It’s not just a question of “can I buy this and still make rent and keep the light on?” If one is making luxury purchases like that, he has bigger problems than a “little voice.”
That you assess these purchases (typically associated with “rich people”) to provide more value to you (more comfortable sleep, the comfort of having an uncluttered apartment, whatever you imagine therapy gets you) than the money they cost or the time it’d take to do it yourself, that’s usually what being rich means.
I question the premise of trying to justify them any more than you’d justify, say, buying the nicer brand of bread at the grocery.(Unless you’ve criticized people richer than you for spending on things you’d consider extravagant, in which case you’re rightly feeling guilty of hypocrisy.)
If your point is just that “some expensive things aren’t just status symbols, and worth the price even to the merely middle class,” fine, I agree with that in general, though perhaps not in the specifics.
If your point is just that “some expensive things aren’t just status symbols, and worth the price even to the merely middle class,” fine, I agree with that in general, though perhaps not in the specifics.
This is how I read the argument: Hiring a house cleaner is actually a reasonable thing for a middle-class American to do. Note that “middle class American” is still objectively ridiculously rich.
I do think there’s something weird about treating $25k+ cars and hundreds of dollars per month on restaurants and alcohol normal, but drawing the line at $100 per month for house cleaning.
It’s not just a question of “can I buy this and still make rent and keep the light on?” If one is making luxury purchases like that, he has bigger problems than a “little voice.”
That you assess these purchases (typically associated with “rich people”) to provide more value to you (more comfortable sleep, the comfort of having an uncluttered apartment, whatever you imagine therapy gets you) than the money they cost or the time it’d take to do it yourself, that’s usually what being richmeans.I question the premise of trying to justify them any more than you’d justify, say, buying the nicer brand of bread at the grocery. (Unless you’ve criticized people richer than you for spending on things you’d consider extravagant, in which case you’re rightly feeling guilty of hypocrisy.)
If your point is just that “some expensive things aren’t just status symbols, and worth the price even to the merely middle class,” fine, I agree with that in general, though perhaps not in the specifics.
This is how I read the argument: Hiring a house cleaner is actually a reasonable thing for a middle-class American to do. Note that “middle class American” is still objectively ridiculously rich.
I do think there’s something weird about treating $25k+ cars and hundreds of dollars per month on restaurants and alcohol normal, but drawing the line at $100 per month for house cleaning.