hedonic treadmill
n.— «Firebaugh tested what he refers to as the hedonic treadmill hypothesis, which uses a comparison of age-based cohorts. The hedonic treadmill requires a specific type of relative income effect—one where “keeping up with the Joneses” means continually increasing one’s own income, because we can be sure that the Joneses are increasing theirs.» —“Can money buy happiness?” Medical News Today Aug. 14, 2005. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
While reading Great Expectations (Bookshop|Amazon) by Charles Dickens, a listener in Arlington, Texas, is surprised when one of the characters inherits some money, which Dickens describes as a cool four thousand. Were they really using cool that way...
An anadrome is a word that forms a whole new word when you spell it backwards. For example, the word “stressed” spelled backwards is “desserts.” Some people’s first names are anadromes. There’s the girl named Noel...