A resurfaced Reddit post is drawing strong reactions over a piece of shopping advice many people know too well: "you can always make more money."
To many viewers, the remark felt like more than simple insensitivity. They saw it as a harmful mindset that can fuel debt, compulsive spending, and a pattern of waste affecting both household finances and the environment.
What happened?
According to Reddit, the original poster shared a screenshot of a comment posted beneath a video of a woman crying about her shopping addiction. The advice in the comment was blunt — "you can always make more money" — and the poster said it "boiled my blood."
People in the thread said that logic does not hold up. Most people have finite income, finite time, and finite energy, so telling someone in distress that unlimited spending is fine because they can always earn more ignores all of those limits.
Why does it matter?
Treating income like an endless resource can make it easier to justify burning through savings, taking on credit card debt, or working more hours just to keep up with impulse purchases.
For someone already dealing with compulsive shopping, hearing that message can increase financial stress and shame instead of supporting recovery. It also reinforces a wider culture of overconsumption. Even a purchase that is not needed still takes resources to produce, package, transport, and eventually, in many cases, throw away.
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When marketing systems and algorithms keep pushing people to shop for comfort, boredom, or status, the effects spread outward: communities end up handling the clutter and financial strain, while the planet takes on the waste.
Once the fallout reaches far beyond the buyer, spending is no longer only a private matter.
What are people saying?
Replies strongly challenged the idea that spending more is harmless. One wrote: "Not even on an anti consumption level but pure financial basics this is wrong. There is a finite amount of money you can earn in a lifetime. Once spent it does not return but must be re-earned. Money is not everything, I am just explaining its mechanically wrong."
Another focused on inequality, writing: "The world doesn't work the same for rich people. They don't need to 'earn' their money. They have so much invested it essentially generates infinite passive income."
A third added: "I have a feeling that neither the woman crying that she can't stop spending money and the person who commented that you can always make more money are rich."
Shopping addiction warrants empathy, and acting as though money has no limit only worsens the situation.
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