Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial. I feel this applies quite succinctly to most of the money decisions a person can make in their life.
The greatest challenge with the subject of money is just how subjective and pliable it can be. Every person is different, every history is different, every preference is different. Some are very proud to be rich, others very proud to be poor. Some people believe expensive things are objectively wrong, others believe cheap things are objectively wrong. And none of this ambiguity does anything to help us arrive at a comprehensive philosophy of how to spend money wisely.
Some say, “balance is the key!” but this means absolutely nothing. A person who grew up in a rich household likely has a very different view of “balance” than a person who grew up in a poor household. And there are an infinite number of views in-between.
For this reason, and after much reading of other people’s opinions, I’ve largely settled on the idea that the best things worth spending money on (and I will here omit the discussion of experiences, for brevity) are those which provide the greatest value, as typically demonstrated by frequency of use. Whether rich or poor, this allows anybody to assess whether the things they are buying, whether those are cheap or expensive, are actually having a positive effect on their life. It’s just one possible, but very common, metric for gauging usefulness, which I believe is one of the most robust ways to answer that pesky question, “Am I using money in such a way that it is improving my life, and not hindering it?”
But there’s another aspect to this that is less obvious, namely that we humans simply enjoy looking forward to new things. If you had, let’s imagine, $10,000 at the start of the year to spend on yourself, would you rather buy everything that first month, or have it given to you in increments so that you could spend it along the way? The great risk to spending it all at once is that you may find something you want mid-year but not be able to buy it. There would effectively be nothing you could look forward to buying. Trying this would be an interesting experiment in patience and resourcefulness, but I don’t believe anyone really wants to live that way. And everybody has their own tolerance for these things. Those with the higher tolerance usually have a greater dedication to saving, but almost everybody has their breaking point. It’s difficult to say this is a moral issue, since there is just so much variation between people, so my gut tells me that everybody has to learn to deal with this in their own unique way. Supposedly, it is harder for extroverts than introverts, but I don’t know if this is true.
I can barely go a week without leaving the house for something. It may be a soda from the gas station, or a round of groceries. It may be a book I order, or even antique book hunting on eBay. But I actually have a fairly low tolerance for patience with these things, I’ve just somehow managed to keep these purchases relatively low in price. A more fastidious person might be able to take my salary and save much more of it, but now we are straying back into the world of subjectivity, because whether this is “good” or “bad” is purely a measure of what your goals are. If my goal is to keep the happiness button in my brain fueled, maybe it’s not such a terrible thing to spend $20 per week on little treats. But if my goal is to build a greater tolerance to this itch, rather than indulging it so often, maybe this isn’t such a good thing.
I mention all of this because I’m considering upgrading much of my office equipment, which works fairly well, but is not otherwise a great setup. I have the money to replace my desk, printer, chair, and many other things, and part of me loves the idea of having a higher-quality setup. What nags me is that my current setup already works and it costs $0 to continue using. It’s certainly permissible for me to buy these things, but is there any objective benefit to it, and does it justify the price I would have to pay to upgrade? I can’t seem to settle on an objective answer to this. Part of the reason I want to do this is simply the excitement of hunting for the fixtures themselves, but if you spend your life chasing that excitement, it can really leech your money away and put a damper on your other goals. On the other hand, dealing with crappy stuff “because it works”, especially when you have the money for better, seems an exercise in hubris that many of us who grew up in lower-income houses often struggle with. Not spending money on something is not objectively better, and it has taken me years to come to terms with this.
More objectively, it would make sense that I don’t need multiple printers or multiple desks. Buying nice things for which there is no discernible purpose is pretty stupid. That much, fortunately, is very clear. But even then, “upgrading” all of the things I use on a regular basis has a high price. Does everything need to be quality? Will I even like the new things, or will I find myself grumbling that the old actually worked better? This is not an uncommon experience: it’s difficult to know how much you will use something until you’ve tried it. That fancy chair may actually leave your back sore. Many things are advertised as being quality, but there is often no guarantee.
Other times I’ve upgraded something and thought, “Wow, I’m so glad I bought that!” This past Summer, I bought a backpacking ground pad that was probably 1/3 the size of my previous one. That was an awesome advantage – I has SO much more space in my backpack!
These are the questions I simply haven’t figured out yet. I keep thinking there has to be an objective solution, if only I can think outside the box a little better. But I’ll be honest, I’m pulling blanks on this one. I feel like I’ve spent an awful lot on myself this year, but the savings and investing numbers have still been pretty high. Do I keep pushing those higher, or do I take a step back and buy some nicer things? I really don’t know the answer to this.