[nandemo]

> * Most professionals feel like they're on a work treadmill same as everyone else, except they're doing it to support a more expensive house, more expensive cars, more expensive clothes, more expensive food, more expensive education for their kids, more expensive frills than people who make less money.*

I'm confused as to why you think this is not about status.

[smtddr]

Not OP, but I can tell you what I've been experiencing. It's not about status, I don't care about impressing anyone else.

After leaving at&t to work in trendy-SF-startup tech scene, my salary sky-rocketed. So I get married and have 2 kids. You'd think I'd just be relaxed and happy right? I was; and I am still really, but that relaxing time gave me more time to read stuff like HN, etc.

--- I read a ton about poor public education in USA... and now I need a private school. Or, I need to move into a neighborhood with million dollar houses to gain access to their super-amazing public schools.

--- I read about horrible quality of food and watch "Food, Inc.". Now I've restricted my whole family's diet to USDA Organic, non-GMO from WholeFoods and my monthly grocery bills easily exceed $1,000.

--- Today I'm still driving my first car, Honda Civic LX 2002. It's great right? For me yes, all I do is drive 20mins to BART station and back. But I have a wife & 2 kids; time for a family vehicle. I could just get something cheap & used, right? Then the thought of my wife being stuck in a broken-down vehicle somewhere with our 2 kids hits me and I'm like... "Nah, I better make sure I get a nice, new & reliable, many airbags vehicle with GPS and everything to keep my family safe" It's kinda FUD really, but when it's my own family and I have the money, YOLO.

--- Clothes? Today I have a standing desk, but I use to sit a bunch. I started noticing that cheap jeans do feel less comfortable. Before I know it, all my jeans are near $200 from GUESS. They don't look fancy, you can't tell they're from GUESS. But they feel great.

I didn't do any of this to impress anyone. I just want the best for my family. And I've learned that the definition of "best" keeps moving higher and higher the more I read about stuff & experience things.

[cjg]

The pursuit of the "best" is the problem. How about "adequate"?

[mathgeek]

Agreed. There's also a huge red flag in the mindset that I saw as I was reading that lifestyle choice. We're all going to die some day, which throws another huge strike against pursuing the best above enjoying life. Add in the pipe dream of living forever that is being sold these days (just as it has been many times before), and it only makes "living well" seem more and more difficult. Assuming we can even somehow define living well...

tldr: Find what makes you feel content. Be willing to stop doing other things.

[smtddr]

If you, and the person you replied to, are troubled by me seeking the best that I can provide for my family.... I won't lose any sleep over it.

I only comment to state that it isn't about status.

[hsitz]

"I'm confused as to why you think this is not about status."

You can say it's about status if you want; it has some truth as an objective, detached description of what's happening. For purposes of our discussion in this thread, though, I would say it's neither very interesting nor accurate. And more importantly, it's not helpful. People's _subjective_ motivation for purchasing things rarely has anything to do with status. If you think you're going to be able to avoid the same money issues by virtue of being less status conscious than every one else, you're probably wrong.

The helpful thing to recognize is that our consumerist-society is driven by ads and social cues that create what we perceive as _needs_. This combines with the simple and hard-to-combat psychological fact that we tend to spend more money if we have more money. So as their income rises people tend to find more "needs" and spend more and more.

Just saying that people fall into this trap because they're status conscious, and that you'll avoid it because you don't care about status at all, is not going to help you. The psychological effects that you'll need to battle in our consumerist-society are more subtle and difficult to shake than that. Go read some of the stuff at that Money Mustache site; that may help you realize that that the issues people deal with in trying to spend less are not about status. For a start, try this one, http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/08/29/luxury-is-just-ano...