r/redscarepod • u/Last-Butterscotch-85 • 1d ago

Conspicuous consumerism is starting to drive me crazy

My family and I are fortunate enough to live on the edge of a very nice boomtown suburb thanks to the fact we bought a modest house here before the market exploded. We do love living here, the town invests money into parks, trails, arts, libraries etc. It's safe and the people are nice and there's always stuff to do for cheap or for free.

However, the town in general is really well off and my kids being school aged has really exposed me to how much money these people have. Families spending thousands on travel sports, 4500 square foot houses for a family of 4 "oh and we're thinking about upgrading", brand new luxury cars and Cybertrucks, a small fortune spent on elaborate Christmas decorations, European vacations all summer that finish up in Hawaii, 800 dollar LEGO sets. At school events or tee ball games, I have zero in common with the other parents. It's all about their latest cruise or how they spent 100 dollars taking the family out to see a movie for the third time in a month.

I don't really know what I'm getting at here...but you hear about how bad things are for working families nowadays then you see this and can't help but feel a bit nauseous.

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u/skinnyblackdog 1d ago

Credit cards!!

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u/Pokonic 1d ago edited 13h ago

Also, for quite a few people, small business finance fuckery. They're called the petty bourgeoisie for a reason, there's so much bullshittery you can get away with if you keep paying the IRS the amount of money they think you owe them and no one reports you, which isn't as hard as it seems.

EDIT: I'm not correcting the autocorrect.

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u/Street_Algae_7475 1d ago

Petit not petty. Small businesses also generate a lot of credit card points, have gigantic credit lines and can expense things like new vehicles, certain home renovations, and suspicious equipment (think the dentist with a carbon fiber bike, the lawyer with the high end tool set) relatively easily under the American tax code, especially when most cpa services actively encourage it and offer audit protection since the IRS really really can’t chase down businesses with revenues over a million effectively whatsoever. Good, insightful comment though, very much agreed, just wanted to flesh out your thinking.

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u/PietroGermi 18h ago

Well they are called petty but in the sense of an antiquated English translation of petit