When Status Has Too High a Price

Here's a piece from Yahoo that addresses a topic all too familiar to many people in America -- the pressure to keep up with the Joneses. Here's the problem million of Americans face every day:

Once upon a time, status was derived by birth into a specific social class. Today, people compete for rank through money and material goods. Immersed in a consumer culture of astonishing choice, we define ourselves by style and aesthetics.

Unfortunately, it's not only wealthy people/communities who deal with these issues:

The pursuit of self-definition through aesthetics is not limited to the wealthy. In their book, "Trading Up: The New American Luxury," consultants Michael J. Silverstein and Neil Fiske discuss a shipping clerk earning $25,000 a year who springs for Victoria's Secret silk pajamas, and a coal miner who works overtime to buy "the best for me." Like Postrel, Silverstein and Fiske argue, new luxury goods "have become a language, a non-verbal method of self-expression and dialogue. The language enables consumers to say, 'I'm intelligent and discerning,' in many different and individual ways."

And here's what happens in people's lives when they live this way:

Dr. Shaun Saunders, a researcher at the University of Newcastle in England, studied more than 1,000 people and found materialistic folks who try to keep up with the Joneses are more likely to be angry, depressed, frustrated, and anxious.

Here's the conclusion -- the big payoff of this article as I see it:

Maybe I've never made enough money to worry about status, or I took my cue from parents who never defined themselves by what they bought. But it seems to me that the pursuit of identity and status through material goods can be costly -- and not only to our bank accounts. When we compete this way, we alienate ourselves from others and base our self-worth on something extrinsic. What this telegraphs is that without my designer coffee, country home, birthday affair to remember, and what have you, I'm worthless.

I agree 100%. Don't worry what the other guy is doing financially (or materially). Decide for yourself and your family what is right and live accordingly.

For some more pieces on living below your means, check out these posts:

• MND: Know and Control Your Spending
• Why It Pays to Live Within Your Means
• 13 Ways to Live Well on Less

Comments

[Terri W.]

My parents definitely gave me a head start on this one when we were growing up. They came from very, very modest backgrounds themselves, and that was the lifestyle they were comfortable with. So even when we were making good money [which I never realized at the time] we lived the exact same lifestyle we did when my folks were first starting out.

I got a little caught up with that junk in junior high, and it waned in college, then came back a bit after I got my first high paying computer jobs right out of school ... but once I got married, the brakes instinctively came on.

Since we're homeschooling our kids, I'll be very interested to see how or if that manifests itself, since for me it was a behavior I learned in school.