Spending money for the sake of spending money is pointless. If you have something in mind that is meaningful to you and you want to spend money on it go for it. If you are just trying to burn through the "excess" give it to a good cause.
I can afford a $9K first class plane ticket any time I want one. But, I buy a low cost economy ticket because there is nothing about sitting in first class that appeals to me much.
OTOH I didn't take advantage of $10K+ brokerage transfer bonus recently because I didn't feel like dealing with the hassle of making the move happen.
I'm not suggesting either choice is the "right" one, but they are the ones that work for me.
I always consider the existence of the $300 bottle of wine. Unless you're a professional sommelier with faculties not possessed by 99.99999% of humanity - which functionally means, if you are a human being who exists - then a $300 bottle of wine is going to taste the same as a typical $30 bottle or even most $15 bottles. There's no 10x-20x enjoyment multiplier available for purchase. So buying the $300 bottle is just spending money in order to get rid of it.
[One might object: Buying the $300 bottle could gain you notoriety and respect! But no ... it won't. I understand the concept. But it won't actually happen. No one cares about the bottle of wine that you bought.]
It might be - might be - that buying a business class ticket renders a flight 2x as pleasant as coach. Not more than that. And only on a flight that lasts more than six hours. You're still sitting in a tin can being told when you can unbuckle your seatbelt. You still can't light a cigar. You still can't actually have a good meal - it's all airplane food. You can't take a walk around the block and smell a spruce tree or check out a museum. You can't have conjugal relations with the flight attendant at the front of the plane, same as at the back. And right around when you start wishing you had a little more legroom, the plane lands. If the economy ticket is $900 and the business class ticket is $9,000, then it might as well be $9,000,000. It bears no resemblance to the value differential between the two. If you loathe your money enough to part with that much of it for nothing, then - as you said, Retire-Canada - find a better home for it.
As someone who generally flies economy and therefore has no particular dog in the fight, I'd say a business class flight is at least 3-4x more pleasant than economy; it transforms a positively negative experience into a positive experience. Not just the flight, but the lounge prior. Especially for someone with a crook back like me. Being able to recline and have all the leg room I want and all the food/drinks I want is a nice perk. And for some people a business class trip might only be a few hours' wages - it might be worth it to them - it's not for you to talk about what is and is not the value differential between the two.
People don't go around criticising others for spending inordinate amounts of time/money/energy on children, pets or other things - I wouldn't criticise someone for flying Business Class as long as (1) she genuinely liked it and (2) she earned enough to make it generally worthwhile on a cost/benefit basis.
This goes back to the "people are different" thing, right? And here is where I embarrass myself in an effort to be helpful:
First: honestly, I am a giant PITA. Like, I am a supertaster, and I find most red wine undrinkable (most whites, too -- Chardonnay, blech). Which is good, because that means I just don't drink a lot of wine. But: trip to Italy, discovered Barolo (in particular, a teensy-tiny sub-region within the already-tiny Barolo region), and also discovered how the right combination of wine and food makes everything better than just the one or other alone. I am in no way whatsoever a sommelier -- more on the side of "wine cretin" -- but I have absolutely spent $300 on a particular Barolo, because I know I will enjoy the hell out of it, and unfortunately, it takes $300 to buy that particular brand/vintage. Of course, I also enjoy a 6-euro bottle of Moscato d'Asti, too (but that's for dessert!).
Second: I do not function without sleep -- never have, can't imagine it will get better as I age. It's not just that I'm tired, it's that I get very very grumpy and easily-pissed-off, and my already-minimal filters go away, so a much higher percentage of snark and irritation comes out than when my inner grownup is fully functioning. We took one trip to Italy, we had one week because of work/school/etc., I got literally zero sleep on the plane, and I basically lost the first three days of that trip because I was so tired and grumpy (and I'm sure I was a total pleasure to be with, too). That's when I decided that as long as we're working,* we have more money than time, and if a business-class seat allows me to enjoy the whole trip instead of only half, it's worth it. I'm hoping I won't need that when we retire completely, because we plan to take much longer trips where that first few days will be largely meaningless.
But here's the thing with all of that: hedonic adaptation will occur, despite your best efforts. Yeah, I won't need a business class seat when we travel for a month or two -- but boy, I sure as hell hope we can afford it anyway! Because, MY GOD, I feel SO much better when I can lie down and stretch out (somewhat) and get even 4-5 hrs. of sleep. It makes airplane travel almost civilized. Similarly, I was perfectly happy when I thought I didn't like any red wine. You don't know what you don't know, right? Now that I know there are
some wines I like, I am more willing to try different wines, which increases the budget even if I don't end up liking the wine. And of course now I have the expectation of a nice bottle of wine to go along with a nice dinner, whereas before it was maybe a single cocktail or something.
Honestly, I kind of hope you blow money on something and don't enjoy it as much as you hoped. Like, buying things for status never ends up being actually satisfying, you know? Because even if you do impress people, that impression goes away, and you have to buy something new to replace it, and the whole thing is kind of empty in the end anyway.
Probably the worst thing that can happen is that you really really like the splurge. Because, duh, if you enjoy the heck out of it, you're going to want to do it again. So if you do want to splurge, think very carefully about how it will affect future spending. My StupidCar was a much better deal than that very first business class ticket, even though it cost like 10x more, because I've already had it 8 years, and as far as I am concerned, I am keeping it forever. So it amortizes much better than stupid plane tickets that have to be bought again.
*I do feel compelled to note that we were already FI when this happened and continuing to work because we wanted to.
