Please let me clarify first: anyone who is extremely poor or wealthy is not included in this discussion. Only those who are employed with steady income, some savings and spare time will find this topic useful. I guess most of us are doing fine now but financially we have to face one common problem: how to spend money. This issue leads to many consequences if not handled properly. Here I would not start any broad and subjective agruement. To deliver my message clearly, I am using some specific examples to elaborate. For example, a lot of peole complain that their income is not enough to cover their daily expenses so they can't save much money while...they spend seven bucks on a cup of coffee almost every morning, throw a hundred dollars on some gym membership cards but never show up training, have dinner with some random girl in an expensive restaurant, buy drinks in bars and waste hundreds of dollars... The list goes on and on. If you live this kind of lifestyle and at the end of months, you are running out of money or can't pay the mortgages, whose fault is this ? I can not provide any statisitics but I am sure that many people have fallen in the trap and can not get out. I hope you are not one of them.
That's right, such a problem is found everywhere. This is called spontaneous spending. For example, you want a smart watch for yourself, but you understand that it is expensive and do not buy them. Then some event happens in your life that pushes you to this purchase, for example, your friend bought himself such a watch and brags. And then you go and buy them. At the same time, later regretting, because this money could have been invested. From this way of thinking, it helps to keep a diary with all expenses and earnings.
I do that.
If the purpose is valid then it is okay but most of us have just seen it somewhere like from a friend or on social media. We tend to want it already even if it is useless to you. Let's say you want a smart watch as it is needed for your productivity at work. That's good but if it's just for fancy things that's not good.
If we do have tons of money that makes it impossible to go broke then it is okay to have those kinds of fancy things but if we are just struggling financially then it is not good as it makes us more stressed.