[steve_adams_86]

I'm similar. Shopping gives me anxiety because I grew up too poor to ever normalize spending without significant justification.

Perhaps if I had an easier time with material goods and money growing up, I could relax about spending money and somehow enjoy it.

[BobbyTables2]

Same for me too.

The luxury stuff shown in in-flight magazines and such always seemed silly. Apparently I’m supposed to want all that stuff.

I have no desire for expensive watches, luxury cars, etc. If someone gave one, I wouldn’t even want it. Not even a question of affordability.

[steve_adams_86]

Many luxury items strike me as a sort of unnecessary burden. I do understand why sometimes they're nice and even worthwhile, but... I don't know, perhaps the issue is that in my culture, it's often the case that people conflate luxury with necessity, as though you're doing something wrong if you can't afford commercial luxuries by default.

At that point you're training yourself to carry unnecessary psychological burdens for virtually no gain.

I also find a lot of luxury items are kind of contrived and status-oriented rather than innately luxurious. Like, cool sparkling water with ice in summer is very luxurious to me in an innate sense. The simplest luxuries tend to strike me as the nicest and least likely to be contrived in order to separate me from my money.

I want to swim in clean, cool water. Sleep on a nice mattress with nice bedding. Cycle to work rather than drive. Have space in my home for hobbies. Have access to clean air. Have access to good food. Live in a city with a lot of green space. In the scheme of things, these seem like incredible luxuries to me. Many people in the world don't have most of these. I don't want to let myself believe they're not luxurious and that instead, I need a $150k car (for example) to feel like I've made it.