[quote=Dervish]
Yeah, that's usually the sad truth of the matter. Somebody's suddenly rocketed to a position of obscene wealth and suddenly, they act like dicks. Justin Bieber, for instance, is the perfect case study of that. He probably wasn't a bad kid before he was suddenly treated like royalty and had more money than he could ever spend. I guess when you have so much wealth that something as basic as affording your utility bills and groceries every month kind of makes it all seem trivial and you kind of get disconnected with the fact that most people aren't lucky enough to have enough money to live comfortably, let alone buy expensive toys and monster houses. And it's especially true in your case, how do you break out of poverty when you're born into it? It's families like yours that deserve a break more than anyone, but people tend to forget that. It's just damn regrettable that the people who are most able to do something about the situation you and countless millions of others face is that when you're so high up, you kind of lose sight of what's down below. It's what makes people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet so remarkable; they may be unfathomably rich, but they contribute so much back to charity that it's literally painful to try to wrap your head around the amount of money that's being funneled back into communities and towards good causes. As for the small business thing, it's part of the reason I usually try to buy some mom and pop stores when possible, plus you usually get better service there. It's not much, but a few regular customers can make or break a business.
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lol omg I could rant about Justin Bieber for ages, but I won't. He's a perfect example of what I'm talking about though and why I instinctively don't trust most wealthy people. Hell, most of my family doesn't even like the rich snob aunts anymore since they look down on us since we're all poor. In the end though everything I've been through in life really shows why I'm so sympathetic to Marxism. Even before becoming Marxist I was rabidly left-wing, along with most of my family. My mother is practically a Marxist too, even if she doesn't call it that. 

And yes, I try to shop at small businesses when I can, but unfortunately when you're on a tight budget it's hard since products tend to cost more. That's one reason why places like Wal-Mart are so bad imo, they basically force poor people to shop at them because they're cheaper due to all their products being made with sweat shop labour.