Not sure why you're being downvoted. I lived what you're saying. It's a reality for a lot of people.
Cheapest option at a proper restaurant: glass of water. I had times where that was the only option that I could manage, unless my friends insisted on paying for me. I'd feel bad, but they were better off and didn't mind (at least they said they didn't mind) and otherwise I might not have even gone out with them.
Splurging for me was going and getting 4 items off the dollar value menu at Wendy's instead of 2 or 3.
But it wouldn't really matter. I'd get sick, have to go to the doctor, get a bill I couldn't pay, it'd go to collections and wreck my credit, then my car would break down the same week, then it breaks down again in a different way a few months later, and will keep doing so because it's an old piece of shit but you can't get anything better, and there's just no getting ahead. Just sinking further and further into debt.
I didn't break out of that cycle until I got a job that almost doubled my salary and dedicated a couple of years to just digging myself out of the hole I had gotten myself into.
I'm a lot better off right now. Actually have savings, some investments. House, dogs, wife, spend more money than I should on stuff I don't really need. But I'm way, way behind others my age in my industry, and my credit is just okay now, not great.
Also, when I could only afford water, I learned how to say something to the effect of "That's okay, I already ate, I'll just have some water," or if at a bar "No thank you, I'm a designated driver, just some water," to make it seem like it wasn't because I was broke. Probably didn't always work, but no one said anything about it.
I've been in the same boat (see other posts). It sucks so much. And so much of the problem is the expense of transport, which is externalized onto regular folks rather than being paid for with taxes.
Even when I was broke and living in NYC, I could still afford my subway pass. I mean barely, but I afforded it. That meant I could always get to the temp job I needed to get to without worrying.
If you think of car ownership as a "tax" because it's required in most parts of the country, it becomes a very expensive regressive tax indeed.
You appear to be very mistaken about the meaning of "externalized" (this is, of course, the charitable interpretation). Paying for a good or service you yourself consume does not constitute an externality. In fact, the exact opposite is true: if you forces others to pay for your open transportation, that would be an externality.
In NYC and other major cities, the mid-century city planners were convinced / bribed by oil and car companies to tear down their elevated tracks and install freeways; remove their cable cars and replace them with slower, less efficient bus routes.
The common good of affordable and reliable public transportation was transformed into an everybody-must-own-a-car system.
Thus you and I and other people are paying tens of thousands of dollars to own and maintain cars because business interests felt it would be better for us to do so.
This reply confirms my suspicion that you are mistaken about the meaning of "externalize". What you describe does not constitute an externality, although I do appreciate the explanation. This holds even though I tend to agree that what happened was a bad thing, though for different reasons.
However, it is important to remember that words mean something, and anyone who tells you different is trying to sell you something (usually something involving the deaths of millions, but I digress...).
Cheapest option at a proper restaurant: glass of water. I had times where that was the only option that I could manage, unless my friends insisted on paying for me. I'd feel bad, but they were better off and didn't mind (at least they said they didn't mind) and otherwise I might not have even gone out with them.
Splurging for me was going and getting 4 items off the dollar value menu at Wendy's instead of 2 or 3.
But it wouldn't really matter. I'd get sick, have to go to the doctor, get a bill I couldn't pay, it'd go to collections and wreck my credit, then my car would break down the same week, then it breaks down again in a different way a few months later, and will keep doing so because it's an old piece of shit but you can't get anything better, and there's just no getting ahead. Just sinking further and further into debt.
I didn't break out of that cycle until I got a job that almost doubled my salary and dedicated a couple of years to just digging myself out of the hole I had gotten myself into.
I'm a lot better off right now. Actually have savings, some investments. House, dogs, wife, spend more money than I should on stuff I don't really need. But I'm way, way behind others my age in my industry, and my credit is just okay now, not great.