"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...
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...