Pottery Barn Poor/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Basic Trope: A family claims to be poor, but their surroundings and possessions suggest they're middle-class.
  • Played Straight: The Tropers are struggling to make ends meet, even though they live in Standardized Sitcom Housing in Suburbia.
  • Exaggerated: The Tropers are struggling to make ends meet, even though they live in a Big Fancy House in a gated community.
  • Justified: The primary breadwinner(s) of the household got laid off or fired.
    • The Tropers spend all their money on the mortgage for the Big Fancy House and have little left over when it comes to other expenses or luxuries.
    • The Tropers' house is now worth less than they owe (upside-down mortgage).
    • While the Tropers didn't quite lose everything, they did still lose quite a bit of money when stock values took a nosedive.
  • Inverted: The Tropers are wealthy, and not struggling to make ends meet.
    • The Tropers are not wealthy, but not necessarily dirt-poor either, and are managing well.
    • The Tropers claim to be rich, but are in fact poor.
  • Subverted: The Tropers are managing the household well enough on Bob's salary.
  • Double Subverted: But then Bob loses his job at XYZ Inc. and the Tropers have to really scrimp and make sacrifices until he and/or Alice are employed again.
  • Deconstructed: Alice and Bob are having trouble making ends meet, which could spell disaster for the household.
  • Reconstructed: Alice and Bob cut back on luxuries (i.e. dining out, fancy clothes, etc.) and soon find they have more money to use for important things (like the mortgage), or save for things like vacations, college funds for the kids, retirement funds for themselves, etc.
  • Parodied: The Tropers live in a mansion (and they have 6 vacation homes and two yachts), with Pooled Funds, and still whine about how "poor" they are.
  • Lampshaded: "We're going to have to make a few sacrifices to keep the house afloat..."
  • Averted: The Tropers (whether rich or poor) are managing well.
    • The Tropers really are poor and really are struggling.
  • Enforced: "We need our sitcom family to have problems every middle-class and working-class family can relate to."
  • Invoked: A job loss, a Toilet Seat Divorce, medical bills...
  • Defied: Alice and Bob don't live beyond their means, and they have enough money to take care of bills.
  • Discussed:
  • Conversed:
  • Played For Laughs: A segway into a stock sitcom plot revolving around a Get Rich Quick Scheme or A Fool and His New Money Are Soon Parted.
  • Played For Drama: Alice and Bob are always fighting over the bills.
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