Not all people who follow a frugal path are doing it for the same reasons. Some simply have to do it and find themselves making choices based solely on the sticker price. Others want to do it because they want to preserve value for other things or they have other values that align well with frugal choices.
Because in my naivete, I thought, Hey, saving $50 on this party would help out her family and make us all better friends.
The math works out, but what I said couldn’t have been more wrong.
I don’t know why or how you got into your current financial situation, but it sucks. It sucks that some people assume you can just fix it by getting a better paying job. As if you wouldn’t already have that if it was an option. As if you haven’t already tried.
People ask me about this rule of thumb fairly frequently because they want to check whether their housing spending makes sense. My response is nearly always the same, and comes swiftly:
An emphatic ‘I hate that rule!’
And I do. I hate that rule.