most people are just trying to get by & live a better life
Thats the keeping up with the jones trap. You have to live like others won't for awhile so you can live like others can't. Me I have no problem living the way others don't want to. I don't need the big house decorated all fancy in a nice neighborhood , don't need the new car, the new phone, expensive clothes/shoes. Its just comes naturally to me which lets me save even on a low income without a budget. What I like is freedom knowing I have my yearly income in the bank and only spend half my income in a year anyway. That gives you something all that fancy crap can't.
The its so hard out here types kill me. Hired one over the summer talking about just need to pay a few bills and get ahead but its so hard out here. Comes back on monday the weekend after his first check going on about buying the whole family jays at the mall. Yup it must be hard out here when your stupid bro.
I don't think the situation is as one-dimensional as just the "keeping up with the Jones'" trap. Case in point: my buddy just moved over from Puerto Rico because his stuff got wrecked in the hurricane & there aren't many job opportunities over there post-storm. He got his family setup over here where I live and is currently working three jobs a week to support them. He has no credit in the American financial system, but needed a car ASAP to get around, so he was forced to take an insane rate where he's currently paying $400 a month for an $8,000 car, just so that he can have something reliable to commute between his three jobs & for life in general. He needed a reliable car quickly and spent his savings on tickets, housing, and a few basics for his family, so it's not like he had time to save up for what he needed because he got wiped out with the storm. He is just trying to get by & wants to live a better life where he doesn't have to pay crazy rates for things like reliable transportation & where he only has to work a single job to support his family. That's not keeping up with the Jones', that's simply trying to survive & improve his situation.
I have a lot of friends in the projects & other difficult areas of town in similar situations. They can't just magically bootstrap themselves out of their situation because that requires money, education, training, and personal financial systems that they haven't yet acquired. Very few of them are constantly buying new stuff all the time, simply because they can't afford to. Meanwhile, yes, there is
absolutely a segment of people who spend themselves into oblivion by constantly eating up their budget on upgrade-spending & living paycheck to paycheck or else over-spending themselves into debt, but that's not the
only situation out there, by any means. A lot of people are in difficult situations & don't have a clear way out, and their situations make it even harder to gain traction. My buddy who moved here from Puerto Rico is constantly exhausted because he has to work so many menial jobs just to get by; throwing in looking for better-paying jobs, pursuing additional education, and working his way through the American financial system of debit, savings, credit, etc. from scratch is a pretty big set of projects to have to accomplish while being tired all the time. Thus, not everyone is out there mindlessly spending & creating self-imposed difficult situations; some people are legitimately struggling & want to live a better life, and I wouldn't consider that type of situation as "keeping up with the Jones'".