On Money: Lifestyle Creep
This is Part Two in a collection of essays about my changing perspective towards money. Part One can be found here, and Part Three will be an examination of my current relationship with money.
In the first part of this series, I explored how my upbringing shaped my relationship with money, and shared some anecdotes illustrating differences between what I understood to be an immigrant approach to money and one that more established families have. For a while, I wondered where the tipping point was, how many generations from the first immigrant would spending habits change. Until there was some sort of generational wealth? Until a generation grew up without financially precarious parents?
I thought that such attitudes toward money were deeply ingrained. Although I started working and earning money, I remained uncomfortable with spending it frivolously, only noticing my idiosyncrasies through comparison with others. I became increasingly self-aware when I quickly divide the weight of a grocery item by its price instead of grabbing the option with better packaging. I feel the need to browse this season’s collection a little before heading to the markdown rack at the back of the store, the real reason I entered in the first place. As much as I’d like to give off the carelessness of someone affluent, I found that I would always look for value where I could.
Though I remained reasonably frugal after attending college and then starting work, the same could not be said about many of my friends. It’s interesting to me because they grew up in what I would consider a similar financial situation as I, in the same neighbourhood. If their families were wealthier, it certainly wasn’t by degrees of magnitude.
I have one friend who always struck me as rational and level-headed when it came to money. After a few years of hard work at college, he became an investment banker, an obvious career choice for a hard-working young professional. What astounded me was how quickly money changed his spending habits. I remember the first time I watched him buy something without asking for the price, a cute yellow rain jacket that he briefly tried on when we ducked into a store to avoid the rain. He asked a sales associate for another size, looked at it in the mirror, again, and paid the hundred and change without batting an eye.
Like ordering at a restaurant without regard for the prices, I’ve come to understand that buying clothes without looking at the tags is also reasonable. After all, most items by most brands are priced around a certain level. If a pair of jeans is around two hundred dollars, one can be sure that a t-shirt will be around sixty and a pair of socks twenty. As true as that might be, he lost his frugality early on. He would suggest dinners at expensive steakhouses without consideration for those of us that were working less than eighty hours a week. He bought a blue Mercedes and blue suede Louboutins to match.
One line of thinking is that if I made that much money, I’d be as inclined to buy expensive things as well. What’s a seven-hundred dollar suit when you make seven thousand a month? But it also isn’t entirely about money.
One of my favourite stories in this regard is about sneakers. When I was in high school, I had a couple best friends whose aspirational shoes were Common Projects. At the time, they were two thirds of the price they are now, a hefty four hundred Canadian dollars. Everyone thought it was unreasonably expensive. When we arrived at college, he saw a pair of Common Projects on someone else’s feet for the first time and was duly impressed, making sure to point out to me what they were.
Very soon after, he purchased his own pair of Common Projects. Then another. And another. By my count, he has at least seven pairs now, between sneakers, derbies, and boots. He has other expensive clothes and shoes these days of course, this example merely serving to illustrate the growth in his appetite for luxury. I’m even more surprised because his purchase habits started changing in the first few years of college, long before he started climbing the corporate ladder. What happened, if it wasn’t accessibility to wealth? How did he develop such a taste for nice things, such a callousness towards money?
My third example of a childhood friend who grew out of frugality was by far the most startling. He remained prudent with money up until this year, someone I could rely on to vote for the cheaper option alongside me. All bills were split and even. Then, something snapped in him. If I had to hazard a guess, it’d be a combination of long working hours, a large line of credit, a reliable source of future income, and of course, the rest of his friends egging him on. Suddenly, twenty dollar dinners became hundred dollar dinners with wine, became hundred dollar dinners plus wine.
I wasn’t the only one who noticed this surprising transformation. One of the least inclined to spend money in our friend group abruptly became one of the most comfortable with it. But if it weren’t for the speed of change, it would have perhaps gone unremarked. His dinner suggestions and purchases are expensive, but not unreasonably so. Eyes would be bat, but comments rarely made, as they were still within a threshold that the rest of the group could accept.
Upon further reflection, the majority of my childhood friends are progressing along this way, afflicted by lifestyle creep as they make more money and spend time with similarly well-endowed peers. At first, I found it curious how quickly everyone shed the money habits they grew up with, quickly adopting ones commensurate with their new friends and incomes. But is it really strange that tolerance of expenses increases as net worth does? And is it really a problem?
Though the hedonistic treadmill, the tendency to constantly require more things to be happy, is often criticized as a product of a wasteful capitalist society, that should be its only critique. So long as the spenders know that the gains are short lived, others shouldn’t “hate the playa, but hate the game”. Not only is increased spending inevitable as one makes more money, it is appropriate: it can’t be carried onto the next life after all. More expensive things are nicer to admire, use, and consume. Why not spend the money when it’s there?
However, based on some conversations with them, I know that some of the attitude toward money remains. Though they might eat more expensive meals, there is still a pang of guilt when the cost of dinner is in the triple digits. Though much is paid for without a second thought, a good sale is still appreciated. It’s just that the threshold has moved forward, that these smaller purchases no longer figure into the grand calculus of what matters. Like my friend buying those bottles of water.
But then, who doesn’t like a good deal? Who wouldn’t cringe at an expensive night out? Many times I’ve heard my white friends complain about costs. Are my money habits really a remnant of my immigrant values? Or are they an indicator of my net worth? And how much of them remain?
