Cliché: keeping up with the Joneses

Meaning: keep pace with more affluent neighbors. Meaning and uses.
Rewrite 1: keeping up with the Rockefellers
Rewrite 2: keeping up with “the Donald”
Rewrite 3: buying high-end to stay up with the high-enders
Rewrite 4: follow the Joneses on a buying spree

Comment: The trouble with this rewrite is naming affluent families people will know. You can localize it if your readership is strictly local. Otherwise, you have to pick on the same families, which can make whatever you write sound redundant.

Comment2: There is also, I believe, a part of this cliche that refers not to keeping up with the affluent but to keeping up with the next door neighbor. Rewrite 4 should serve that comparison, too.

More reading about clichés
What I found when I googled “clichés”:
• Oblique Clichés Or Idiom: Sudden left turns in the middles of clichés. Clever references to clichés or idioms.

Note: By providing links to other websites I am only showing you what is out there about clichés – I am not endorsing any content or opinion expressed there.

Check out the searchable alphabetical list of all my cliché rewrites available in the archive list at the right.