Sounds like something my polish great grandma would've done (possibly did do?). She was real into appearing like she had more money than she did. She did the thing where she'd buy something slightly more expensive than she would use for fear of having to replace it, and then just display it so that it looked like to her friends that all her towels were fancy. But ya know, people don't get like that in a vacuum. People don't want to look low income, because they are taught that's all due to moral failure, dirty, etc. So I don't think it's your mommie's or my granny's faults they'd rather engage in a type of dishonesty than, in their minds, appear "cheap" or poor.