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With the rise of social media, people feel the need to flaunt things(cars, houses, vacations, jewelry, you name it). Both me and my Wife are making extremely go

With the rise of social media, people feel the need to flaunt things(cars, houses, vacations, jewelry, you name it). Both me and my Wife are making extremely good tech money, shes a director and I am senior+ engineer. And I feel like everyone is living a lifestyle even we cannot afford. We drive Japanese cars (mid level) a few years old. Bought a very sensible house with a payment that if something happened to one of us the other could handle living expenses and not lose the place. We go on somewhat normal vacations, hawaii being an outlier, typically mountain areas in the US and stay at airbnbs and don't wear designer clothes, just t-shirts and jeans etc. Most of our neighbors(and families in our kids school) drive tesla's and other luxury cars or brand new non-luxury cars, they always have brand new clothes and iphones and a few have rolex watches or other high end brands. I do feel like maybe its a southern california thing to live extravagantly but I suspect most are living way beyond their means and if a partner would lose their job things would drastically change for them overnight.

siddarthd2919 5y ago
We are in a similar situation and I have come to the conclusion, there is a money tree giving people free money that I am not aware of :)
- strikelaserclaw 5y ago
  some people are genuinely rich, but America is a debt based country so without looking at peoples finances you can't really tell much about how rich they really are vs them being able to afford monthly down payments.
sdoering 5y ago
I can relate. I mean I am in Germany. Living and working here. Last year with my job and freelance on the side I did absolutely not make 6 figures. We have our house we bought 12 years ago and renovated for 8 years. My SO left her job 3 years ago to study again and in essence doesn't make money. So for the time being it is me. But we value great local organic food and produce and that next to our mortgage is by far the biggest part of our spending. We still put money on the side, but maybe because while we like to spend money (even just for fun) we don't overindulge. Maybe because we are not as social so that we do not compare and because our values are not in line with spending money to be walking advertisement carriers. Not sure but when I hear of people in the US with 250k+ living paycheck to paycheck I wonder how that is possible. On the other hand I know people where both make 125 - 150k in Germany and also are living paycheck to paycheck. So maybe I just can't imagine how this works because living in such a way is something too far from my experience.

siddarthd2919 5y ago

We are in a similar situation and I have come to the conclusion, there is a money tree giving people free money that I am not aware of :)

strikelaserclaw 5y ago
some people are genuinely rich, but America is a debt based country so without looking at peoples finances you can't really tell much about how rich they really are vs them being able to afford monthly down payments.

sdoering 5y ago

I can relate. I mean I am in Germany. Living and working here. Last year with my job and freelance on the side I did absolutely not make 6 figures. We have our house we bought 12 years ago and renovated for 8 years. My SO left her job 3 years ago to study again and in essence doesn't make money. So for the time being it is me. But we value great local organic food and produce and that next to our mortgage is by far the biggest part of our spending. We still put money on the side, but maybe because while we like to spend money (even just for fun) we don't overindulge. Maybe because we are not as social so that we do not compare and because our values are not in line with spending money to be walking advertisement carriers. Not sure but when I hear of people in the US with 250k+ living paycheck to paycheck I wonder how that is possible. On the other hand I know people where both make 125 - 150k in Germany and also are living paycheck to paycheck. So maybe I just can't imagine how this works because living in such a way is something too far from my experience.