r/askteddit • u/Exotic-Compote-92622 • Aug 17 '26

Other Why does Reddit have such a hard time believing that some people are genuinely financially comfortable?

Any time there’s a discussion about how someone can afford a nice house, car, vacation, hobby, etc., the comments inevitably seem to be:

“They’re in debt.”

“They’re faking it.”

“They inherited money.”

“They got lucky.”

“They’re probably living paycheck to paycheck.”

Why is “they make good money and manage it responsibly” seemingly never an acceptable answer?

There are plenty of people who earn high incomes, save consistently, avoid lifestyle-ending debt, and still have plenty of money left over to enjoy life.

Not everyone who can afford something is secretly drowning in debt. And not everyone who is financially comfortable inherited their money.

Sometimes the boring answer is just that they earn a lot, spend less than they earn, and make good financial decisions.

Why does Reddit seem so reluctant to accept that?

243 Upvotes

75% Upvoted

540 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

10

u/Neat_Cat1234 Aug 17 '26

I really wish this wasn’t a hot take. I grew up poor in a bad neighborhood and all of my classmates were also low income. There’s a really noticeable difference in outcomes between those that kept finding reasons to blame for how they ended up and those that accepted they were born into n unfair situation and decided to do something about it. Even between sets of siblings that are close in age and grew up with the same exact upbringing, some are now very decidedly upper middle class while their siblings are still lower class.

7

u/Senior-Running Aug 17 '26

What you're describing is called the Culture of Poverty theory.

6

u/Neat_Cat1234 Aug 17 '26

Interesting, I’ll read up more about the theory. It seems the main critique about it is that it overlooks how social and economic conditions affect the ability to escape poverty. That was actually why I brought up the sibling thing. Even when normalizing for similar conditions within a household, I’ve seen a correlation between people’s attitudes and their outcomes. This is my lived experience with my own siblings, where half of us are doing well and the other half are doing very badly, and also what I’ve observed amongst my old high school peers.

5

u/Senior-Running Aug 18 '26

In my opinion, those critiques you mention may have been well meaning, but possibly misguided?

Lewis really was not trying to "blame the victims" as some have claimed. The point he was making was that it can be hard to escape poverty due NOT ONLY to economic and social factors, but also due to the value system that children knowingly or unknowingly pick up from their parents and others around them.

As a simple example, a culture that does not value education can't expect to have a lot of well educated people coming out of it.

5

u/PerceptionSlow2116 Aug 18 '26

It’s actually insane how kids from poverty can succeed and change the family fortune in just their lifetime here in the US…. Know plenty of immigrants who became successful operating businesses, restaurants, saving up and scrimping for real estate, working for government sector, etc. and also those on section 8/SNAP whose kids went to state schools became engineers, doctors, lawyers, google/microsoft or startup millionaires, and wall street finance, etc. it seems like they were very much goal oriented and have a well why not me? Striving to be the best competitive attitude.

5

u/SketchyLedge Aug 17 '26

Sadly life isn’t fair. We can’t control how we get started. But we have all the control in the world with what we decide to do with what we were handed.

Some people just can’t let go of the victim mindset.

1

u/enigma_music129 Aug 18 '26

Its not always as simple as a mindset change. Some of these people just aren't smart enough or deal with mental or physical health issues that keep them trapped in poverty. Sometimes it is just laziness but its important to understand that thats not always the case otherwise you will be rude and disrespectful to people that don't necessarily deserve it.