Faking Wealth is Like Faking Orgasms

Americans are drowning in debt, not for survival but for show

Photo by Marie-Michèle Bouchard on Unsplash

A lot of Americans blow a lot of money, and mostly they blow it on status-symbol stuff that does not make their lives better.

Maybe it’s because we (thankfully) don’t have an aristocracy or caste system so we dreamed up the idea of signalling status via spending money instead.

If you’re wealthy, I have no advice for you. You can spend whatever you want and still have enough for other needs. But for people who are not wealthy, I have an important message for you: You aren’t any richer if you spend money you can’t really afford to spend. Worse, you are making yourself poorer.

Here’s how this is like faking orgasms

If you fake an orgasm, you’re teaching your partner to keep doing the wrong things, and never discovering what actually works for you.

It’s a recipe for bad sex.

If you fake wealth by performatively spending money on the things that are marketed to you, you’re teaching yourself and others to chase things that don’t satisfy, and you may never figure out what truly does.

It’s a recipe for poverty and dissatisfaction.

Mind you, you can be very thrifty and roll your eyes at spending money to keep up with that weird Jones family all you want and never achieve wealth. This would be me. I am not going to get rich by wearing cheap clothes, eating inexpensive meals or driving an old car. But I’ll be less poor.

And if you happen to be something other than a writer – maybe you’re someone who actually earns a decent paycheck – getting your spending under control can mean building some level of wealth.

Performative spending is everywhere

I’m not just talking about designer handbags and clothing, although that’s certainly part of it. It’s everything.

Did you buy a house that’s enough for your needs or did you feel it had to be in a certain neighborhood or have certain markers like granite countertops and a media room? (I don’t have a status-y house, so my examples are probably dated. I could have researched this but I don’t even want to know. Substitute your own signifiers if you want.)

Drive through an older neighborhood with smaller houses and one bathroom, and remind yourself that people a generation or two ago raised multiple children in those places, yet today single people and childless couples reject them as too small. Oversized houses are purchased mainly for status.

What do you eat?

People signal their status according to what restaurants they go to and what groceries they buy and what alcohol they drink and whether they cook things themselves or order things in. (I’ve been eating a lot of braised white beans lately. This meal confers no status. But it’s delicious, nutritious, easy to prepare and quite cheap.)

What are you wearing? Where did you buy it? When did you buy it? You can spend almost nothing on your wardrobe if you eschew fashion. Thrift store finds and yes, OK, some cheap stuff purchased online can cover your body comfortably.

I take very good care of my clothes by washing them mostly in cold water and hanging them up to dry, so I can generally wear things for a decade unless I rip or stain them.

I had to buy some new clothes this year because I’ve lost 60 pounds, which is your classic good-news, bad-news situation. I haven’t bought much, though. I mostly “shopped” from my thin-clothes storage bin in the closet of the spare bedroom. This is only possible because I resist the decluttering rants. I donate or throw out things I am sure I no longer can use, but I am careful about it. Too often, decluttering just means getting rid of old stuff to make room for more new stuff. It can be a recipe for recreational shopping.

How old is your furniture?

Where did you buy it? How much did you spend? Fast fashion for clothing is bad enough. Fast fashion for furniture is worse. It doesn’t last and it’s often so trendy that it looks dated in no time, which means you feel pressure to replace it with something new and trendy.

I know not everyone wants to live this way, but I have a funky, boho-inspired vibe in my Victorian house that visitors at least pretend to love. I can go around the house and tell you the origin story of most pieces. Some were inherited. Some I found on the curb and dragged home. Some came from antique shops or Facebook Marketplace.

My husband made our plate rail, shelving, kitchen table and some of our cabinets, mostly from scrap wood.

What do you drive?

I cannot believe the number of people who live in town and drive 20 minutes to work through the city but drive a big, expensive, gas-guzzling pickup truck. Or people without kids who use a big van to drive their one little self around.

If there were a generic car that was dirt cheap and ordinary-looking but safe and reliable, I’d buy one immediately. I do not need my car to express that I am some kind of way.

I drive a 20-year-old car with a manual transmission and an actual key. It’s not a status symbol and that’s exactly the point. I’m not pretending to be better off than I am. I hope it lasts forever.

Even though the world has tried very hard to convince me that I’m a lesser person for not having money, I don’t believe it.

Where do you go for fun?

Apparently, a lot of people choose a vacation destination via Instagram, so places that used to be amazing are now full of people shooting selfies to further their personal brand that nobody else actually cares about.

If you have the ability to travel, that’s amazing. Why not go somewhere you would genuinely like to visit, even if it’s not a hot destination? Even if it's not a photogenic place. Even if people say, “You went where?”

Many years ago, I spent 24 hours in Colonia, Uruguay. It was amazing and I’d love to go back for longer. I saw almost no tourists – that may have changed since then – and it was awesome. The photos are trapped on my first smartphone, for which I do not have a charger, so I can’t share any pics. That’s OK. I bet you have your own travel pics and you probably don’t care about mine.

You don’t need a personal brand

Because I come from the old world of newspapers, I remember what it was like when journalists were first told they had to have a brand. I didn’t like it then and I don’t like it now. OK, for Substack, I do have a brand, and it is this: 50-plus writer who rants about money and sometimes politics and culture.

Eh, probably not the most lucrative brand. I should have picked wellness. Here goes: Drink a gallon of water every day, like I do, and you can end up just like me!

Damn. I don’t think that’s going to work for me.

Seriously, think about what a brand really is. It dates back to when we heated a piece of metal and burned it into the skin of an animal to demonstrate who owned it! And that’s what we want to do to ourselves? Really?

I bet if you could ask a cow, it would say it would prefer to run around outside doing whatever cow things it wants to do, free of all brands. If you could have this conversation with a cow, and you would tell it you were deliberately branding yourself, that cow would rightfully wonder why humans are running the world.

Unless your career truly demands it, do not brand yourself.

Faking wealth won’t get you any closer to having it. It just locks you into habits that make real freedom harder to reach. For God’s sake, stop faking it.

About Michelle Teheux

I’m a writer in central Illinois. If you like my work, subscribe to me here and on Medium. I also have a new Substack aimed at authors who want to self-publish books, called The Indie Author. My most recent book is Strapped: Fighting for the soul of the American working class. My most recent novel is The Trailer Park Rules. If you prefer to give a one-time tip, I accept Ko-fi.

All wealthy families are alike; each poor family is poor in its own way.
— Leo Tolstoy, if he had written about a trailer park

For residents of the Loire Mobile Home Park, surviving means understanding which rules to follow and which to break. Each has landed in the trailer park for wildly different reasons.

Jonesy is a failed journalist with one dream left. Angel is the kind of irresponsible single mother society just shakes its head about, and her daughter Maya is the kid everybody overlooks. Jimmy and Janiece Jackson wanted to be the first in their families to achieve the American dream, but all the positive attitude in the world can’t solve their predicament. Darren is a disabled man trying to enjoy his life despite a dark past. Kaitlin is a former stripper with a sugar daddy, while Shirley is an older lady who has come down in the world and lives in denial. Nancy runs the park like a tyrant but finds out when a larger corporation takes over that she’s not different from the residents.

When the new owners jack up the lot rent, the lives of everyone in the park shift dramatically and in some cases tragically.

Welcome to the Loire Mobile Home Park! Please observe all rules.

Click to get your copy