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“They Don’t Eat Leftovers”: 56 Ignorant Middle-Class Phrases That They Need To Rethink
When someone uses a season as a verb, you know you are in the company of ignorance. "We are summering in Tuscany," delivered with complete composure, as if this is a normal thing that normal people say in normal conversations, while somewhere nearby, a person is quietly calculating whether they can afford to put the heating on this winter. Not winter as a verb. Winter as a cold, expensive, extremely real noun.
The middle class has developed its own language, reference points, and bizarre blind spots that are equal parts fascinating and infuriating, depending on where you are standing. The wellness advice, the property ladder opinions, the baffling confidence with which deeply out-of-touch things are said to people who cannot afford to relate to a single word of them. These are the worst of the worst.
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#2
Rinso The Red 2 days ago
"I got a car for graduation! What did you get Rinso?" "I got kicked out"
#3
LizzieBoredom 2 days ago
I'll eat your leftovers, your rightovers, heck even your middleovers. I'm not picky.
The middle class did not always exist. Before the Industrial Revolution turned the economic world upside down in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, society operated on a brutally simple two-tier system: you were either born into land and title, or you were not, and that was largely the end of the conversation.
The rise of factories, trade, and professional work created something entirely new: a class of people who built their position through skill and commerce rather than inheritance. They were not aristocrats. They were not peasants. They were something the world had not quite seen before, and they have been finding their own way ever since.
#4
Kelly Scott 2 days ago
I can't count the number of people I've seen that complain about all the perks the poor get: free medical, free food, free housing. They have no understanding of what it takes to qualify for these things and what you have to do to keep them. I always ask, "If these things are so wonderful and important to you, why haven't you quit your job and applied for them then?" People finally shut up then.
#5
#6
Michael Largey 2 days ago
Saying someone being poor is bad with money is like saying someone falling off a cliff is bad with gravity.
The global middle class is considerably larger than most people picture when they imagine it. Somewhere between 4 and 4.5 billion people currently fall into this category worldwide, meaning that for the first time in human history, more than half the planet lives in a middle-class household.
The defining threshold is roughly $11 to $110 in spending power per day, adjusted for local costs. This is a bracket wide enough to contain both the person agonizing over an avocado at a farmers market and the person who has never set foot in a farmers market in their life, and yet here they both are.
#8
#9
Beth Wheeler 2 days ago
The only savings I have is what's required to keep my checking acct open at the credit union.
Getting into the middle class and staying in the middle class are two different conversations, and getting out of it entirely is a third one that nobody talks about enough. The route in typically runs through education, specialized skills, and consistent employment, all achievable with the right circumstances and a significant amount of work.
The route upward from there is a fundamentally different challenge. Building genuine upper-class wealth requires moving away from earning a wage and toward owning assets that generate income independently. The middle class works for its money. The upper class has largely arranged for its money to work for itself.
#10
Wil Whalen 2 days ago
Public transportation isn't readily available in all cites. Our transportation system s***s where I live.
#11
SM 2 days ago
I remember something that was said on a TV show a long time ago (sorry forget the show). Son asks father "If you hate working at the factory why don't you quit? Father, because that is where the money is." I personally have been very lucky to almost always be getting paid for what I enjoy doing, but tons of people aren't so lucky.
#12
Rick Murray 2 days ago
No, dear, I don't. I grew up with the mindset of figuring out my problems by myself because others were........unreliable at best.
Baby boomers were the golden generation of the middle class in a way that has not been replicated since. When boomers were in their 20s, nearly 70% of them fell into middle-income territory. This represents a level of generational economic stability that successive cohorts have simply not been able to match.
The middle class has been quietly shrinking ever since, meaning millennials and Gen Z are navigating a significantly more compressed version of the economic landscape that their parents and grandparents built their assumptions on. This does go some way toward explaining why the advice to simply "get on the property ladder" lands the way it does.
#13
Michael Largey 2 days ago
Many people devote a large chunk of every paycheck to real estate. It's called "rent".
In the United States, the middle class has an official income bracket, and it is broader than most people expect. A three-person household earning anywhere between roughly $55,800 and $167,500 annually falls within the middle-class definition used by the Pew Research Center and the U.S. Census Bureau.
That is a range wide enough to contain deeply different lived experiences. You will have the family carefully managing every monthly expense at the lower end, and the household taking two international holidays a year at the upper end. They are technically the same class. They are not, in any meaningful daily sense, living the same life.
#18
detective miller's hat 2 days ago
I mean..... it depends on what has been sitting in said tupperware and how long. Once I totally forgot about a container of beef stroganoff and it ended up pushed juuust far back enough in the fridge that I couldn't see it, so out of sight out of mind. There was no way I was releasing the abomination in that container into the world by opening it.
In the United Kingdom, class identity is expressed as much through shopping habits and leisure choices as it is through income, and a large-scale YouGov survey mapped this out with uncomfortable precision. Buying groceries at Waitrose or Marks and Spencer rather than a budget supermarket emerged as a significant class marker.
So did taking skiing holidays abroad, a leisure activity that carries a very specific set of financial and cultural assumptions baked directly into its existence. The British class system has always communicated itself through extremely specific consumer choices, and the supermarket you walk into says more about your perceived social position than most people are entirely comfortable admitting.
#21
Kelly Scott 2 days ago
Also, poor people can usually eat the same thing day after day because that's what they do. I have a friend who can't stand to even eat leftovers because they're something she ate the day before. But I remember getting a can of Crisco, some salt, and a 5-lb bag of potatoes and having fried potatoes for every meal until the potatoes were gone. If I told someone that, they'd ask me how I could stand to eat like that. The other thing in eating is that poor people don't make "balanced" meals a priority. They can't always afford to have three or four different things to eat at the table. One item is what they'll eat and that's the meal. I still find myself doing that today. I'll eat plain hamburger with ketchup and that will be my supper. Nothing else. No veggies, no dessert. I had to keep a food diary once and the doctor wouldn't believe what I would put down for meals. He thought I was lying about what I ate every day.
Ask Americans how they define middle-class status, and the answers are grounded, practical, and very revealing. A Washington Post survey found that the top markers were not holidays or postcodes or supermarket preferences; they were a stable job, the ability to put money aside for the future, and access to health insurance.
No mention of summering anywhere. No skiing. Just security, savings, and not being one medical bill away from a financial crisis. The contrast between what the American middle class considers its defining characteristics and the oblivious confidence with which some of its members speak about financial struggle is, frankly, the whole article.
#22
Optimus Octopus 2 days ago
My uncle took his family to Panama City once a summer. They drove all night after he got off work. Then he slept all day in the car while the kids had a beach day. Then they drove back home. 24 hours round-trip. All they could afford. At least they got that.
#23
Andrew Keir 11 hours ago
Expecting someone to co-sign is d**n cheeky - the business wants to make the loan but expects someone not involved with the purchase to back the loan anyway? This comes across as "We'll make sure we get our money but we'll still hit you with extreme interest rates because you're poor". Cake-ism?
The ignorant comments on this list were almost never delivered with bad intentions, and that is the most important thing to hold onto as you read them. The middle-class blind spot is not cruelty; it is insulation. It is the very specific unawareness that comes from being comfortable enough, for long enough, that discomfort starts to feel like a choice rather than a circumstance.
The summer-as-a-verb crowd is not the villain. They are just people who have forgotten, or perhaps never fully learned, that the view looks completely different from the other side of the income bracket. The first step is noticing. This list is a good place to start.
Do you have any other middle-classisms that drive you up the wall? Share them in the comments!
#26
Kelly Scott 2 days ago
I worked in a bank and saw firsthand how hard it is to take things off auto-pay, short of closing your checking account. I swore I would never have anything on auto-pay, no matter how much it saved me.
#27
Spittnimage 2 days ago
I hated those "tell us where you went on your summer vacation" the teacher asked when school started.
#28
43Duckies 2 days ago
I am 50, and I have never been able to afford a car. I do live in a place with good public transportation, so before I got too disabled I could get a lot done with that (though it did get more and more difficult/exhausting over time). Now my primary transportation is only what is covered by my Medicare health insurance, which is so inconvenient and tedious to deal with that I only use it for unavoidable medical appointments. I do use Lyft, but as little as possible (mainly to take cats to the vet) as I need to save the money for other things. (No, the cats aren't optional, they keep me hanging on.)
#29
#30
Gerald Ogden 10 hours ago
Ask my parents? One was going to run me after graduation had I not moved, the other I was grateful to get a box of groceries once in a while to survive college. I STILL can't abide the taste of ramen...
#31
Rick Murray 2 days ago
Do I *ski*? Take a good long look at my body and ask me that again, slowly. 😂
#33
Jeremy James 2 days ago (edited)
When pharma commercials say, "Ask your doctor if Fhqwhgads is right for you." Ah yes, "my doctor," who is a person I know and can afford to talk to. We golf together.
#34
Beth Wheeler 2 days ago
That's not always possible, especially if something unexpected comes up like a car repair.
#36
#37
SummerVeE 2 days ago
The saddest part is that adults who never had braces are viewed differently. This is especially an issue for women. In order to appear polished and professional, society expects clean, straight white teeth. It's not fair for all the kids out there who didn't have that from their parents. I don't agree with it, at all. I'm simply pointing out the way things are (a lot of the time).
#38
Kelly Scott 2 days ago
If I got asked to lunch and said it was because I had no money, people would tell me, "Oh, it's only $5. Surely you can afford that!" People don't understand, when you say you have no money, you have NO money. Not yes, I have a couple bucks in change in the car, or yes, I can pull it out of my a*s. I mean I have NO money, as in ZERO, ZILCH, ZIP. It's the 1st, I've paid my rent, my bills, and gotten gas and groceries and for the next four weeks, I have NO money left over for ANYTHING!
#40
#41
Kelly Scott 2 days ago
"We don't like Walmart because of how they treat their employees, so we shop at Whole Foods instead." How nice you can afford to do that.
#43
Nikki Sevven 2 days ago
I'm reaching that point in time where my fridge is 20 years old (and I've replaced the door gasket and both thermostats), my stove is 25 years old (and the propane regulators are shot), and my washer and dryer are 15 years old (and fortunately mechanical and, thus, easily fixed). Also, my car is nearly 20 years old. I hope they don't all go at once.
#44
Partypants 2 days ago
I took two city busses on my own as a kid to get to school , I remember showing up soaking wet and freezing after waiting in the rain. I always envied my friends who came with their parents in a warm car.
#47
FreeDragon 2 days ago
Pretty normal in European countries. And of course visiting a foreign country is easier here too.
#48
Lukas (fuck/transphobes) 2 days ago
I do my best to support indie games. I've bought Stardew Valley three or four different times on different devices (it helps that it's not more than 15 dollars). But for big corporations? I can't afford a 60-70-80 dollar game. I'm not paying nearly 1K for every Sims 4 DLC they've locked basic gameplay mechanics they put in their 40 dollar expansions.
#49
Rick Murray 2 days ago
There are two sorts of middle class. Those who came from middle class backgrounds, and those who rose there. It's the second lot that are massively insecure about money and the prices of things. If you got into a home and it is tasteful Laura Ashley, then it's middle class. If you got into a home and the host points it out and, worse, starts talking about the price, then they aren't from a middle class background.
#53
#54
Kelly Scott 2 days ago (edited)
My mom was a SAHM, which is why she and my dad always thought I was such a failure. Why couldn't I get married and stay at home all day and take care of kids, why couldn't a husband support a wife and kids on one salary, why didn't I just go to college to get a good job so I could buy a house, how hard can it be to get a job - just walk in and give them your resume? If you can't do any of that, there must be something wrong with you. We did it, why can't you?
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John L 2 days ago
While a lot of these don't seem like "middle class" things, you have to bear in mind what generation you are. If you are gen X and boomer, these are "middle class" things. They were around and making money when the environment wasn't near as harsh as it is these days.
Kelly Scott 2 days ago
However poor the middle-class gets, there is always a group that is poorer.
Load More Replies... Chich the witch 2 days ago
No,No, No. You aren't going to post s**t like this to deflect things from the overly rich bastards that are the biggest problem. Keep the lower classes fighting amongst themselves? Those bloated f*****s won't be happy until everyone but them has nothing. . Not that I have any strong opinions on the matter.
SlightlyTarnished 1 day ago
No, this is BS. The person who pulled together this c**p is just ticking some boxes for pay. Most middle class people are frugal, empathetic, and do what they have to do to get and and with luck get their kids a leg up. What's published in this whatever it is (article? pieced together c**p?) is so far off coarse and just plan c**p.
Rick Murray 2 days ago
The problem is there is no specific definition of middle class. There are poor people, there are rich people, and there's everybody in between; and some of them shop at Waitrose and M&S. 😂
David Paterson 2 days ago
I claim that I live in a classless country. Not quite true, but mostly. I've known a homeless person who was rich (homeless because of mental illness not money). I've known a person barely scaping by paycheck to paycheck who drives a Tesla. Everybody I know, no matter how poor, has a TV set at least as big as mine. I see poor alcoholics in spotless tailored suits. Designer clothing. Poor people who pool together family money to get a holiday home. I have no idea how they manage it.
Paris Jaye 1 day ago
One of my Floridian boomer neighbors (60s/white/republican you know the type) said to me yesterday that he wished he could have Jeff Bezos money. I said that by billionaire standards, I would be considered a terrible billionaire because I would give it all back to people in need. He said "oh hell no, i would keep every single dime to myself. You can't go giving it away because they'll never stop coming back for more" Like w*f bruh, we're talking about human beings in need....not f*****g rodents. Then I said to my daughter "if he likes Bezos so much he would prob be deeply offended by our dog p**p bags". They have pictures of Donald Trump on them.
John L 2 days ago
While a lot of these don't seem like "middle class" things, you have to bear in mind what generation you are. If you are gen X and boomer, these are "middle class" things. They were around and making money when the environment wasn't near as harsh as it is these days.
Kelly Scott 2 days ago
However poor the middle-class gets, there is always a group that is poorer.
Load More Replies... Chich the witch 2 days ago
No,No, No. You aren't going to post s**t like this to deflect things from the overly rich bastards that are the biggest problem. Keep the lower classes fighting amongst themselves? Those bloated f*****s won't be happy until everyone but them has nothing. . Not that I have any strong opinions on the matter.
SlightlyTarnished 1 day ago
No, this is BS. The person who pulled together this c**p is just ticking some boxes for pay. Most middle class people are frugal, empathetic, and do what they have to do to get and and with luck get their kids a leg up. What's published in this whatever it is (article? pieced together c**p?) is so far off coarse and just plan c**p.
Rick Murray 2 days ago
The problem is there is no specific definition of middle class. There are poor people, there are rich people, and there's everybody in between; and some of them shop at Waitrose and M&S. 😂
David Paterson 2 days ago
I claim that I live in a classless country. Not quite true, but mostly. I've known a homeless person who was rich (homeless because of mental illness not money). I've known a person barely scaping by paycheck to paycheck who drives a Tesla. Everybody I know, no matter how poor, has a TV set at least as big as mine. I see poor alcoholics in spotless tailored suits. Designer clothing. Poor people who pool together family money to get a holiday home. I have no idea how they manage it.
Paris Jaye 1 day ago
One of my Floridian boomer neighbors (60s/white/republican you know the type) said to me yesterday that he wished he could have Jeff Bezos money. I said that by billionaire standards, I would be considered a terrible billionaire because I would give it all back to people in need. He said "oh hell no, i would keep every single dime to myself. You can't go giving it away because they'll never stop coming back for more" Like w*f bruh, we're talking about human beings in need....not f*****g rodents. Then I said to my daughter "if he likes Bezos so much he would prob be deeply offended by our dog p**p bags". They have pictures of Donald Trump on them.
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