Easier doesn't mean better. You learned risk aversion and prioritization skills from your mothers habits. The fact is that you don't need to employ that aversion at the moment, but its a tool you have if you do need it.
The number of people I see who blow though heroic gobs of money astonishes me sometimes. I realize that my metric is entirely variable, but I'm talking about paying 2-3x for a similar good simply because its closer at hand, or offers some entirely minor benefit. This behavior isn't an issue when the wind is at your back, but I've had the unfortunate experience of helping, and eventually just watching, people that had a bad turn that just got worse because they didn't know how to stop their bad spending habits when they couldn't support them anymore.
Your mother gave you a gift. Its a gift with a mental toll, but in the long run its a fine price to pay for it.
There are a lot of people out there who make a ton of money and still stuggle financially. For some people, income is like RAM or CPU power: whatever you upgrade to, you'll fill it all up soon.
I also play little games in the store with trying to find deals and such, even though I don't need to. It's far better than the other way around. Certainly there's a middle ground, but it seems to be really hard to hit.
This is true. I think that past a certain level, though, you don't get the real poverty experience. You get stress, but it's a different sort of stress. Like, yes, you might be having some trouble with your mortgage month-to-month, but selling the yacht is always an option. They don't have to work out exactly how far into starvation they'll have to get to make ends meet this month.
You are completely wrong. Easier is better, most of the time. In a 21st century developed economy it's vastly more efficient to spend your time thinking how to improve your income than how to optimize small expenses. Same principle as the famous "Premature optimization is the root of all evil".
The number of people I see who blow though heroic gobs of money astonishes me sometimes. I realize that my metric is entirely variable, but I'm talking about paying 2-3x for a similar good simply because its closer at hand, or offers some entirely minor benefit. This behavior isn't an issue when the wind is at your back, but I've had the unfortunate experience of helping, and eventually just watching, people that had a bad turn that just got worse because they didn't know how to stop their bad spending habits when they couldn't support them anymore.
Your mother gave you a gift. Its a gift with a mental toll, but in the long run its a fine price to pay for it.