I constantly have to remind myself, I don’t *need* stylish new work clothes; I don’t *need* a fancy $200 juicer; I don’t *need* to go away for my birthday. It’s just so easy to justify those things (I have to look nice at work; daily green juice would be so healthy; it’s my birthday!) and plus nearly EVERYONE around would agree with the justification!

This is why for me it’s easiest to make a budget and refer to it often. Then it’s not about how well I can justify the purchase or whether I/my friends/neighbors/colleagues think the purchase is totally logical – it either fits in the budget or it doesn’t!

Then again, some of the hot titles have a pretty long waiting list. “Fifty Shades of Grey” pretty much describes the color my hair will be before my turn comes around!

Obviously theres wealth, entitlement and luxury in many nations across the globe. I don’t think she was meaning to deny that even if people thought she implied so.

We just celebrated our daughter’s wedding after saving for it for several years. At the same time, my cousin sister ( a divorced single mother) hosted a similar event, entirely on debt. She does feel her brothers or someone will pay up eventually or she will when her ship comes in. Some people do seem to sail on in life, resting merrily on other people’s hard work while feeling that they do ‘need’ to have this and the next thing

I came here to go to college and got a job at a pizza place– the amount of food we threw on the trash every night was insane! Also, the notion of food fights– food fights! I know this is a funny tradition but coming from a country where people go hungry it’s just plain obscene. (oh, wait, 25% of american children suffer from hunger on a regular basis)

Now, the wasting of wealth and resources is true to every culture in the “barbaric” stage, as Thorsten Veblen described. If you haven’t read “The Theory of the Leisure Class”, please do– it reads like a science fiction novel or an alien report of human life. Veblen is the man who coined the term “conspicuous consumption” and defined “pecuniary emulation” as the phenomenon of lower classes wanting to imitate the wealthy (often by the most ridiculous means)– and the wealthy demonstrate their wealth by the level of waste they exhibit– the more resources a person wastes (in high-end hobbies, philantropies, social events), the more honorific their place in society. There are lots more of amusing (and terrifying) observations in this sociological tract from 1899.

About Russia–read the most hilarious “Dead Souls” by Gogol, where he discusses how the fathers spend a lifetime amassing a fortune and the sons spend less than a lifetime frittering it away. Yes, this is human behavior, today as in the XIX century Russia, not just in America today.

In America though the problem is compounded by the fact that we pretend that social classes don’t exist. There is a wonderful passage in Kurt Vonnegut’s “Mother Night” where this American double agent writing propaganda for the Nazis criticizes the behavior of Americans in prison camps. I forget how the whole argument goes, and I don’t have the book at hand to quote it, but basically he says that Americans falsely believe that getting rich is easy, and because most of them aren’t rich themselves, they hate themselves, so they can’t get organized and set up a bearable camp life the same way as the class-bound British do. Not sure how true or false is this but it rings so true it’s uncanny.

Thinking about this, consider how many people label the garbage man, the janitor, the groundskeeper, or anybody who does labor, “a loser”. Labor has no dignity in the eyes of many spoiled bratty Americans– fortunately that is not everyone. But the working class claims to be middle class, the middle class expect to be rich soon! And everyone hurries to buy the status symbols in expectation of their socioeconomic rise– on credit, of course– and look down on the “losers”.

Fortunately there is still a sort of pioneer/immigrant streak in the culture that remind us that it’s utterly stupid to have a big hat and no cattle. But today, those people are on the minority, hence our indenture to China and economic decline.

So. Entitlement… what was I going on about? Oh yes– food fights. OBSCENE!

What about the millionaire fair in Moscow? I’m not making this up. There really is a millionaire fair in Russia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Millionaire_Fair

More millionaires live in Moscow than anywhere else in the world. I’m half-Russian because my mom is Russian, I grew up in the U.S. and I became a Naturalized U.S. Citizen. Anyway, I’ve definitely traveled quite a bit but I’m not rich.

IMO North Americans aren’t the only ones that have problems with debt, entitlement, and consumerism. This is a world wide problem. I want to even go further and say that its a human problem, people have been spenders since money was introduced into civilization.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with spending money, having nice things, having beautiful things IF you can AFFORD them.

The problem as I see it is that she’s seeing the bad actors for her TV show and extrapolating to everyone. Her sample pool is more than a bit skewed.

I have a friend who spent three weeks between jobs in Alaska in a two man tent, with nothing but a small pack of clothes, a skillet, a lighter, and a fishing pole. That’s all he “needed” to survive, but he doesn’t “want” to ever have to do that again. Though based on this article, the tent was a “want” since he was the only one in it, so he should have gotten a roommate

I wouldn’t say I was ever a shopping addict, but I definitely used to shop for entertainment. And I never was very influenced by TV ads – but only because the things I want are not advertised on TV.

To me, money sanity is not about spending ONLY on “needs.” It’s about choosing between my “wants.” Some of my wants are quite trivial, and some of them are important. I try to stomp on the trivial desires most of the time so that I can direct my money to the important stuff.

And yes, I do feel entitled to spend on my wants. … I think this article might have been a bit stronger if more emphasis had been laid on the insanity of indulging wants with credit, i.e. money you don’t actually have.

Ignore Tyler’s meaningless rant….Done!

Pathetic. Why don’t we all just look at the trees and continue to miss the forest.

Gail, loved the article and can’t wait to check out the show.

I don’t criticize people who live in mansions or mcmansions if they want to. Its their life, if they can afford it then that’s awesome. I only frown when people stretch themselves into debt.

My mom was the 7 of 8 kids and there was never any privacy so she wanted to give me that, oh and men spend too not just women.

If a family can afford it then what’s wrong with that? IMO from what I’ve seen most people feel entitled, I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing. If I believe I want a vacation then that’s my belief and its not a bad one.

The problem comes in when people get into debt, but if you have savings and you have the money to spend money for whatever then why not? I don’t want to live like a scrooge.

Elementary school is over. Can we go to grad school now?

As we can see when reading Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, what makes money enjoyable isn’t the money itself but what it can be used for. Scrooge was pretty much as wealthy at the end of the story as he was at the beginning but life is much happier when you’re not eating gruel by a low fire in a freezing house.

And if you have the means to do more than that, I can hardly blame anyone for doing so.

I’ve lived before with a budget that took care of very little more than my basic needs. While I survived, it was not particularly enjoyable. Naturally, now that my income level allows me to fulfill some of my wants without preventing me from taking care of my needs, I buy some luxuries or do some non essential activities that improve my quality of life.

But it’s about what you can afford – what wants you can fulfill without jeopardizing your ability to fulfill your needs.

The “entitlement” thing becomes an issue when it leads you to buy things you can’t afford because you have a mental block that has declared these things needs rather than wants and you will therefore put your future in jeopardy to have them.

We all have wants that we’re willing to sacrifice for. A bigger house that is absolutely necessary, a nicer car, trips abroad, etc. But we’re doing it with clear eyes, recognizing that we don’t have a god-given right to these things and that we could get by without them.

Many people can’t make that distinction; my ex-wife considered a new $1000 purse to be an annual need. If she couldn’t buy something like that every year then why was she living? She just couldn’t exist without one. It didn’t matter if there was no money in the bank, and no sacrifices needed to be made to justify said purse. To her mind it was a true need.

Sad story, but true.

It’s knowing where that line is that’s important.