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In college, I lived in a dorm room with another girl, and all our furniture came with the room; most of our social time was spent on the industrial-looking twin beds of our room - $0 essentially, for a place to sit and socialize.
After college, though, I had a little more money and didn't want my guests to have to sit on my bed in order to hang out at my apartment. I sprung for a $20 futon someone nearby was selling because they didn't need it anymore; at the time, I felt the pressure to be the kind of person who didn't make guests sit on my bed if they came over to chat.
When my husband and I moved into our first home, we were lucky to have a friend donate a very soft plush couch to our home, which we loved for a while, but as it got rattier over the years, we decided it was time for our first piece of new living room furniture. We scoured the advertisements and the local discount stores, and we settled on a $395 couch. It felt huge to me, but at the same time, I was a little embarrassed about my older hand-me-down couch, so once again, I "leveled up" my belongings, partly because it seemed like the natural next thing to do and partly to match my friends' expectations of my home.
This progression: from twin bed to futon, to old couch to new couch, is a small-scale example of what experts call "lifestyle creep." Essentially, it refers to the incremental growth of the amount of luxuries in our lives without careful consideration or because of social expectations. I'd argue that these luxuries, by being virtually unnoticed, makes them less likely to make us happy.
What you'll notice in the above example is that many of my choices were determined by social norms, not by purposefully gaining extra value. I loved socializing in my dorm room in college; I felt no lack at the time because I had no couch. Instead, I felt like continuing to live like that wasn't "normal," so I let myself spend progressively more money to be at the level I was "supposed" to be at.
I'd argue that, when you feel the pressure because of society and because of how you think things "should" be, that is when your spending is "creep." It's saying, essentially, "I'm the kind of person who has this nicer thing, and I have the means to get it, so I'm getting the nicer thing."
However. I don't regret my futon or my couch. I recognize that I let the social pressure get me this far, but $395 ain't bad for a couch, and I get plenty of value from it even if I could have lived without it.
At this point, though, I think I've reached my couch needs threshold. Basically, I will probably buy another couch in my lifetime, but I don't need anything nicer than what I have now. I've let my life creep to a certain level, but now it's time for a choice: the choice to continue to have a simple couch because I don't need anything nicer.
Are there beautiful, expensive, gorgeous couches for thousands of dollars that I'd probably enjoy? Sure. But the point where I stop lifestyle creep is the point where I say, "yup, that's enough in the couch department. I don't have to be on a continual cycle of improvement with couches."
The point, however, is that when I look at a potential new purchase these days, I try to be honest with myself: Do I already have enough in this arena? There are a few areas where I still will move toward a slightly more luxurious or convenient life, either now or in the future. Most of the time, though, I am usually putting my foot down and saying that it doesn't matter what other people our age are doing, we're going to keep this element of our lives simple and inexpensive.
While I mention some things as being creep (getting more luxurious unconsciously) and some things as being "enough" (staying more simple consciously), there is, of course, the possibility that I'll simply choose a more luxurious life on purpose. A good example is probably in my travel budget, where I seem to be willing to pay for a little more convenience every year rather than having to plan it myself, sleep on a floor, or drive all night. If I have the money to do it, I'll probably keep finding more ways to make vacation as downright relaxing as possible, especially as I get older and more easily exhausted.
However, other than a few things like travel, I see my life as almost entirely good enough, spending-wise. There will be inflation costs, so my budget will still grow some to maintain the same standard of living. But because I have everything I think I reasonably need as an adult, and a decent amount of what I want, I'm trying to curb my lifestyle creep in nearly every area these days. Before this, the creep was from "not really having enough" to "enough" and sometimes into "living luxuriously," so now my strategy is shifting.
The main ways that I combat lifestyle creep is by consciously focusing on what makes what I already have good enough, keeping track of past behavior to make sure my spending is in the same ballpark, and finding ways to cleverly repurpose things and save money, since that brings me joy. These strategies help me to continue to enjoy what I already have without needing my life to constantly expand with new luxuries. Like anyone, I'm tempted by the potential of new luxuries, but seeing myself as fundamentally having what I need and want helps me keep the spending under control.
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To me, the line between spending enough and spending too much comes down to a question I grapple with every dayYou'll need a brokerage account if you want to start investing, and they're easy to open onlineIf I'd listened to the money advice my dad gave me in high school, I'd be worth 3 times as much todayI never thought I was rich enough for a financial planner, but I'm learning I couldn't be more wrongCopyright © 2024. Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved.For reprint rights. Times Syndication Service.
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