um... why do you feel the need to pity her? what makes being frugual superior to buying things if they have the income for it? if they want to work longer than why not let them?
it's the same as if a homeless guy pitied you for paying to live in a house... but a lot of homeless dont have the option so it isnt a good example. another is having kids. should i shame parents because kids arent mustachian? maybe talk them into aborting them because it'd be cheaper than raising them?
part of why i dont like this section of forums, there's nothing inherently shameful about being non mustachian to me. i mean everyone here aims to be fi, being frugal is only one way, working until 60 is another way... or should i be shamed because i'll hit fi at 40 or 45 instead of 25 or 30?
I feel some pity for this person because I used to think like that, that I "needed" unnecessary things when what I had was already amazingly luxurious.
I don't think they are bad or shameful people for buying something expensive, rather it's shameful they are wasting their limited resources.
I'm a little sad for their wasted opportunity. It sounds like they already had what they wanted, and bought something that's not only expensive but is probably actually worse for the purpose.
In other words I doubt very much these people are going to enjoy the Cadillac enough to make what they paid for it a fair value. I could be wrong.
But more likely than not, these people were probably going to be happier, in their own value systems no less, paying off debt or saving the money as cash for an emergency or taking a trip with their Odyssey or buying some income producing assets or any number of other things.
It's true people have different values, but most people, if they stopped to really think about it, would probably realize they don't value things and consumption as much as they think they do. That's what I realized, I didn't need to buy crap to "feel good" and in fact it was counterproductive in many cases.
As a culture we're so far in the weeds with consumerism it is getting far past ludicrous.
I will grant you being extremely anti-consumerism isn't inherently any better, but I think it's fair to wish people would more critically assess what the best use of limited resources is. It's not so much everyone should choose the same things, but rather everyone should choose better according to their true desires and not those imposed on us by a culture run amuck.
I'm certainly not as frugal as I absolutely could be for sure, but I've learned a great deal about what I value and what I don't, and as a result I generally spend a lot less overall than I used to. Where it genuinely does make me appreciably happier, I've stayed about the same or even increased spending.