re: Cost of living an inflation is bad, so why do people keep doing useless things

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You'd be shocked who I was competing with at the 450k house level. I wasn't fighting with other accountants, finance bros, and bankers that's for sure

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well yeah, that’s just an average house now so that makes sense

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I'm irritated that people with less than 20k savings in their late 30s with kids are going to Disney world on credit cards.

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how do so many of you know so much about other people’s finances?

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expensive party with clowns, bouncy houses and catered food.

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i won't comment on the catered food part, but our next door neighbor did a bouncy house. It was way cheaper than I thought. Think he said it was like $250 for 6 hours. And they ordered like 4-5 pizzas for everyone and had a normal birthday cake from kroger. Don't see that as much different from parties I went to as a kid at the skating rink or whatever price-wise.

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professional photographers.

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are not a new thing in this generation

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You got to have lavish baby reveal events.

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lavish? eh, some do. Most just invite their friend to their house and have a cake that's pink/blue or something the emits pink/blue smoke. Either option is very cheap, as in less than $20. This type of thing is also way more common for a first kid than a second kid. Our first kid was conceived during COVID. we knew the gender, but we surprised our families via facetime with a thing we got from a fireworks store for like $5. Our second kid, my SIL knew and surprised us with a baby gift of a onesie with "little sister" on it for the new baby. We opened the gift in the living room at our house with like 5-6 people there.

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Then when your child graduates from high school, you don’t have the simple one picture with cap and gown taken by the school photographer, but you have to hire a personal photographer to provide a portfolio of custom pics.

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professional senior portraits have been around forever. My parents are almost 70 and had them

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kids are now having pre-k graduations with caps and gowns.

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the pre-schools and daycares do this. This isn't some added expense the parents choose to do. And for as much as childcare costs these days, I like knowing that at least some of it goes to having parties that are "free." I'm paying the same rates if I participate or not, might as well let my kid have fun when the school puts something on

I don't disagree with your overall premise that people spend money on stupid shite to impress people on social media, but a lot of what you listed has been going on for decades

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Many posters here claim to have detailed knowledge of the finances of their friends, family members, neighbors and even random people they see in public. It’s amazing.

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I guess they are just making assumptions, which are most likely incorrect. I would bet that the vast majority of people that I know would guess that my wife is the breadwinner in our family because I work from home and she's a healthcare provider

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How the hell would you know?

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Statistics? Data provided by my realtor and others? The fact I work in that field? Observations based on going to many open houses?

I don't disagree 450k is average at this point and not big baller status. I am, based on most financial models, well within the top 10% of the city where I live. With current interest rates, the loan required for this, assuming 20% down, is costing a family around 3,300 a month. That's 39,600 a year. Let's assume anyone 40% or higher is leveraged. That's bare minimum 99,000 a year post tax. For shits and giggles, thats top 15% of household incomes where I live. Combine with the fact our loan officer laughed at our cut off (which was 450k) and confirmed we didn't want to go a good bit higher, I feel like I'm making a safe assumption.

End of the day, I don't care anywhere near as much as OP. As long as people that did not save don't try to have the government take and/or cheapen my retirement and savings I couldn't give a shite less what they do. I don't stare at random people at the store and calculate their net worth, only reason I even remotely cared to think about it with houses was the process was absolutely brutal and I needed to know why I was losing on houses I kept bidding on, and with that data, needed to make a call if we wanted to move up to the next tier (500-600k).

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Many posters here claim to have detailed knowledge of the finances of their friends, family members, neighbors and even random people they see in public. It’s amazing.

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Why is that amazing? You see enough blue collar workers and their wives who work at the quick stop or whatever living a lifestyle that I can't comfortably afford making well north of six figures and it's not difficult to deduce that tons of them are in an astronomical amount of debt. Sure, one or two of those families could be independently wealthy from an inheritance or something, but you see it again and again and again and it's just logical.

Boomers and their greed are exactly why this country is in the economic shape it’s in.

Keep on raiding the social security purse that we keep having to involuntarily stuff with the promise that it will be there for us. It won’t because boomers can’t stop being the greedy generation they are

I bought a dozen or so troll dolls, made a potato gun, and launched them at the kiddies loading on the school bus.

If it wasn't for inflation I could've afforded the gas to get away from the cops.

frick you Joe Biden.

Bad policy
Distorted housing markets going back to 2008
Peak burden of retirement age boomers pulling off the same tit
Out of touch mentality as
It relates to younger generations as it relates to accumulating wealth and or just living in general.

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You see enough blue collar workers and their wives who work at the quick stop or whatever living a lifestyle that I can't comfortably afford making well north of six figures and it's not difficult to deduce that tons of them are in an astronomical amount of debt.

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lol where do you see this? I don't know a single adult who works at a gas station or store who lives anything close to a "comfortable life".

I feel you. That's why I bought a new car in December. Decided to go green.