The Hidden Costs of Not Having Wealth

When people think about money struggles, they often imagine the absence of luxuries: no holidays, no new clothes, fewer nights out. But the real weight of not having wealth is not just about what you do not get. It is about what you pay extra for simply because you do not have a financial cushion.

Starting out on the back foot

Leaving home to begin adult life should feel like a fresh start. For many it begins with debt. You might need to borrow just to travel to your first job, whether that is a season ticket, a second hand car, or the deposit for renting near your workplace. For someone with family wealth, these costs are quietly covered. For someone without, it is debt from day one.

I lived this reality myself. By the time I left university, I had accumulated more than £20,000 in private debt. My student loan did not even cover rent, so I had to work long hours and borrow simply to survive. It was not a case of spending recklessly, it was the cost of getting by.

Seeing the trap before it begins

I am neurodivergent, and from about ten years old I could already see how money worked, how unfair it was, and how certain people would always start further behind. That awareness was not empowering. It was heavy. The injustice sensitivity was painful. I could see the structure clearly but could not change it.

Throughout my teenage years I tried to prepare, to be smart, to plan. But when the time came, I still could not get the help I needed. The systems that were supposed to catch me were not built for minds like mine. I learned to disassociate from the anxiety of it, to ignore what I could see, because everyone around me said, “It is the same for everyone.” It is not.
This isn't laziness or poor choice - this is injustice senstivity, overwhelm and disassociation, all learned from a system that wasn't built with us in mind.

The student loan deduction

In the UK, graduates pay 9 percent of anything they earn above a threshold toward student loans. On paper that looks manageable. In practice, it becomes a second tax that eats away at the income you need to rebuild your life.

For me, it meant that even when I entered the tech sector and earned what many would call huge sums, I was constantly chased by the high interest debt that built up during my studies. That 9 percent student loan deduction was a double blow. At the same time as paying extra on private credit, I was losing money straight from my salary before it even reached my bank account.

The poverty premium

This is the trap so many fall into. The less money you have, the more expensive life becomes.

• Credit card balances rack up high interest.
• Poor credit history means worse borrowing rates.
• Paying monthly for insurance or energy costs more than paying annually.
• Not having cash flow means losing out on discounts or bulk savings.

Researchers call this the poverty premium. A University of Bristol study estimated an average extra cost of about £490 per low income household each year, with some households paying much more. Read the study.

The invisible trap

From the outside, debt often looks like bad decision making. But the truth is structural. It is about a system that penalises those without a cushion. For neurodivergent people, it can be even more complex. Many of us feel the injustice so sharply that it becomes overwhelming, yet the sensory overload and chronic stress can push us into avoidance. You end up ignoring bills not out of laziness, but because the emotional weight of them is unbearable.

It is not the same for everyone. Some of us start behind the line, and then get charged more for running the same race.

Why this matters

Talking about poverty in terms of tight budgets or cutting luxuries misses the point. The real story is about hidden costs that accumulate relentlessly, keeping people trapped.

I spent ten years working in one of the highest paid industries in the world, yet I carried the shadow of debts that began simply because I was poor. Add to that the exhaustion of masking neurodivergence, managing executive dysfunction, and fighting systems not built for you, and the load becomes immense.

This is the reality of the hidden costs of not having wealth. Recognising it, and truly understanding it, is the first step to breaking the cycle, for ourselves and for those who come after us.