I think the important thing is to ask oneself: “Is this a short-term luxury or a long-term luxury?”

Of course, renting a vacation house COULD be called a short-term luxury (if the summer turns out to be happily memorable, I call that a long -term luxury), but expensive sneakers that inevitably wear out are DEFINITELY short-term.

And it’s just as important to use one’s time wisely. I.e., pick useful hobbies, not ones that cost money (either type can be fun, after all), multitask as much as possible, never kill time when you can use ten empty minutes to do a quick chore, etc. You’ll be glad you did.