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— Jeanine

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I did a stupid thing with my money back in October. I bought a pair of $1,000 Gucci shoes. I can not afford $1,000 Gucci shoes on my current income. I could only afford them in October because, when I was making more money, I was able to save, and I could dip into those savings to buy these (stupid expensive stupid) shoes without jeopardizing my emergency fund.

But still, these shoes were not, in any way, shape, or form, the best use of my money. I mean, how could they be? Look at them.

I bought these shoes because, at the time, I felt like I had to. I felt like I had to because, as I've mentioned before, in January 2025, I was laid off from the highest-paying job I've ever had after Google effectively made my role obsolete, and, after months of hustling to launch Money As If and land enough freelance work, I don't know. Maybe I felt like I deserved a big treat; mostly, I think I wanted to (counterintuitively) exert some type of control, any type of control, over my money.

I tend to psychoanalyze big spending decisions because I wrestle a lot with consumption, not as someone who writes a personal finance newsletter (though that, too), but more as a person living through an affordability crisis that's making life hard for most Americans, while an elite few live out a second Gilded Age.

It doesn't help that conventional financial wisdom, absent these circumstances, says consumption is the devil. Old-school personal finance, in particular, insists we should #alwaysbesaving, not spending, and ties any discretionary consumption, especially for people on a budget, to a lack of discipline and abject moral failure.

New-school personal finance is more forgiving. We don't necessarily want to consume, it argues, but we can't always help it because, every second of every day, brands, the internet, FOMO, dopamine, Sydney Sweeney, etc., send overt and subliminal signals to tempt us into excess.

I have clear issues with the first school of thought (you don't need to be rich to enjoy a guilt-free $7 latte!), and I find it hard to completely embrace the second.

I, you see, am a person who occasionally wants fancy things. I don't usually buy them. (90% of the nicest things I own were gifts.) But I want them, and I'm … unsatisfied with the suggestion that I should feel bad about wanting them (or sometimes buying them) because I only make [X] amount of money.

New school personal finance isn't wrong. Sydney Sweeney is, in fact, always somewhere trying to sell someone a very large number of stupid somethings.

And if it's not Sydney Sweeney, it's Target, calling us to its stores on Black Friday with a (terrible) swag bag, or Facebook targeting us with ads for weighted vests, snail-sludge-infused skin cream, and neck pillows, because it has enough data to know we're doing menopause.

Or, you know, it's the bandwagon with its passengers waving their Ninja SLUSHis and their Stanley Cups, or the Joneses, and our desire to keep up with them, or any other very human emotion that gets stoked just before we order a Margot Robbie Barbie and two Ryan Gosling Ken dolls, even though we didn't like that movie all that much. (Not a true story; don't worry about it.)

Psychology says it's all of those things together. Which is just to say: The modern world has become exceptional at getting us to buy things that we certainly don't need—and might not even actually want. And that second part, the not actually wanting, is the part of modern-day consumerism that I would 100% like to stop participating in.

Of course, where I usually end up when I go down one of these "deep money thought" rabbit holes is that it's incredibly hard to find your tipping points.

When do you actually like something you think you like? (The obvious answer — that it brings you joy for a long-time after you buy it — is not always helpful.) And how much is too much to spend on any or all material things, particularly in tough economic times? (Saying someone on an average income shouldn't feel guilty about a $7 latte is a no-brainer, but there's a wide gulf between that and renting out the entire city of Venice for your wedding, you know, and who am I to say where exactly things get gross gauche?)

So here we are. And the best I could do to spend responsibly and still enjoy at least some of my spending is to commit a few new "rules." Feel free to crib or modify them to work for you.

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Nowadays, most financial takes are boilerplate. These aren't.

And, finally, today, in what are we even doing here anymore?

One of the fun things that I'm sure you've all noticed during this affordability crisis is that things have gotten not just more expensive, but also worse. And it's not just Jersey Mike’s subs or watered-down Dawn or Breyer's "frozen dessert." It's also high-end goods, which, by definition, should be made from high-end materials.

CNN has a good round-up of influencer videos showing pricey clothing and apparel falling apart, including the one above where model Wisdom Kaye spends $18K on Miu Miu … well, duds.

The good news? We now (and, yes, by "we," I mean "me.") have a new good reason to not buy stupid expensive stupid designer shoes or other "luxury" things.

Got questions, comments, receipts, tips, thirst traps, etc. you’d like to share? Send them to [email protected].

_{This article is for educational purposes only. We don’t recommend or advise individuals to buy, not buy, sell, or not sell particular investments or other assets, as everyone’s circumstances are different. Also, it’s your money and ultimately up to you to decide the best use for it.}