Biggest scam you didn’t know was a scam

Being an adult, why did grown ups sell it as a really exciting thing?!

Not a scam but we have been sold a “dream” and that reality just isn’t what we were sold. Bigger more expensive houses take more to clean, more to maintain, we need 2 incomes to service the mortgage and bills, less time so have to hire help which comes with more stress of course, kids in a zillion clubs keeping up with the Jones’ etc etc etc.

the simple life of yesteryear was hard work (my grandmother never owned even a washing machine, only a mangle) but I think people were less stressed despite money being a constant worry (think having to wait for the weekly wage packet to arrive home just to be able to afford to buy a loaf of bread to feed the dc, my mum, a simple bread and jam tea). My mum had one school shirt but my grandmother washed it daily drying on the line or in front of the coal stove then ironing it still damp with a coal heated iron to fully dry! Hard life but happy

I'm a relatively old bird at 60
I'd say
Weddings
PCPs for cars
Recreational shopping
Credit cards and their interest rates.
Big fancy lifestyle someone feels they need to have (cars, house, holidays, private school fees type stuff) and it's all financed on credit.

20 odd years ago I asked an estate agent friend of mine how people we both knew (not anyone specific) could afford to buy these lovely houses and have such a seemingly great lifestyle because I was concerned I wasn't being paid enough compared to others at work. He confirmed that in most cases it was all on credit, the ones who actually had the funds available to really afford to live in such a manner were pretty rare.

I just hope they kept their jobs, didn't have an extended period of unemployment and it all worked out in the end for them.

Don't agree at all. New houses are built to much smaller proportions than, say, victorian homes - with nasty poky rooms and low ceilings. There may be more ensures but the overall floor space is tiny. So the greedy developers can fit more on the plot.

En suite bathrooms. Promoted increasingly as "essential", no they're not. Unless you're disabled or have a serious illness, you can walk a few steps to a shared bathroom in your own home.
I saw property details of a new build on here, where every bedroom had an "en suite". No space for wardrobes though.

University. Sending nearly every student to do pointless degrees, costing £K - to come out the other end of the education factory up to their eyes in debt with low job prospects.

Lighthearted 😂
I saw an Instagram post earlier about the biggest thing you don’t realise is a scam and we all accept as normal.
We all have stories about how our parents raised 7 kids etc in a 3 bed if they were lucky, my grandparents had 9 in a 2 bed 😂
the aim for everyone now is buying or building massive houses, 3 en suites at least, we spend the weekends in Ikea, home bargain etc buying shit we don’t need and cleaning the houses with the 4 bathrooms!
I swear I’ve spent more Time cleaning the legs of chairs than is reasonable and I seem to wash the walls of my bathroom far more than people ever mentioned.
I don’t remember my mother ever cleaning the panelling on the walls.
is it all a scam? Are we busy fools?
sometimes I got to centre Parcs like places and think how simple my life would be if we al only had one suitcase each

Antigua and Barbuda, St. Kitts and Nevis, the United Arab Emirates, Vanuatu, Brunei, Bahrain, the Bahamas, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the British Virgin Islands, Monaco, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Somalia, and Western Sahara.

17 countries out of the entire world. Several not democracies and funded by vast oil wealth. Others funded by being offshore investment havens.

My teenage daughter thinks school is a scam! 😂

"Women's Lib" was not a scam. Those of us campaigning for decades have seen a significant improvement in women's rights, socially, politically and economically, in spite of male pushback.
Much has been improved. That it hasn't, is not the fault of "Women's Lib", a term of derision I haven't heard since about 1978.
I'm going to have to leave this thread now because I am so angry about this. 😡

Being an adult, why did grown ups sell it as a really exciting thing?!

What kind of events are you expected at?

Women’s lib.

We were told in the 60s that women working like men do would bring about a fairer society where the sexes were equally valued, and split all activities.

It hasn’t, it’s resulted in a society where women typically still do the majority of caring work and carrying of the mental load, PLUS they’re now expected to work and financially contribute as much as men. Two income households have driven up the demand for cars, resulted in higher housing and mortgage costs, and has created the ludicrous childcare market which seems to serve precisely nobody (and I’m including childcare workers in that!).

(And I’m posting this predominantly tongue-in-cheek but it’s a niggling annoyance! I work and love being independent and my husband is one of those people who does more than his fair share, but I see so many women around me broken my the constant juggling they’re not expected to do in the name of equality).

Bottled water.

We've all been conned into thinking that we need to hydrate ourselves constantly and big business has tapped (see what I did there?) into the scam by convincing us that extortionately priced spring water or expensively filtered water is somehow healthier whilst we’re doing it.

There was an experiment several years ago on TV where they got identical adult twins, for 10 days, to either constantly drink water as we are encouraged to do, and the other one to only drink when she felt had the need to. At the end there was no difference whatsoever in skin clarity, texture or health benefits. There didn’t appear to be any need to additionally ‘flush’ out our kidneys as we are told, as it’s a perfectly normal process that our bodies just get on with regardless. The conclusion the experts came to was that unless you are exercising or sweating, there appears to be little benefit in consuming large amounts of additional water as your body just pees it away. Just drink when you’re thirsty, not set a target of how much you must consume.

I can honestly say I have never cleaned a chair leg in my life, or considered that any could get dirty enough to require it. Someone has definitely scammed you into unnecessary cleaning!

Bottled water.

We've all been conned into thinking that we need to hydrate ourselves constantly and big business has tapped (see what I did there?) into the scam by convincing us that extortionately priced spring water or expensively filtered water is somehow healthier whilst we’re doing it.

There was an experiment several years ago on TV where they got identical adult twins, for 10 days, to either constantly drink water as we are encouraged to do, and the other one to only drink when she felt had the need to. At the end there was no difference whatsoever in skin clarity, texture or health benefits. There didn’t appear to be any need to additionally ‘flush’ out our kidneys as we are told, as it’s a perfectly normal process that our bodies just get on with regardless. The conclusion the experts came to was that unless you are exercising or sweating, there appears to be little benefit in consuming large amounts of additional water as your body just pees it away. Just drink when you’re thirsty, not set a target of how much you must consume.