You're Just Not That Wealthy

To all you Manolo Blahnik-wearing, coach-bag-carrying, BMW-driving, $14-martini-drinking grad students and "young professional" yuppie wannabes making $40K/yr at a nonprofit....

You can't afford it. We all know it. It's okay.

I know you want to look "successful" and have all the accoutrements of success, but don't you think that when you are parking your sports car or SUV (the one that cost more than your annual pretax salary) at your RENTED apartment, you look like a douchebag? If you need that car to get a woman, or to impress your boss - that woman is a gold digging whore, and your boss is a megalomaniacal moron if he expects you to afford a shiny new Beemer or Benz before you're even old enough to rent a car! Especially onwhat he's paying you. A practiced, semi-intelligent golddigger will put two and two together, realize that you probably are up to your eyeballs in debt, and move on to the bigger better deal.

Ladies - yes, your highlights that cost $200/month to maintain are stunning. Maybe or maybe not in the good way. If you're an obvious brunette (ie, you have really dark eyes and skin) though, the blonde highlights look a little fake. And the black roots look ridiculous. And I am sure you HAVE to have the bobbi brown makeup, designer handbags, $5 lattes several times a day, Prada clothes, etc, but here's another thing... looking that way isn't going to get you promoted faster, get you a better boyfriend, better friends. Your boss sees you dressed like a million bucks (literally), knows what you're making, and assumes you either have a trust fund or a sugar daddy. Fair or not, nobody likes women like that at the office no matter how good a job they do. And those guys at the $14 martini bar? Only care how thin you are (anorexic is best, so easy on the calorie-laden marinis) and how fast you put out. If you are prettier than your girlfriends, they secretly hate you; if you are uglier, they secretly pity you. You are their competition.

That's what "keeping up with the Joneses" is all about - competition. The average consumer debt alone - not including mortgages and student loans - is around 60K. Why else do you think you can finance freaking everything, from coffee tables to television sets? You do realize you pay about 2X sticker price that way... oh, you didn't. The only real thing you're keeping up with your competition on is debt and fiscal irresponsibility on the way to acquiring Almighty material things.