Weasley Poverty (was Wanderings and Wonderings about Wands

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 29364

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Dave Hardenbrook <DaveH47 at m...> wrote:
> 
> Thursday, November 15, 2001, 12:25:33 PM, Jason Bailey wrote:
> JB> My guess is that the Weasleys have always been poor and always 
> JB> used secondhand things. 
> 
> Maybe it's a vicious circle -- The Weasleys are poor.  Why? Because
> they can't get good-paying jobs.  Why? Because they use second-rate
> hand-me-down wands?  Why? Because they're poor!!

But Bill and Charlie appear to have gotten good-paying jobs. Those 
dragon-hide boots of Bill's don't come cheap. We don't if Arthur's 
job is good-paying or MoM employees are Supposed to live on 
corruption rather than on salary, but it Is responsible and magical, 
and Molly may be right that its just internal office politics that 
keeps him from further promotion. Percy needed good OWLs to get his 
job at the Ministry, which is a stepping-stone to better MoM jobs. 
The Weasleys appear to be quite magical enough to get good jobs even 
if they did go to school with hand-me-down wands. 

My theory is that the only reason the Weasleys are poor is because 
they have other priorities than prosperity. First priority being 
family life rather than money: they have a lot of children to 
support, all at roughly the same time, and Molly is a stay-at-home 
mom. Second priority being an interesting/enjoyable/useful job rather 
than a well-paid job (e.g. Arthur being idealistic about Muggle 
rights rather than currying favor with Fudge, Charlie going off to 
research/wrangle dragons rather than become a professional athlete -- 
if he was anything as good as Wood said, he could have cleaned up on 
endorsements). Third priority being to be honest and honorable 
instead of looking after the main chance.