back at every casino (she never even loses once in the manga). There are a couple chapters dedicated to looking for someone to sponsor them, or ways to raise funds. And on occaison you'll catch them being self-sufficient.

* The ''CowboyBebop'' crew spend every single episode complaining about their lack of food, fuel and money - to the point where they end up eating dog food and ages-old rations. Despite usually failing to capture a bounty in almost every episode, they never actually starve -- although one episode does show them not only out of both money and food but out of fuel as well, a situation which gets remedied mostly by accident. And when they actually do get a bounty head, either [[YankTheDogsChain some circumstance will conspire to ensure that they don't get anything for it]], or [[DestructiveSaviour the repair, medical and other bills from the massive destruction they caused going after bounties will cancel out whatever money they made]]. And, on top of it all, [[MsFanservice Faye]] is shown to be a gambler.

*** We don't know the exact laws regarding inheritance in the Wizarding World; it wouldn't surprise me if Lupin couldn't inherit any money from anybody, Not to mention Sirius probably wanted to prevent excessive scrutiny of his bequests; The Ministry can seize bequests temporarily for examination and have refused to hand them over where they can come up with an excuse before ( Gryffindor's sword in DH should have gone to Harry by the terms of Dumbledore's Will, the Ministry insisted it be displayed at Hogwarts.) I can easily see them insisting a Werewolf not inherit money. As for Sirius helping Lupin out, Lupin is staying in Sirius's house.