Being poor is no barrier to being happy, explained married couple Glenn and Althea Iris as they spoke to Tim Smith as part of The Royal Gazette’s The Cost of Living series.He squats in an abandoned property with his wife and hasn’t had a regular job his whole life, but Glenn Iris still puts on a suit every time he takes the trash out.“Just because you’re poor, you don’t have to act like you’re poor,” Mr Iris told The Royal Gazette.While much of the Bermudian workforce is currently wondering where its next pay rise is coming from, such a thought may seem a luxury to a man who’s spent much of the past few decades wondering where the next $50 hustle is coming from.But neither he nor wife Althea view themselves as have-nots; as Mrs Iris puts it with a Bermudian twist to the optimist’s favourite cliché: “If life gives you a crisis, make crisis pie.”Mr and Mrs Iris spoke to this newspaper as part of our The Cost of Living series, to provide an upbeat message that, however bad the economic crisis gets, life will always be what you make of it.Married for 20 years, the couple have moved house ten times, partly, they say, because of the stigma attached to their lives.Mr Iris, 61, has a criminal past, and Mrs Iris, 54, suffered challenges as a result of a chaotic upbringing: she was adopted into a single-parent home due to mental health problems within her own family.Their income is from whatever hustles Mr Iris can get as a painter, usually amounting to about $500 a week.Even with assistance from daily soup kitchens and the Salvation Army, some $50 a day goes on food such as takeouts, cheese, Vienna sausages and bread.Factor in laundry and transportation bills of $50 and $20 per week respectively, and other weekly expenses such as kerosene, ice, gas and cat food, and you can see why they’ve removed rent from the equation by moving into a seemingly unwanted empty home in Pembroke.It may be a rundown, cockroach-infested home, but the couple take as much pride in making it inhabitable as they do in their own appearance.Mr Iris is seldom seen in public wearing anything other than a smart suit and fedora combination.“Some guy gave me these clothes,” he explained.“I’m not ashamed. I said to him, you look nice, when you’ve finished with your clothes, just drop a bag where I stay. And he did.“Nobody in Bermuda, regardless of their situation, should be walking the streets looking like bums, because there are a lot of outlets you can take advantage of.”Mrs Iris reflected: “He always looks smart. Even when he just goes to take the trash outside, he always puts on his suit to look his best.”Her husband continued: “One of the challenges of a crisis is how you approach it. That’s one of the reasons why I thank God for having Jesus Christ in my life and also my Bible.“I learned a long time ago that just because you’re poor, you don’t have to act like you are poor.“As opposed to concentrating on the crisis, concentrate on the blessings that you receive while you are going through the crisis. I’m alive, I have my wife, I have 20 years of marriage.“People ask why I’m dressed up, I say this is after argument week.”Mrs Iris said: “Every Sunday we go to the Hamilton Princess and read our books and have tea. It costs $7. One time a lady had given us $50, so we used that and got a Caesar salad too.“You might think I can’t afford to, but I say I can’t afford not to.“When I’m having a bad day I can go window-shopping. I don’t have to buy anything, I just have eye candy.“We need to get back to that old way. When people had 14 children, what did they do? They bought bread, they made their own clothes and wore hand-me-downs.”She said life is more fun because her husband makes an occasion of everything.“Even though we don’t get to go the plays and everything we get to have fun,” she said. “I don’t have to worry about what we can’t do, or what other people are doing.“For me, because of where I came from, laughter was a bad thing. Whenever people laughed, I thought they were laughing at me. Then I would go home and start practising laughing. It was so foolish.“Now I’m better I try to smile even when I look like crap. It’s like God should be allowing me to be who I am.”There are downsides to the Iris’ economic situation, of course, such as the virtual impossibility of healthy living.“When you’re paying for apples, oranges, bread and bananas the money quickly adds up,” said Mrs Iris.“It’s $5 for milk and we haven’t even got to the cereal yet. And you wonder why kids are going to school without breakfast.“I’m trying to get a proper diet. I would like to be a vegan at some point. But I know unless I can get to a point where I can afford to go and get healthy food, I won’t be able to.”She recalled from her earlier days as a single parent: “It was hard for me to cope with increases in food prices. I had to put food on the table, pay for the telephone, laundry and transportation.“I heard a grocery shop owner say, ‘Don’t be afraid to make a profit.’ When you have a food chain and you want to make profit off the poor, that’s like wow.”She noted some stores sell toilet paper for $1.60 and others for $2.50, questioning what markups supermarkets are employing.There are, however, ways of doing more with less, according to the couple, who wait until 4pm for lunch every day as that’s when many food stores sell leftovers at discount prices.Mr Iris spent his formative years in an orphanage and fell into a life of crime in his younger days. He describes himself as a reformed character who sings gospel and does poetry.But he said the couple’s backgrounds have caused difficulties over the years, explaining: “We were able at some point to afford rent, but the stigma attached to our lives was also a factor in not being able to find somewhere stable to live.“I sympathise with a lot of people that have come out of prison and because of some other circumstance they built up a bad name or stigma attached to their name. It can be hard for them to manoeuvre.“You really don’t understand what the person is going through and where they have been through. Therefore my approach is how can I really help these people as opposed to making life more difficult for them.”In the weeks when Mr Iris makes extra money, he pays for someone less fortunate to cut his grass.“Sharing what little you have gives you a blessing,” he said.Indeed, the couple have found their humanitarian approach has had unexpected benefits for themselves.“We used to go the delis and get food and take it to the homeless guys,” said Mr Iris. “They gave us some of the food for ourselves, so we found that when we helped people, we got help ourselves.“If those that are in need but are having their needs met one way or the other would make an effort to help somebody else in need, then they themselves would be blessed.“If the workers that are working could find a way to help those that are unemployed, then nobody in this country would be out of work.“Win, lose or draw, helping one another is what we should be living for.”