The main barrier to poverty is that there is a statistically almost no way to meaningfully save up enough money to get out of poverty, by onesself, just by forgoing anything that doesn't contribute directly to food and shelter.
Literally: what is the point of saving up 5$/wk? That's less than 300$ by the year. What can you realistically do to get yourself out of poverty for a one-time payment of 300$? You can't even afford therapy to help you get yourself out of immense, soul-crushing burnout because you've been doing nothing to enrich yourself psychologically such as companionship, entertainment, or gifting yourself a nice meal all year.
10$/wk is $520. You can't even start a business selling soap on etsy for 520$. You can maybe get a loan to do so, but now you're on the hook for even more debt for entrepreneurship and the majority of businesses fail.
This is assuming you never have a health problem, you never need medical care, you never have someone you love need medical care, and you have superhuman discipline to go without love, joy, and little pleasures in life for a year.
Small amounts let you gather up enough capital to reduce the negative impact of emergencies.
People who don't have thay ability make mistakes when emergencies inevitably come around.
Those 10$ a week after a year is enough to make up a small car repair, or problem with your paycheck.
Just last year I had an issue where my paycheck was short 1000$, because I wasn't spending everything as it came in, it wasn't a problem. I had a big enough buffer in income and emergency funds to make up for it.
If it had happened to my colleague who doesn't save up, he would have had to get a payday loan to put food on his families table.
Literally: what is the point of saving up 5$/wk? That's less than 300$ by the year. What can you realistically do to get yourself out of poverty for a one-time payment of 300$? You can't even afford therapy to help you get yourself out of immense, soul-crushing burnout because you've been doing nothing to enrich yourself psychologically such as companionship, entertainment, or gifting yourself a nice meal all year.
10$/wk is $520. You can't even start a business selling soap on etsy for 520$. You can maybe get a loan to do so, but now you're on the hook for even more debt for entrepreneurship and the majority of businesses fail.
This is assuming you never have a health problem, you never need medical care, you never have someone you love need medical care, and you have superhuman discipline to go without love, joy, and little pleasures in life for a year.