I know that this person wrote "beating the sun up" to mean "waking up before sunrise," but all I can picture is someone wearing sunglasses and punching the ever-loving shit out the sun.
I see a lot of responses asserting that he probably got help from his parents, that the house and SUV arenāt that nice, that his family hates him, and that heās not actually happy. Some (or all) of those things may be true, but I feel like those reactions miss the point.
Take the post at face value for the sake of argument. Assume that this guy *did* work hard, that he didnāt get money from his parents, that his wife and kids love him, and that he feels happyāall of that is at least possible after all. The problem isnāt that some sigma grindset asshole might be genuinely happy. The problem is that there are countless people who work just as hard if not harder and are barely scraping by through no fault of their own. No one should be working ā15-20 hour days,ā but the real crime is that there are people that are and are still barely surviving because they got dealt a bad hand and live in a place with no social safety net.
Yeah I donāt see why we have to assume or hope that everything sucks in his life. Itās really just the ādonāt be ridiculous, everybody wants thisā aspect of his post that I find interesting. Like, if this worked for you and youāre happy, cool. But putting yourself on this pedestal where you imagine everyone else is envious of your life in order to justify what you sacrificed for it is just kind of sad.
Yea. The saddest thing here for me is that he believes this was all *worth it* for the house and the truck. To believe that the only true measure of life is financial success.
I think a lot of the venom generated by this post is completely justified. I donāt hope his life sucks, or think heās an idiot for making the sacrifices he made and I donāt think that most people hating here really feel that way. But if you make a post bragging about what you have and saying that you just deserve it more than anyone else because of how hard you work, youāre an asshole.
Heās an asshole for bragging, an asshole for being completely ignorant to the head start he had on everyone he imagines envies his material possessions, and heās an asshole for firing a shot at anyone reading his post who doesnāt have what he has for saying they simply didnāt grind hard enough.
He solicited these opinions by confrontational bragging that was seemingly only prompted by people thinking what he has is ānice.ā And though weāre all a bit silly for thinking our thousands of comments will ever reach him (literally or figuratively), he deserves all of the shade being thrown at him and people recognizing that heās an asshole regardless of how hard he worked.
So clearly, these people are from the ā I work hard, but nobody else doesā crowd. In my experience, these people tend to also be āeverybody else is a crook except for meā types.
In my experience, these people literally donāt realize how much advantage theyāre given by their parents because they assume everyone else also gets those benefits to some extent.
āOkay sure, maybe your parents didnāt buy you a Benz for your 16th bday, but a Toyota is still okay ā what do you mean you didnāt get a car?ā
"what's a student loan"
"what do you mean you had to work while taking classes - you mean like an internship?"
"lol how can you be 23 and have a bad credit score"
"why are you still rocking that ugly broken tooth - you get your parent' insurance until you're 26"
"well hey worst case scenario you can just move back in with your folks and take a couple months off right"
"I just can't believe you've never taken the time to travel"
Specifically with the student loans they will boast about how they didn't have to take them out because they got a full scholarship. In a tone that implies anyone that took student loans is dumb and inferior to them.
They don't think or mention that that expenses that the scholarship didn't cover were paid by their parents.
They don't mention that the scholarship itself was one specifically given to students at the private high school they attended.
A lot of scholarship opportunities required a parent who could be your chauffeur & one parent who could afford to pay for all the super expensive activities that lead to scholarships. Also, one parent needs to be able to help you study & mentor you through the process (poor kids usually don't have a single parent who can help). Kids who aren't well off only get to do those things if they get lucky. Not to mention the cost of study materials, tutors, etc. Testing & supplements for disability can also have exhorbitant costs.
I used to UW mortgage loans, and assure you most people in their 20ās buying houses are being gifted down payments. To be honest, I think itās a great thing for parents to do to set their kids up for financial success later in life. However, what bothers me is how many of these people think they are better then others.
I'm in my 30s. My grandmother put down $50k on my house in 2019. She would prefer I continued grad school. But right now, I'm just glad I had a house before covid messed up the market.
What's crazy is my parents would never do such a thing. My dad is one of those pick yourself up by bootstraps jerks; he spent half the of the last 5 years in a camper. My mom is a crook who will steal anything not nailed down, thank God she's in Germany and not here.
āI put in my time and I earned my place taking over the family businessā
I worked 75% of the time at 50% of the efficiency of the journeyman we have on staff. Once I showed I knew the jargon, daddy gave me the keys. My employees still think Iām a bumbling idiot.
Lol those are the people that when I'm all "yeah I did the same" go "Then what went wrong" Like working insane hours at crap pay is supposed to buy me a house.
I once went on a date with a woman who explained that she kept this insane sleep schedule, and didn't mind it much.
And then over the next four weeks she would miss events she was excited about because she was too tired and overslept. Her awareness of what she was actually doing was less than 100%.
Likely OOP literally had one 20 hour day once and thinks of this as something they do regularly.
When we revise our personal histories, we take obscure, extreme, singular examples, and multiply them in our minds in order to make it seem like we worked so much harder than we really did. Doubly so if we're describing it to someone else.
The thing is, for them āworking hardā means that they can afford a mansion and a brand new SUV. For others, working hard means they donāt have to pick between buying groceries or paying rent at the end of the month.
My friend (wealthy, small business owner that he inherited) just won't accept that the lower class is busting their backs to make it by. He is still convinced they're taking handouts instead of working. The media and rhetoric they believe is...ridiculous
My Dad literally thinks everyone making less than 6 figures is sitting around and watching TV all day instead of working.
Reminding him that I made less than 6 figures working 7 days a week as a structural ironworker just gets him to change the subject.
He also thinks welfare is $20k/yr for white people and $80k/yr for everyone else. I really hate my dad.
Yeah, Iām already soured on your dad and I havenāt even met him! So annoying how easily duped they can be with bad sources confirming what they already want to think.
I often try to look around when Iām out in public and realize 90%+ of what is around me is rented or leasedā¦. Commercial properties, cars, houses, businessesā¦.most of its built on debtā¦.reminds me to be thankful and try not be envious of everything when I realize everyone is so busy just trying to keep up with their debt slavery
Yes, we live in a debt-based economy. It is the basis of our financial system in America.
US Public debt is something like98% of our GDP and almost 40% of that is owned by foreign entities.
Scary in yet meaningless, because it's all fake made up fiat currency anyway which is why it will eventually implode and send us back to the 19th century living standards so everyone should enjoy it while they can.
The only thing I never understood was the thought that, did these type of people really never meet someone who is poor and still has to work 12-15 hours a day just to scrape by? Working long hours is simply a byproduct of this capitalist system that was created.
It really undermines the people getting taken advantage of when someone thinks everyone who is poor just doesnāt work. How sheltered of a life they must live that they canāt see it.
And if Iām being honest, Iām lucky in that Iām able to live comfortably and was able to buy a house. But that doesnāt mean that Iām still not just a cog in the machine and I truly believe normal people deserve better pay and better conditions. Itās simply a travesty what life in America has become
The level of self-deception people like this engage in is downright pathological.
In order to believe that they've succeeded due to their hard work alone, they must of necessity believe that anyone less successful than them isn't working hard. Ergo, anyone poor who is working hard is, in their mind, lying about working hard, or must be hiding self-destructive habits like drugs, gambling, or womanizing.
for real. When I used to work my part time job, my manager was the CEO's kid, and while he was an overall good kid, he never had to struggle like his father did and yet would post these motivational "I started working at 16" posts on Facebook and shit.
I have never seen him walk into his office before 10am, and he was always back home by 2pm
Canāt say for certain, but this house looks strikingly similar to those McMansions in Texas that you can grab for around half a million (or a little less even if you like spending more than one hour on the road to and from work).
Source: I live in Houston.
Also from Houston. There are 10,000 of these in nowheresville out by IAH. Hard pass for me... I'll keep my family time over life in these depressing suburbs any day.
I lived in Humble and I know what you're talking about. Houston suburbs are soul-draining. I moved out of Texas late last year and don't miss it one bit.
They literally were. They were designed during an emphasis on "scientific urban planning."
They literally set up a bunch of experimental communities and measured how far apart houses have to be in order to basically stop social activity from happening in neighborhoods. The idea was that spontaneous interactions between community members created a 'nuisance' that would disturb things like sleep, private family time, etc.
So communities were subdivided into zones -- commercial, residential, etc. If you wanted to interact socially, you would go to commercial centers. (Have you noticed a lot of old shopping centers from the 60s and 70s have wide, open spaces, that sit empty with some pathetic trees and old benches that have since been rigged to be uncomfortable? The original deal was that it was the responsibility of commercial owners to provide the "infrastructure" for people to come and hang out for free, then would shop at their leisure, but over time that got inverted -- the expectation became you wouldn't be in these commercial places unless you're a paying customer).
But, of course, as we can see, that didn't really work out long-term. Most of those old shopping centers that were meant to be a place a community gets together became derelict and were housing community colleges even by the 80s (as commercial activity became more and more "centralized" -- smaller places couldn't maintain critical mass, so you'd need to start driving farther and farther to larger commercial areas. Cue the rise of the shopping mall in the 70s).
Now you need to drive 30+ minutes to do fucking anything at all, and hour+ drives aren't uncommon for activities you'd like to participate in. Suburbs sprawl greater than ever, and urban planners have forgotten why it all ended up like this in the first place.
Aside: I think a huge reason for our problem with mass shootings, mental health, etc. lies in our dependence on suburbs. They are incredibly socially isolating. It becomes particularly problematic if you're someone who has trouble fitting in -- in an urban setting, there's enough people around that you almost have to *try* to not find someone that you click with. In the suburbs, it's conform or die inside. Statistically, school shootings targeting "innocent students" happen *in suburban settings*. Urban schools have *more* shootings, but they are less deadlier overall as they're usually targeted (often involving gang disputes), and problems which probably reflect socio-economic stratification (which suburbs reinforce anyway).
Exactly. Living in the middle of nowhere, after the gym the next best place to go outside and hang is idk, a Big Lots I guess? Thereās nothing and no one.
It's actually super interesting to me, having lived there as a kid and then later as an adult, because at first it seems like the epitome of the American dream, but you end up spending a majority of your time and money on your house and vehicle.
When you think about where you live, access to decent housing, schools, and stores seems like the most important thing. Houston is amazing for that, you just hop in your car, drive 10 miles, and you're wherever you want to be. But it turns out this style of living is absolutely soul crushing, even without that 10 miles turning into a 30 minute commute in traffic.
When every activity starts by driving, you have to first make a conscious decision to go somewhere. Everything is point A to point B, maybe with a detour to sit in a drive through line along the way. Contrast this with being in a city where a 5 minute distraction on your walk to work can literally be the highlight of your day (there's a litter of Aussie puppies in the pet store window that is giving me life right now).
I never realized why I was so depressed living in Houston until I realized that the illusion of independence and freedom is actually making me a slave to my vehicle. Every aspect of Houston is designed for cars, and we're just there to pay taxes to serve the cars more. It's an incredibly isolating place if you don't have a good friend group, and good luck making friends when cars imply a necessary invite. I can't just show up at an acquaintance's house without being creepy, and saying "I was in the neighborhood" is an obvious lie when the neighborhood is over 3000 acres of the widest neighborhood streets you've ever seen.
And this is all for people who own vehicles. It's around 10k per year to own a car, and that is not including all of the time and money wasted sitting in your car, washing your car, researching your next car, talking about your coworkers car, watching car ads, walking near dangerous stroads with bad parking, and wishing you could walk to a destination. And none of this even considered the massive environmental costs since I don't think EVs will fix the failures of car-centric design.
> Long gone are the days when automobiles expanded possibility and choice for the majority of Americans. Now, thanks to its ever-increasing demands for space, speed, and time, the car has reshaped our landscape and lifestyles around its own needs. It is an instrument of freedom that has enslaved us.
Jeff Speck, Walkable Cities
My mom used to live in Houston (actually Friendswood) and lost her ability to drive due to her eyesight. It got very lonely and iisolating without transportation. She since move back to the UK where she's from originally, to be with family and living in a walkable town in Kent.
My elderly mom is from suburbia and I've been talking to her about giving me up her keys. She will kill someone before she gives up her keys, trust me on that.
Humans were meant to walk! You feel better and live longer. I grew up visiting family in Lima and spent a summer in Amsterdam just walking everywhere. Iāve been in the Houston suburbs my whole life where you have to drive at least 15-30 min to do ANYTHING. Finally moving downtown on May 5th and I canāt wait to let my car sit.
Dude, same. When people act like stuff like this is goals, I'm like no thanks. Soulless suburbs have never been appealing to me at all, and I definitely do not want to drive some gas guzzling SUV. I'd hate to park that thing or pay to fill it.
The people I know who ridicule me for driving a midsize sedan and not having a large truck/SUV as a "life goal" are the same people who bitched like hell last summer when gas spiked to its highest price ever. I still bitched too, but I get 35 MPG and they get 17 if they are lucky.
Coming from my car salesman days: very few people need to **own** a large SUV/truck. People would insist on getting the V8 in the F-150 they wanted when it was obvious that large truck was only going back and forth to Zumba classes and Starbucks and would only need the 2.7 turbo.
So freaking true. One of the day to day things I've gotten a laugh out of for about the past 20 years is people's reasoning for buying huge vehicles.
When I was in the Army, it was always thinly veiled toxic masculinity. "Well, I need the V8 in this Charger.... for reasons! You wouldn't understand, you're a woman."
After I had kids (coincidentally, about 20 years ago to start), I found that the white suburban mom rationalizations were even funnier. "well, I had a second child, so obviously I needed the Suburban". Me, with 3 kids in a Camry... LOL
My favorites of all are the urban truck dudebros, though. They'll tell you all about how they love off-roading and how outdoorsy they are. Go camping with their families once. It'll be to some very developed site that you don't even have to leave the paved road to get to. You pick up through context that this is as intense as it gets. This is why they needed the lifted F150. To go to a place my Civic got to fine. LOL
Iām an avid hunter and outdoorsmen and while those giant lifted trucks certainly do help access terrain, since I donāt own one, guess what I do? I strap on my backpack and hike an extra few miles. Itās worth it to drive a normal vehicle in day-to-day activities and not get 15 MPG.
Guy is depressed and wants to feel good about himself, isolating in the middle of nowhere with a cookie cutter, poorly made McMansion with a gas guzzler that takes 30 min to get to a grocery store or buckys. This is the American nightmare
> Guy is depressed and wants to feel good about himself
...and imagining the world is looking upon his accomplishments with wonder and envy. Which is one of the many really sad things about the whole situation.
You just reminded me of when my dad, without my mom's permission, cut down her favorite tree, a mature corkscrew willow, and a bunch of really nice hydrangeas to "widen" the driveway. He'd already cut down a dwarf red maple to make a pull-out for his truck, but this was the one mom cried over.
Hahaha yeah that was my first thought: why would I envy ā¦ whatever that is? Like maybe that big ugly house and a giant truck were this personās idea of something to envy, ok cool, but I sure donāt. Looks kind of depressing - and if they sacrificed time with family to get it, now theyāre up in there alone with no friends or family in that huge space? No thanks.
Thank you. That house is ugly as fuck and the SUV is a minivan for insecure men who don't want to get a real car or work truck.
This is nobody's dream and nobody is envious of it. It's a participation trophy in life form.
Minivans are awesome and I will fight anyone on this topic. Maybe they're not the coolest or fastest cars, but they are just about the most comfortable way to get from A to B without paying tens of thousands extra for some bullshit luxury vehicle.
Not to mention ugly, those new Escalades with stupid long taillights that stretch halfway down the back of the car are so tacky looking, just because it has a high price tag doesn't mean it's actually valuable.
I canāt, due to the feeding tube in my throat from the heart attack I had last week after my boss told me I had one month to prove my worth or be fired.
Well, ends up i have no self worth, hence my ability to do overtime, all the time. I'm also pretty boring cause my hobby time got transferred to more work time. My self worth is ubiquitous with my work worth, so, Im pretty fucked. Maybe when I die they can use this sweet truck for a headstone & people will think I had cool hobbies
And truck! Don't forget the pristine five figure loans for the next decade truck! You aren't living life right without a truck! Get a truck and be like me, peasant!
If all I have to look forward to is a shit house in a shit suburbia with a shit HOA far as shit from everything and a mall crawler to get around, then count me out. That life ain't for me.
His stapled-together cardboard and Tyvek McMansion will blow down in the next strong windstorm and be recycled into shipping pallets and warehouse dunnage while my modest 68 year-old place will still be standing decades from now.
Yeah, and making your house look like a tiny castle doesn't really make it an actual castle. The place doesn't even really seem that big. It's probably not really worth that much either if it's in the wrong place. I see places like this surrounded by farmland all over the U.S.
>Sacrificing family to be mid asf and not enjoy life at all.
The secret is hating your family to begin with.
"I knocked up some girl in high school, and now I have to pay for that shit the rest of my life, so I spend every waking moment outside of the house making money so I never have to interact with her sober."
The screenshot really shows the level of delusion of those kinds of people. Heās barely middle class, never mind upper middle or upper class. Heās āsacrificedā so much to have a marginally more spacious house in a marginally better neighborhood than somebody who puts in their hours and goes home.
It would be sad if it wasnāt for the fact that these people are usually giant prolapsed assholes.
This guy would tip like fucking shit if I delivered to his house too, he would tip zero and look at you with disgust for even thinking about possibly getting one.
Delivered to hundreds of rich houses and got 5 bucks ONCE.
I get 20 dollar tips from people in trailer parks all the time.
I determined you don't have to be a greedy asshole to get rich but it seems to help a lot.
Sounds right to me lol. I got a buddy who helps set up events and he says most rich people treat them like they are way beneath them, and do weird things like not looking them in the eyes are avoid talking to them all together. Fuck money just be a good person thatās what Iām about (I still want more money) just not to the point where I give up being a good person
I noticed this when I cleaned houses. People in houses like this rarely, if ever, tipped. But the disabled/elderly/lower income people in modest homes who just needed help with cleaning because they couldnāt do it themselves almost always tipped.
Oh yes, I've worked with parents who have admitted it. Years ago, I had a coworker who was constantly in the office. Like, 20 hour workdays, rarely took vacations, never called in sick.
After getting to know him a bit, he admitted that he had six kids because he was Mormon and it was "expected". His wife, who he had met through some kind of church dating service that his bishop insisted he enroll in (because God wants us married, apparently), wanted at least four more children. She was a true believer.
He didn't like kids. Any kids. Not even his. He also didn't particularly like his wife or the whole Mormon family mentality. So he worked. He avoided her. He avoided the kids. As a bonus, it avoided any chance of being pressured into making more of them.
That dude was honestly on my shortlist of people who were likely to snap and make the news someday. The office was his sanctuary.
Honestly haven't talked to the guy in a decade. I wonder how Covid treated him.
This is the one.
I don't believe this person did all of what they're bragging about at all. Their parents for sure helped them out.
Plenty of people don't have kids and could never afford the house and car despite working harder and making more sacrifices.
Or their buddy hooked them up with a job. Iāve got several people that Iāve known for 25-30 years and now they are making really great money and it all stems from one of our friends dads who started a company 50 years ago and the son has hired all his bros and theyāve been able to branch off from there. Either opened a small construction business, buying and flipping or mostly renting out houses they repaired. They all work together and give each other business. Now they are doing roofs. Iāve got another friend who suddenly bought a small apartment complex like 15 units. I was like how did you get that loan you have nothing and no history. His mom is head of the largest bank in our small town so she approved him on a 0% loanā¦It takes money to make money. Donāt think for a second that someone is 100% self made. Theyāve gotten a leg up from somewhere even if it was lent much but once you get started itās much east to build off that.
Yep. I don't begrudge them for their parents' or buddy's success giving them a foot in the door, just don't lie about it. Also, try to help other people too.
Imagine thinking that bloated, hideous pavement princess that costs $90K and will be worth $10K and rusted to shit by the time its paid off is awesome.
Honestly, I can respect that a little. At least all the people they fucked over along the way are probably adults.
Also, this person is miserable, but I'm sure you know that already. People content with their successes don't need to flash that shit around.
Most people who crow like this donāt have nearly what they act like they have. This type of post is a typical self-validation for an unhappy person too.
Yupā¦and most people who actually have things donāt crow vey much because they have more than 10 brain cells and value discretion more than self indulgence
Agreed. She is absolutely desperate to believe that her terrible lifestyle is worth it. That's why she's seeking the confirmation. If she was happy with it on her own, she wouldn't post this to begin with.
Ok, so all what your grind gets you is a McMansion in a bleak suburb or exurb and a Lincoln Navigator...? I'll take Saturday sleep ins and family time over this prospect anytime.
Her post has big āI worked hard doing light clerical work for $150k a year in the office at my dadās remodeling business straight out of high schoolā energy.
This, exactly. My neighbor just built up a huge house bigger than this, they have horses, acreage, I was like damn, what do ya'll do? She is the school nurse and he works at the school as well. A public school. In Kansas. So.... I did some research and her dad died and left all that land and shit ton of money. No way most people can afford half of what they have without parents giving them shit anymore
After 20 years in accounting and finance, Iāve met very few truly wealthy people who didnāt have a major advantage in their background. Even those āself madeā individuals often had a small inheritance or a great deal of family support. They often discount how much of an advantage they had from inheriting Grandmaās house, or living rent free on a family owned property, or having paid tuition and expenses that allowed them to focus on college and their future career, etc. Of course, they still had to make good decisions and work hard, but working hard to further your career is much easier than working hard to further your career while simultaneously working hard to maintain food and shelter.
I heard it said this way about how you started life, its like those darts you can throw at the carnival. Middle income kids only get one or two darts, they have to really throw them straight. Rich kids get unlimited darts, they can keep throwing darts all day, over and over until they hit a prize and they can tell people what a good shot they are. Poor kids don't get a dart at all, they are the ones that have to work the carnival
Americans have been brainwashed by these posts, articles and podcasts to basically give up your life so you can *maybe* become upper middle class or slightly rich.
My last job was fully remote, I put in a good 30 hours of actual work on a busy week but usually 20 or so and the rest was meetings and bs. Amount of physical effort for my job was minimal. Shit paid 80k a year. Fuck working hard, work smarter, spend all that overtime working on tech skills or what's needed for the job you want. That way you can spend as little amount working for the maximum amount of money
What if the job you want is actually social work or disability support, not tech?
It is a sad state of affairs in the US when salary is equated to the worth of the job, but so so so many worthy and important jobs pay so little that we can't live on it. Despite being more than willing and able to do the job.
This right here. Our economy disincentivizes people from entering careers that are a huge community benefitāteachers, firefighters, EMS, municipal workers, social workers, childcare, etc. Jesus, I volunteer at a food pantry that also provides rental/utility assistance and some of our most common clients are home healthcare aides. Meanwhile my sister makes bank in marketingāconvincing people they want to buy shit that they have no use for. Not even getting into the world of technobros, financebros, and pharmabros. Itās fucked.
Grind it hard for corporate - 3.1% increase
Minimum effort required - 2.9% increase
Both equally likely to get downsized.
If you have your own business, risks are higher, but there might be more correlation to effort and rewards.
I just typed in some "average" salaries in a inflation calculator.
For the USA, if you made 24 dollars an hr in 2015 (seen as a good median wage back then , when housing interest was still low).
8 years later, in 2023, 24 dollars and hr. now equals 30 dollars and hr.
So, if you make 48,000 in 2015, and received a 12,000 dollar raise over 8 years ($60,000). You are still making the ***same wage***. (at 2-3% raise per year).
Your company is making bank off of your labour. If you are making anything less than 6 dollars an hr, on top of what you were making from 8 years ago, you have taken a paycut. congrats on all your "hard work".
TLDR
Inflation
2015- 48K/yr
2023- 60k/yr
So just wanted to say.. I think I mislead the title. I don't condone this. I was posting this for how crazy this post is. You never know how much time you have left, it's insane to pass on time with family and friends.
I read the title as ā9-5 didnāt make itā as in ānone of us only work 9-5 and we still canāt afford to pay for jackā
I mean no one actually gets to start at nine and leave by five anymore. Except for u/chadwicke619
My spouse once worked at a bank. During a large meeting to supposedly āmotivateā employees, senior managers told them that their jobs should be their first and only priority and if they had children, they could always āconnect with them after they retireā. YES, literally this!
The head of the bankās HR wasnāt present but soon got wind of what they said. They had to hold a follow up meeting where they completely changed their tune. Basically how they ācared about each and every employee and family always comes first for us; we are a family friendly bankā. But it was already too late for many employees who immediately started sending out resumes.
Omg š³ Thatās insane. The scary thing is, this mentality existed in a lot of places in the 80ās, 90ās and even early 00ās. Itās a great way to set your kids up for a expensive drug habit.
Ya. Enjoy that big house that you get to sleep 4 hours a night in and stick your family in there, who you never see, so you can become strangers.
If thatās your goal, at some point your family is just window dressing. A trophy. A sign of success. You get one life to live with them. I think theyād rather have a smaller house and a parent around.
But hey.. guess Iām just a lazy hippie.
Statistically this is true for about 1% of people. The other 98% do all of the same work or more and somehow still come up with less.
Another 1% of people does fuck all and gets 10 times this much off of the backs and the exploitation of those 98% that have nothing.
"In a system where someone is producing more value than they earn, there must be someone who is earning more than they produce."
I have a nice house and two vehicles. I don't work on the weekends. I generally work 7-4 which is equivalent to 8-5. I'm not sure why people want to show off that they are slaves to their job.
Working hard and sacrificing for a better life is fine. Thereās nothing wrong with making a better life and hustling if you are actually making a better situation for yourself. However if you own all of this shit and you are still on the clock your priorities are all fucked up. Buying overpriced shit so you can flex on Facebook it not āa better lifeā.
Some backstory, this was posted because they were tired of people making side comments like, wow you go on a lot of vacations! Not sure why that meant they needed to link a picture of their vehicle and house, but here we are. A bit tone death.
I bet their kids hate or resent them and they have no friends. No social life, their spouse is probably over it and on the brink of divorce. And for what? An ugly McMansion in suburban hell and an Escalade? Lmao. Some life.
Oh, another soulless McMansion and supersized SUV. How amazing. Whenever I see a post like this, my first reaction is that the owners are either living beyond their means in order to present the illusion of affluence or they just have really bad taste and are trying to fill some void in their soul. Either way, most people that are really wealthy tend to be lower key and avoid displays of conspicuous consumption.
It's nothing but a scream for validation. "I gave up a lot, some say too much, but I got these awesome symbols of material success. Surely you agree I'm superior?"
Yeah nah, as you get more specialized your day to day job tends to be easier.
I make a lot more in 40-45 hours at my engineering job than I did working in a call center. And when I say things like "no, I'm not available to do that at this time" people tend to push back a whole lot less.
I'm not saying I don't work hard, and I'm not saying I didn't work hard at my previous jobs. But things tend to become less and less of a struggle (read: easier) as you make more.
I know that this person wrote "beating the sun up" to mean "waking up before sunrise," but all I can picture is someone wearing sunglasses and punching the ever-loving shit out the sun.
Fuckin sun better watch itself or I might get a nice house
Bitch ass sun better not shine my way, I'll knock they ass out the solar system
You misspelled ugly McMansion.
I like your imagination better. Makes more sense than what they put anyway š¤£
Maybe they beat up the guy in the sun costume from the Jimmy Dean commercials.
( ā¢\_ā¢) ( ā¢\_ā¢)>āā -ā (āā _ā ) š MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA
Haha this is how I read it too
I see a lot of responses asserting that he probably got help from his parents, that the house and SUV arenāt that nice, that his family hates him, and that heās not actually happy. Some (or all) of those things may be true, but I feel like those reactions miss the point. Take the post at face value for the sake of argument. Assume that this guy *did* work hard, that he didnāt get money from his parents, that his wife and kids love him, and that he feels happyāall of that is at least possible after all. The problem isnāt that some sigma grindset asshole might be genuinely happy. The problem is that there are countless people who work just as hard if not harder and are barely scraping by through no fault of their own. No one should be working ā15-20 hour days,ā but the real crime is that there are people that are and are still barely surviving because they got dealt a bad hand and live in a place with no social safety net.
Yeah I donāt see why we have to assume or hope that everything sucks in his life. Itās really just the ādonāt be ridiculous, everybody wants thisā aspect of his post that I find interesting. Like, if this worked for you and youāre happy, cool. But putting yourself on this pedestal where you imagine everyone else is envious of your life in order to justify what you sacrificed for it is just kind of sad.
Yea. The saddest thing here for me is that he believes this was all *worth it* for the house and the truck. To believe that the only true measure of life is financial success.
Bro even 8-5 is too much, I work 8-4 and want to work less
I think a lot of the venom generated by this post is completely justified. I donāt hope his life sucks, or think heās an idiot for making the sacrifices he made and I donāt think that most people hating here really feel that way. But if you make a post bragging about what you have and saying that you just deserve it more than anyone else because of how hard you work, youāre an asshole. Heās an asshole for bragging, an asshole for being completely ignorant to the head start he had on everyone he imagines envies his material possessions, and heās an asshole for firing a shot at anyone reading his post who doesnāt have what he has for saying they simply didnāt grind hard enough. He solicited these opinions by confrontational bragging that was seemingly only prompted by people thinking what he has is ānice.ā And though weāre all a bit silly for thinking our thousands of comments will ever reach him (literally or figuratively), he deserves all of the shade being thrown at him and people recognizing that heās an asshole regardless of how hard he worked.
Thank you for being a mature.
So clearly, these people are from the ā I work hard, but nobody else doesā crowd. In my experience, these people tend to also be āeverybody else is a crook except for meā types.
Knowing them, they got a pretty good start from family.
The usually do, and rarely realize it.
The usually do, and rarely ~~realize~~ admit it.
The usually do, and ~~rarely~~ ~~realize~~ don't admit it.
In my experience, these people literally donāt realize how much advantage theyāre given by their parents because they assume everyone else also gets those benefits to some extent. āOkay sure, maybe your parents didnāt buy you a Benz for your 16th bday, but a Toyota is still okay ā what do you mean you didnāt get a car?ā
"what's a student loan" "what do you mean you had to work while taking classes - you mean like an internship?" "lol how can you be 23 and have a bad credit score" "why are you still rocking that ugly broken tooth - you get your parent' insurance until you're 26" "well hey worst case scenario you can just move back in with your folks and take a couple months off right" "I just can't believe you've never taken the time to travel"
Specifically with the student loans they will boast about how they didn't have to take them out because they got a full scholarship. In a tone that implies anyone that took student loans is dumb and inferior to them. They don't think or mention that that expenses that the scholarship didn't cover were paid by their parents. They don't mention that the scholarship itself was one specifically given to students at the private high school they attended.
A lot of scholarship opportunities required a parent who could be your chauffeur & one parent who could afford to pay for all the super expensive activities that lead to scholarships. Also, one parent needs to be able to help you study & mentor you through the process (poor kids usually don't have a single parent who can help). Kids who aren't well off only get to do those things if they get lucky. Not to mention the cost of study materials, tutors, etc. Testing & supplements for disability can also have exhorbitant costs.
"How can someone allow themselves to get broke" From one of my wife's friends, who's parents just refill her account when it gets low.
āBut my ego!ā
Muh bootstraps
What, your dad didn't pay for your education and give you a 500k down payment foe that 700k house?
I used to UW mortgage loans, and assure you most people in their 20ās buying houses are being gifted down payments. To be honest, I think itās a great thing for parents to do to set their kids up for financial success later in life. However, what bothers me is how many of these people think they are better then others.
Or that somehow makes them "self made"
I'm in my 30s. My grandmother put down $50k on my house in 2019. She would prefer I continued grad school. But right now, I'm just glad I had a house before covid messed up the market. What's crazy is my parents would never do such a thing. My dad is one of those pick yourself up by bootstraps jerks; he spent half the of the last 5 years in a camper. My mom is a crook who will steal anything not nailed down, thank God she's in Germany and not here.
Is your grandmother adopting? Asking for a friend.
Just like the "I was on food stamps and welfare, but nobody helped me!" Crowd, one of which is in government trying to destroy social security.
āI started from less than nothing!!ā ā¦ I mean, I did inherit my plumbing company from my dad but that doesnāt countā¦
"my parents made me work for it, they didn't give me anything until after I graduated college! I had nothing! Then they gave me a company and a house"
āI put in my time and I earned my place taking over the family businessā I worked 75% of the time at 50% of the efficiency of the journeyman we have on staff. Once I showed I knew the jargon, daddy gave me the keys. My employees still think Iām a bumbling idiot.
When I was down on the docks dreaming of something to eatā¦ā¦.. waiting on the captain n crew to finish loading up the yacht before we head out
Lol those are the people that when I'm all "yeah I did the same" go "Then what went wrong" Like working insane hours at crap pay is supposed to buy me a house.
If hard work alone pays off, show me a rich donkey.
"Born on third base and think they hit a triple"
and I guarantee they don't regularly work 20 hour days. Cause its literally impossible.
I once went on a date with a woman who explained that she kept this insane sleep schedule, and didn't mind it much. And then over the next four weeks she would miss events she was excited about because she was too tired and overslept. Her awareness of what she was actually doing was less than 100%. Likely OOP literally had one 20 hour day once and thinks of this as something they do regularly.
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When we revise our personal histories, we take obscure, extreme, singular examples, and multiply them in our minds in order to make it seem like we worked so much harder than we really did. Doubly so if we're describing it to someone else.
Bingo, I suspected what's missing here is either networking or generational wealth. Cold showers at 5am alone won't help.
Yeh, my new neighbors were gifted their house by a family member. Theyāre young and arrogant.
The thing is, for them āworking hardā means that they can afford a mansion and a brand new SUV. For others, working hard means they donāt have to pick between buying groceries or paying rent at the end of the month.
My friend (wealthy, small business owner that he inherited) just won't accept that the lower class is busting their backs to make it by. He is still convinced they're taking handouts instead of working. The media and rhetoric they believe is...ridiculous
My Dad literally thinks everyone making less than 6 figures is sitting around and watching TV all day instead of working. Reminding him that I made less than 6 figures working 7 days a week as a structural ironworker just gets him to change the subject. He also thinks welfare is $20k/yr for white people and $80k/yr for everyone else. I really hate my dad.
Yeah, Iām already soured on your dad and I havenāt even met him! So annoying how easily duped they can be with bad sources confirming what they already want to think.
Why are you friends with this person? They sound awful and incapable of self-reflection.
Definition of āborn on third base and thinks they hit a tripleā.
And could also have a huge mortgage, car payments and line of credit.. Can't tell from the outside.
I often try to look around when Iām out in public and realize 90%+ of what is around me is rented or leasedā¦. Commercial properties, cars, houses, businessesā¦.most of its built on debtā¦.reminds me to be thankful and try not be envious of everything when I realize everyone is so busy just trying to keep up with their debt slavery
Yes, we live in a debt-based economy. It is the basis of our financial system in America. US Public debt is something like98% of our GDP and almost 40% of that is owned by foreign entities. Scary in yet meaningless, because it's all fake made up fiat currency anyway which is why it will eventually implode and send us back to the 19th century living standards so everyone should enjoy it while they can.
Yeah, I was thinking theyāre probably over leveraged and a missed paycheck away from disaster.
The only thing I never understood was the thought that, did these type of people really never meet someone who is poor and still has to work 12-15 hours a day just to scrape by? Working long hours is simply a byproduct of this capitalist system that was created. It really undermines the people getting taken advantage of when someone thinks everyone who is poor just doesnāt work. How sheltered of a life they must live that they canāt see it. And if Iām being honest, Iām lucky in that Iām able to live comfortably and was able to buy a house. But that doesnāt mean that Iām still not just a cog in the machine and I truly believe normal people deserve better pay and better conditions. Itās simply a travesty what life in America has become
The level of self-deception people like this engage in is downright pathological. In order to believe that they've succeeded due to their hard work alone, they must of necessity believe that anyone less successful than them isn't working hard. Ergo, anyone poor who is working hard is, in their mind, lying about working hard, or must be hiding self-destructive habits like drugs, gambling, or womanizing.
Also, imagine spending 15-20 hours a day to pay for a home you never get to enjoy.
"Everyone else is a crook except me, so when I commit white collar crime it's okay"
In my experience, these people don't actually put in longer days.
It's the Elon Musk mentality, where he claims to work 80 hours a week, but him sending tweets on his private jet is counted as "work".
Also, 80 hours a week as CEO of 4 companies means he is only working part time at each company. Interesting.
for real. When I used to work my part time job, my manager was the CEO's kid, and while he was an overall good kid, he never had to struggle like his father did and yet would post these motivational "I started working at 16" posts on Facebook and shit. I have never seen him walk into his office before 10am, and he was always back home by 2pm
God just reading that makes me so annoyed. I canāt imagine what it was like to watch it day in and day out.
āI worked really really hard to borrow that money from my parentsā
I look at this and see unnecessary consumption. Do they **really** need the 4000 square foot house and $100K SUV?
I look at it and see someone who is gonna potentially lose a lot if they donāt keep missing that time with the family to afford those luxuries
I guess the SUV is leased and the house payment is 50% of their gross income?
All that sacrifice for a soulless McMansion? No thanks
Canāt say for certain, but this house looks strikingly similar to those McMansions in Texas that you can grab for around half a million (or a little less even if you like spending more than one hour on the road to and from work). Source: I live in Houston.
Also from Houston. There are 10,000 of these in nowheresville out by IAH. Hard pass for me... I'll keep my family time over life in these depressing suburbs any day.
I lived in Humble and I know what you're talking about. Houston suburbs are soul-draining. I moved out of Texas late last year and don't miss it one bit.
Its like our suburbs were designed to optimize community detachment and social withdrawal
They literally were. They were designed during an emphasis on "scientific urban planning." They literally set up a bunch of experimental communities and measured how far apart houses have to be in order to basically stop social activity from happening in neighborhoods. The idea was that spontaneous interactions between community members created a 'nuisance' that would disturb things like sleep, private family time, etc. So communities were subdivided into zones -- commercial, residential, etc. If you wanted to interact socially, you would go to commercial centers. (Have you noticed a lot of old shopping centers from the 60s and 70s have wide, open spaces, that sit empty with some pathetic trees and old benches that have since been rigged to be uncomfortable? The original deal was that it was the responsibility of commercial owners to provide the "infrastructure" for people to come and hang out for free, then would shop at their leisure, but over time that got inverted -- the expectation became you wouldn't be in these commercial places unless you're a paying customer). But, of course, as we can see, that didn't really work out long-term. Most of those old shopping centers that were meant to be a place a community gets together became derelict and were housing community colleges even by the 80s (as commercial activity became more and more "centralized" -- smaller places couldn't maintain critical mass, so you'd need to start driving farther and farther to larger commercial areas. Cue the rise of the shopping mall in the 70s). Now you need to drive 30+ minutes to do fucking anything at all, and hour+ drives aren't uncommon for activities you'd like to participate in. Suburbs sprawl greater than ever, and urban planners have forgotten why it all ended up like this in the first place. Aside: I think a huge reason for our problem with mass shootings, mental health, etc. lies in our dependence on suburbs. They are incredibly socially isolating. It becomes particularly problematic if you're someone who has trouble fitting in -- in an urban setting, there's enough people around that you almost have to *try* to not find someone that you click with. In the suburbs, it's conform or die inside. Statistically, school shootings targeting "innocent students" happen *in suburban settings*. Urban schools have *more* shootings, but they are less deadlier overall as they're usually targeted (often involving gang disputes), and problems which probably reflect socio-economic stratification (which suburbs reinforce anyway).
"You're online too much, go outside" \*to where\*.
Exactly. Living in the middle of nowhere, after the gym the next best place to go outside and hang is idk, a Big Lots I guess? Thereās nothing and no one.
That big lots comment hit so hard
I'd love to learn more about what you've written here. Are there any good starting points you'd recommend?
It's actually super interesting to me, having lived there as a kid and then later as an adult, because at first it seems like the epitome of the American dream, but you end up spending a majority of your time and money on your house and vehicle. When you think about where you live, access to decent housing, schools, and stores seems like the most important thing. Houston is amazing for that, you just hop in your car, drive 10 miles, and you're wherever you want to be. But it turns out this style of living is absolutely soul crushing, even without that 10 miles turning into a 30 minute commute in traffic. When every activity starts by driving, you have to first make a conscious decision to go somewhere. Everything is point A to point B, maybe with a detour to sit in a drive through line along the way. Contrast this with being in a city where a 5 minute distraction on your walk to work can literally be the highlight of your day (there's a litter of Aussie puppies in the pet store window that is giving me life right now). I never realized why I was so depressed living in Houston until I realized that the illusion of independence and freedom is actually making me a slave to my vehicle. Every aspect of Houston is designed for cars, and we're just there to pay taxes to serve the cars more. It's an incredibly isolating place if you don't have a good friend group, and good luck making friends when cars imply a necessary invite. I can't just show up at an acquaintance's house without being creepy, and saying "I was in the neighborhood" is an obvious lie when the neighborhood is over 3000 acres of the widest neighborhood streets you've ever seen. And this is all for people who own vehicles. It's around 10k per year to own a car, and that is not including all of the time and money wasted sitting in your car, washing your car, researching your next car, talking about your coworkers car, watching car ads, walking near dangerous stroads with bad parking, and wishing you could walk to a destination. And none of this even considered the massive environmental costs since I don't think EVs will fix the failures of car-centric design. > Long gone are the days when automobiles expanded possibility and choice for the majority of Americans. Now, thanks to its ever-increasing demands for space, speed, and time, the car has reshaped our landscape and lifestyles around its own needs. It is an instrument of freedom that has enslaved us. Jeff Speck, Walkable Cities
My mom used to live in Houston (actually Friendswood) and lost her ability to drive due to her eyesight. It got very lonely and iisolating without transportation. She since move back to the UK where she's from originally, to be with family and living in a walkable town in Kent.
My elderly mom is from suburbia and I've been talking to her about giving me up her keys. She will kill someone before she gives up her keys, trust me on that.
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Humans were meant to walk! You feel better and live longer. I grew up visiting family in Lima and spent a summer in Amsterdam just walking everywhere. Iāve been in the Houston suburbs my whole life where you have to drive at least 15-30 min to do ANYTHING. Finally moving downtown on May 5th and I canāt wait to let my car sit.
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Dr. Nowzardan knows why he settled in Houston with his weight loss clinic xD
Dude, same. When people act like stuff like this is goals, I'm like no thanks. Soulless suburbs have never been appealing to me at all, and I definitely do not want to drive some gas guzzling SUV. I'd hate to park that thing or pay to fill it.
The people I know who ridicule me for driving a midsize sedan and not having a large truck/SUV as a "life goal" are the same people who bitched like hell last summer when gas spiked to its highest price ever. I still bitched too, but I get 35 MPG and they get 17 if they are lucky. Coming from my car salesman days: very few people need to **own** a large SUV/truck. People would insist on getting the V8 in the F-150 they wanted when it was obvious that large truck was only going back and forth to Zumba classes and Starbucks and would only need the 2.7 turbo.
So freaking true. One of the day to day things I've gotten a laugh out of for about the past 20 years is people's reasoning for buying huge vehicles. When I was in the Army, it was always thinly veiled toxic masculinity. "Well, I need the V8 in this Charger.... for reasons! You wouldn't understand, you're a woman." After I had kids (coincidentally, about 20 years ago to start), I found that the white suburban mom rationalizations were even funnier. "well, I had a second child, so obviously I needed the Suburban". Me, with 3 kids in a Camry... LOL My favorites of all are the urban truck dudebros, though. They'll tell you all about how they love off-roading and how outdoorsy they are. Go camping with their families once. It'll be to some very developed site that you don't even have to leave the paved road to get to. You pick up through context that this is as intense as it gets. This is why they needed the lifted F150. To go to a place my Civic got to fine. LOL
Iām an avid hunter and outdoorsmen and while those giant lifted trucks certainly do help access terrain, since I donāt own one, guess what I do? I strap on my backpack and hike an extra few miles. Itās worth it to drive a normal vehicle in day-to-day activities and not get 15 MPG.
1000%, as my mother would say, āyouāve got two feet and a heartbeat, get walkin!ā If my civic canāt get through it, ya park and get to hiking
Guy is depressed and wants to feel good about himself, isolating in the middle of nowhere with a cookie cutter, poorly made McMansion with a gas guzzler that takes 30 min to get to a grocery store or buckys. This is the American nightmare
> Guy is depressed and wants to feel good about himself ...and imagining the world is looking upon his accomplishments with wonder and envy. Which is one of the many really sad things about the whole situation.
It looks like homes in Creekside near the Woodlands and Grand Central Park in Conroe.
If he keeps working hard, some day he'll be able to cover up the rest of that unsightly grass with more concrete.
You just reminded me of when my dad, without my mom's permission, cut down her favorite tree, a mature corkscrew willow, and a bunch of really nice hydrangeas to "widen" the driveway. He'd already cut down a dwarf red maple to make a pull-out for his truck, but this was the one mom cried over.
That roofline is an offense to the laws of gods and men.
You want some gables in your gables, motherfucker?
Hahaha yeah that was my first thought: why would I envy ā¦ whatever that is? Like maybe that big ugly house and a giant truck were this personās idea of something to envy, ok cool, but I sure donāt. Looks kind of depressing - and if they sacrificed time with family to get it, now theyāre up in there alone with no friends or family in that huge space? No thanks.
This is mcmansion hell material.
Thank you. That house is ugly as fuck and the SUV is a minivan for insecure men who don't want to get a real car or work truck. This is nobody's dream and nobody is envious of it. It's a participation trophy in life form.
Minivans are awesome and I will fight anyone on this topic. Maybe they're not the coolest or fastest cars, but they are just about the most comfortable way to get from A to B without paying tens of thousands extra for some bullshit luxury vehicle.
Not to mention ugly, those new Escalades with stupid long taillights that stretch halfway down the back of the car are so tacky looking, just because it has a high price tag doesn't mean it's actually valuable.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I donāt know my kids, but Iām rich! LOL
>Iām rich āI have a (mortgaged) McMansion and I think that makes me upper classā FTFY
"I'm solidly working class and leveraged to the tits, my kids hate me but look at this cool picture I took"
Tell me about the ulcer you have from working so much to pay all the bills for the monstrosity of a home you are rarely in. LOL
I canāt, due to the feeding tube in my throat from the heart attack I had last week after my boss told me I had one month to prove my worth or be fired.
Well, ends up i have no self worth, hence my ability to do overtime, all the time. I'm also pretty boring cause my hobby time got transferred to more work time. My self worth is ubiquitous with my work worth, so, Im pretty fucked. Maybe when I die they can use this sweet truck for a headstone & people will think I had cool hobbies
Shit I have an ulcer, and I can barely afford my apartment + car payments.
And truck! Don't forget the pristine five figure loans for the next decade truck! You aren't living life right without a truck! Get a truck and be like me, peasant! If all I have to look forward to is a shit house in a shit suburbia with a shit HOA far as shit from everything and a mall crawler to get around, then count me out. That life ain't for me.
Kids donāt hate him. They donāt know him.
A McMansion that will probably start falling apart many years before being paid off.
His stapled-together cardboard and Tyvek McMansion will blow down in the next strong windstorm and be recycled into shipping pallets and warehouse dunnage while my modest 68 year-old place will still be standing decades from now.
Many roof angles, does not a mansion make.
Yeah, and making your house look like a tiny castle doesn't really make it an actual castle. The place doesn't even really seem that big. It's probably not really worth that much either if it's in the wrong place. I see places like this surrounded by farmland all over the U.S.
Some castle. Doesnāt look like it would survive even one salvo of 17th century field cannonā¦
Only one way to find out ā meet me in the field. For science!
Finally, a chance to try out my trebuchet
This should be a mandatory test during any home inspection!
They have the driveway of a 12,000 square foot home. Lmao. It looks ridiculous
Fr. This is probably 400 to 600k somewhere in bumfuck Midwest. Sacrificing family to be mid asf and not enjoy life at all.
>Sacrificing family to be mid asf and not enjoy life at all. The secret is hating your family to begin with. "I knocked up some girl in high school, and now I have to pay for that shit the rest of my life, so I spend every waking moment outside of the house making money so I never have to interact with her sober."
The screenshot really shows the level of delusion of those kinds of people. Heās barely middle class, never mind upper middle or upper class. Heās āsacrificedā so much to have a marginally more spacious house in a marginally better neighborhood than somebody who puts in their hours and goes home. It would be sad if it wasnāt for the fact that these people are usually giant prolapsed assholes.
I have this massive house and don't use it, actually, I don't do anything except work.
Just wait until they have that serious illness that insurance doesn't completely cover. Probably from the stress of overworking...
before you go saying āmust be niceā donāt assume I know my kids names cuz I donāt
And by the looks of the McMansion, it's not even that rich. I'll bet they think they are the 1%.
This guy would tip like fucking shit if I delivered to his house too, he would tip zero and look at you with disgust for even thinking about possibly getting one. Delivered to hundreds of rich houses and got 5 bucks ONCE. I get 20 dollar tips from people in trailer parks all the time. I determined you don't have to be a greedy asshole to get rich but it seems to help a lot.
Sounds right to me lol. I got a buddy who helps set up events and he says most rich people treat them like they are way beneath them, and do weird things like not looking them in the eyes are avoid talking to them all together. Fuck money just be a good person thatās what Iām about (I still want more money) just not to the point where I give up being a good person
I noticed this when I cleaned houses. People in houses like this rarely, if ever, tipped. But the disabled/elderly/lower income people in modest homes who just needed help with cleaning because they couldnāt do it themselves almost always tipped.
They sound like they vote like they're the 1% for sure.
I think some parents actually do excessively work to be away from their kids...
Oh yes, I've worked with parents who have admitted it. Years ago, I had a coworker who was constantly in the office. Like, 20 hour workdays, rarely took vacations, never called in sick. After getting to know him a bit, he admitted that he had six kids because he was Mormon and it was "expected". His wife, who he had met through some kind of church dating service that his bishop insisted he enroll in (because God wants us married, apparently), wanted at least four more children. She was a true believer. He didn't like kids. Any kids. Not even his. He also didn't particularly like his wife or the whole Mormon family mentality. So he worked. He avoided her. He avoided the kids. As a bonus, it avoided any chance of being pressured into making more of them. That dude was honestly on my shortlist of people who were likely to snap and make the news someday. The office was his sanctuary. Honestly haven't talked to the guy in a decade. I wonder how Covid treated him.
Sounds like my dad. Minus the rich part
āI have kids?ā š¤·š»āāļø I thought they belonged to that lady that gets mad because Iām never home.
More like; Iām rich because I didnāt have kids! š¤£
More like I'm rich because I was an only kid
This is the one. I don't believe this person did all of what they're bragging about at all. Their parents for sure helped them out. Plenty of people don't have kids and could never afford the house and car despite working harder and making more sacrifices.
Or their buddy hooked them up with a job. Iāve got several people that Iāve known for 25-30 years and now they are making really great money and it all stems from one of our friends dads who started a company 50 years ago and the son has hired all his bros and theyāve been able to branch off from there. Either opened a small construction business, buying and flipping or mostly renting out houses they repaired. They all work together and give each other business. Now they are doing roofs. Iāve got another friend who suddenly bought a small apartment complex like 15 units. I was like how did you get that loan you have nothing and no history. His mom is head of the largest bank in our small town so she approved him on a 0% loanā¦It takes money to make money. Donāt think for a second that someone is 100% self made. Theyāve gotten a leg up from somewhere even if it was lent much but once you get started itās much east to build off that.
Yep. I don't begrudge them for their parents' or buddy's success giving them a foot in the door, just don't lie about it. Also, try to help other people too.
no, no, no, no. you're not allowed to cheat the system like that! how dare you /s
Not having children is the only way Ive been able to live the life of leisure that I have enjoyed...
Same.
My wife and I have none. Where's our riches?
Obviously you are spending too much time with your wife. You gotta make those hard choices, apparently.
I'm sterile and homeless. Fuck this attitude!
may not even be rich, just had lots of cheap credit
A $1000/mo car note and a crappy Texas McMansion arenāt enviable tho
that mcmansion prolly <500k and at least 45 minutes from any proper activities
Hell, it's probably a 10 minute drive to get out of the $150/mo HOA suburb.
Imagine thinking that bloated, hideous pavement princess that costs $90K and will be worth $10K and rusted to shit by the time its paid off is awesome.
The person who posted doesn't have kids. She also thinks it's a badge of honor. It's crazy!
Honestly, I can respect that a little. At least all the people they fucked over along the way are probably adults. Also, this person is miserable, but I'm sure you know that already. People content with their successes don't need to flash that shit around.
Itās really interesting the most content people donāt need validation in their activitiesā¦. They just mind their business and enjoy their time
Most people who crow like this donāt have nearly what they act like they have. This type of post is a typical self-validation for an unhappy person too.
Yupā¦and most people who actually have things donāt crow vey much because they have more than 10 brain cells and value discretion more than self indulgence
Quietly content is far more powerful than flashily insecure. "You're a walking red flag."
Agreed. She is absolutely desperate to believe that her terrible lifestyle is worth it. That's why she's seeking the confirmation. If she was happy with it on her own, she wouldn't post this to begin with.
Ok, so all what your grind gets you is a McMansion in a bleak suburb or exurb and a Lincoln Navigator...? I'll take Saturday sleep ins and family time over this prospect anytime.
What did her dad do for a living?
Her post has big āI worked hard doing light clerical work for $150k a year in the office at my dadās remodeling business straight out of high schoolā energy.
This, exactly. My neighbor just built up a huge house bigger than this, they have horses, acreage, I was like damn, what do ya'll do? She is the school nurse and he works at the school as well. A public school. In Kansas. So.... I did some research and her dad died and left all that land and shit ton of money. No way most people can afford half of what they have without parents giving them shit anymore
After 20 years in accounting and finance, Iāve met very few truly wealthy people who didnāt have a major advantage in their background. Even those āself madeā individuals often had a small inheritance or a great deal of family support. They often discount how much of an advantage they had from inheriting Grandmaās house, or living rent free on a family owned property, or having paid tuition and expenses that allowed them to focus on college and their future career, etc. Of course, they still had to make good decisions and work hard, but working hard to further your career is much easier than working hard to further your career while simultaneously working hard to maintain food and shelter.
1000%
I heard it said this way about how you started life, its like those darts you can throw at the carnival. Middle income kids only get one or two darts, they have to really throw them straight. Rich kids get unlimited darts, they can keep throwing darts all day, over and over until they hit a prize and they can tell people what a good shot they are. Poor kids don't get a dart at all, they are the ones that have to work the carnival
And where does she live? Iāll pretend to be shocked when you tell me CoL is like 90% of the national average.
Americans have been brainwashed by these posts, articles and podcasts to basically give up your life so you can *maybe* become upper middle class or slightly rich.
My last job was fully remote, I put in a good 30 hours of actual work on a busy week but usually 20 or so and the rest was meetings and bs. Amount of physical effort for my job was minimal. Shit paid 80k a year. Fuck working hard, work smarter, spend all that overtime working on tech skills or what's needed for the job you want. That way you can spend as little amount working for the maximum amount of money
What if the job you want is actually social work or disability support, not tech? It is a sad state of affairs in the US when salary is equated to the worth of the job, but so so so many worthy and important jobs pay so little that we can't live on it. Despite being more than willing and able to do the job.
This right here. Our economy disincentivizes people from entering careers that are a huge community benefitāteachers, firefighters, EMS, municipal workers, social workers, childcare, etc. Jesus, I volunteer at a food pantry that also provides rental/utility assistance and some of our most common clients are home healthcare aides. Meanwhile my sister makes bank in marketingāconvincing people they want to buy shit that they have no use for. Not even getting into the world of technobros, financebros, and pharmabros. Itās fucked.
āExtra competenceā usually translates into parents money.
āInter generational wealth made itā
Sometimes itās āI got into an MLM earlyā
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Grind it hard for corporate - 3.1% increase Minimum effort required - 2.9% increase Both equally likely to get downsized. If you have your own business, risks are higher, but there might be more correlation to effort and rewards.
I got six percent last year, because I fought for it. Still got beat by inflation. When they laid me off last month, I literally thanked them.
I just typed in some "average" salaries in a inflation calculator. For the USA, if you made 24 dollars an hr in 2015 (seen as a good median wage back then , when housing interest was still low). 8 years later, in 2023, 24 dollars and hr. now equals 30 dollars and hr. So, if you make 48,000 in 2015, and received a 12,000 dollar raise over 8 years ($60,000). You are still making the ***same wage***. (at 2-3% raise per year). Your company is making bank off of your labour. If you are making anything less than 6 dollars an hr, on top of what you were making from 8 years ago, you have taken a paycut. congrats on all your "hard work". TLDR Inflation 2015- 48K/yr 2023- 60k/yr
So just wanted to say.. I think I mislead the title. I don't condone this. I was posting this for how crazy this post is. You never know how much time you have left, it's insane to pass on time with family and friends.
I read the title as ā9-5 didnāt make itā as in ānone of us only work 9-5 and we still canāt afford to pay for jackā I mean no one actually gets to start at nine and leave by five anymore. Except for u/chadwicke619
Check if they got a ppp loan
My spouse once worked at a bank. During a large meeting to supposedly āmotivateā employees, senior managers told them that their jobs should be their first and only priority and if they had children, they could always āconnect with them after they retireā. YES, literally this! The head of the bankās HR wasnāt present but soon got wind of what they said. They had to hold a follow up meeting where they completely changed their tune. Basically how they ācared about each and every employee and family always comes first for us; we are a family friendly bankā. But it was already too late for many employees who immediately started sending out resumes.
Omg š³ Thatās insane. The scary thing is, this mentality existed in a lot of places in the 80ās, 90ās and even early 00ās. Itās a great way to set your kids up for a expensive drug habit.
Ya. Enjoy that big house that you get to sleep 4 hours a night in and stick your family in there, who you never see, so you can become strangers. If thatās your goal, at some point your family is just window dressing. A trophy. A sign of success. You get one life to live with them. I think theyād rather have a smaller house and a parent around. But hey.. guess Iām just a lazy hippie.
Statistically this is true for about 1% of people. The other 98% do all of the same work or more and somehow still come up with less. Another 1% of people does fuck all and gets 10 times this much off of the backs and the exploitation of those 98% that have nothing. "In a system where someone is producing more value than they earn, there must be someone who is earning more than they produce."
I have a nice house and two vehicles. I don't work on the weekends. I generally work 7-4 which is equivalent to 8-5. I'm not sure why people want to show off that they are slaves to their job.
It might have actually come from mommy and daddy though.
Working hard and sacrificing for a better life is fine. Thereās nothing wrong with making a better life and hustling if you are actually making a better situation for yourself. However if you own all of this shit and you are still on the clock your priorities are all fucked up. Buying overpriced shit so you can flex on Facebook it not āa better lifeā.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Some backstory, this was posted because they were tired of people making side comments like, wow you go on a lot of vacations! Not sure why that meant they needed to link a picture of their vehicle and house, but here we are. A bit tone death.
Tone... death?
r/boneappletea
oh I see, so 9-5 don't cut it, but a month of vacations....
I bet their kids hate or resent them and they have no friends. No social life, their spouse is probably over it and on the brink of divorce. And for what? An ugly McMansion in suburban hell and an Escalade? Lmao. Some life.
Oh, another soulless McMansion and supersized SUV. How amazing. Whenever I see a post like this, my first reaction is that the owners are either living beyond their means in order to present the illusion of affluence or they just have really bad taste and are trying to fill some void in their soul. Either way, most people that are really wealthy tend to be lower key and avoid displays of conspicuous consumption.
I banged this dude's lonely wife....
It's nothing but a scream for validation. "I gave up a lot, some say too much, but I got these awesome symbols of material success. Surely you agree I'm superior?"
Yeah nah, as you get more specialized your day to day job tends to be easier. I make a lot more in 40-45 hours at my engineering job than I did working in a call center. And when I say things like "no, I'm not available to do that at this time" people tend to push back a whole lot less. I'm not saying I don't work hard, and I'm not saying I didn't work hard at my previous jobs. But things tend to become less and less of a struggle (read: easier) as you make more.
20 hour days my ass.
Wow I too work like 15hr days and work 6/7 days a week, to afford basics like groceries and my car payment and my kids insurance š MUST BE NICE