this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2025
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
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- The entire showerthought must be in the title
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- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
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There is no middle class. There are only working class and wealth class. Just because you are high earner in an office job doesn't mean you're not working class.
Where is the line though? Many people that could be considered middle class are realistically rich enough to never have to work again if they didn't want to. But they want their flash cars and private school for the kids so they do need to work to keep that level of luxury. Even if they could still live comfortably without working.
If I was to start van living (hard as I can't drive) and rented out my house I wouldn't have to work another day in my life. Does that make me part of the wealth class, despite having always been at/close to minimum wage? Getting enough rent to pay for my mortgage and leave me with many hundreds extra would not be difficult. Go for a HMO and turn the living space into more bedrooms like a standard scumlord would possibly even leave me with over £1000 a month. The only work I would have to do is paint over some mould occasionally.
The line is "do you need to work ever to maintain at least the current living standard". That's the division between working class and wealthy class.
Not maintaining at least current living standard.
A retiree couple that scrounged up enough to have ~$50k yearly budget for the remainder of their days falls into your definition of wealthy, and I would argue that doesn't line up. They are not, in fact, wealthy. The 'line' is far less clear than that.
Yup. Our family grew 5 years ago so we needed a bigger house. Well, didn't "need" but would have to remodel the old to accommodate. We were within our means before moving. Still are in the new house but budget is a lot tighter than it was in the bigger house. Didn't realize until hindsight that "bigger house, bigger (more expensive) problems" would occur.
We could move again and make a good profit on the house now, but I see it as an asset for future income down the road, although as my parents and aquantisces parents age, I'm learning more and more that at least in the USA, they take everything you've worked for away from you once you can slave no more. I'm going to do my best to protect my assets for my family before it comes to that.
Hopefully you at least have a will, but I would urge you to look at establishing a living trust as well.
Yeah, both are on the list but kids take a lot of time away! We have a hefty life insurance policy right now at least. I know trust needs established for at least 5 years to be considered enforceable.
Honestly yeah, I feel you. Can't even get my dishes done lol
So if I was already living in a van I would be wealthy?
When compared to other people living in vans? Absolutely.
The answer would be "no" for most europeans. Cost of living in asia is around 400EUR a month, with a higher living standard. Most europeans could achieve that easily.
I don’t know why everyone is avoiding the Marxist terms, as they are far more accurate than low/middle/upper or whatever people are talking about in this thread.
Those wealthy workers are petit-bourgeoisie. They own enough capital so that they no longer have to struggle in the rat race of capitalism, but not enough to be controlling entire industries or multibillion dollar companies like the bourgeoisie.
Initially wanted to say petit bourgeoisie isn't the right term here but now the more I think about it, yeah?
It doesn't really fit the normal examples of petit bourgeoisie but economically I think they are in the same place even if they are not small business owners or sole traders.
I thought petit-bourgeois made their money through assets? So they aren't workers. High earners are still proletariat if they are selling their labor.
pretty easy. if you had a million in the bank at 4% return you'd have a income of 40K a year. if you could live on that income you'd be all set and not have to work.
so scale that up a bit, say 5 million in the bank at 5% return, that would be an income of 250,000K a year.
but the issue is people's spending scales with their income/wealth, and most people spend more than they make so they are constantly seeking greater wealth.
That's only part of the story. Seeking more wealth to spend more is not healthy in my opinion but humanly understandable.
There is an inflection point, I don't know what level of wealth brings it, but after that it is not about earning more to spend more, it's just growing your wealth for the sake of growing it. It becomes a game of increasing some numbers at the expense of everybody else.
Right, but someone living comfortably on the interest of £1m, are we really calling them part of the wealthy class, but not someone who works for a 6 figure salary and has more wealth than the first guy while living in more luxury?
it's relative to where you live and your lifestyle expectations.
where i live people make 300K a year and feel impoverished. if you go three hours away, making 30K a year is a good salary.
I make 150K a year, so to 25 year olds working for 15/hr i'm rich. but to many of my peers i'm living in poverty because I don't have ten million in the bank.
there are some objective measure, for sure, but people's lifestyles are radically different. the MIT cost of living calculator for my city is like 80K, but most everyone who lives here would consider that a poverty level wage.