Is buying luxury items worth it?

I guess for one the luxury items hold their value much longer, and hopefully get longer life out of them with less hassles and break downs.

It’s a matter of taste and whether or not I could afford it.
I can’t think of one new car that’d I have to have. I personally like older cars.
I would buy a 1948 Buick Roadmaster 2 door hardtop over a new Mercedes or whatever.
Then, I’d spend some cash making it mint.
I don’t care about phones as long as the one my husband has works when my Roadmaster is on the side of the road.:)
I used to beat my friend (who used a set of expensive clubs) regularly on the golf course with a set of clubs my dad put together for me.
He should’ve put his money towards a set of earplugs so he wouldn’t have to listen to me tell him that he didnt buy magic wands :D

Some things are. Luxury items do often have very good quality. The last 20 years I find a lot of things are junk and breakdown easily, or they are very expensive and good quality. It’s frustrating. A lot of the time the added quality carries such a significantly higher price because of the status, that it is not really justified. When it comes to watches, you can buy a $50 watch and it will tell time as well as the $10,000 Rolex. As far as cars, there are Mercedes that are not very expensive and ones that are very expensive. Japanese cars tend to have fewer problems. My Korean car has been reliable too, but the seats aren’t comfy like my more expensive cars that I have had. My German cars do drive differently, they grip the road in a different way. Matter of what you like. When you get used to better made clothing, cars, appliances, you can feel and see the difference when you use something that is of lesser quality. Sometimes it doesn’t matter much though.

It is never worth going into debt for something that has an equivalent that is less expensive just for status reasons. The money in savings should give you just as much happiness as a fancy car in your garage. Having money to fall back on if you can’t work or don’t want to work is the biggest LUXURY of all in my opinion.

It just depends on the priorities of the individual.

If you have the financial security and you have a preference, why not get what you want? YOLO.

On the other hand, there are always homeless and hungry children all over the country/ world, so why would you ever even consider luxuries?

I struggle with this issue sometimes and feel selfish for indulging myself occasionally, although I give back.

A Rolex isn’t just a watch, it is jewelry. But my father’s Rolex Oyster that he bought in the 1960s is still working fine for my brother.

A new Mercedes is a marvelous machine, and, it is safer than anything that was on the road even five years ago.

The “affordable is not necessarily as good”.

”...would you purchase these luxurious items opposed to the affordable (just as good) items?”

I don’t think they’re always “just as good.” In the case of the iPhone for example, Apple is pretty hardcore on protecting the privacy of the end user. They charge a premium for their hardware. Competitors can get away with selling alternatives with comparable (in some cases) specs, for less, but they’re supplementing that revenue by selling out your privacy.

It really depends on the item in question. If I’m buying something that’s going to last a long time, then I’m willing to spend the extra money on it. A good example might be having nice knives for the kitchen. Sure you can cut up an onion with a $2 knife from Walmart, but it’s a more pleasant experience to use a quality chef’s knife that costs $80. That doesn’t mean you need to buy a full set of 30 high-quality knives either (e.g. very few people would benefit from owning an expensive cleaver).

Fashion tends to be one of those areas that I see no value in spending crazy money. You can find stuff that’s made well for reasonable prices, and there is plenty of name-brand stuff that’s made poorly, designed to last a season and be discarded. No thanks.

If they’re bought for the build quality & let’s face it, you get what you pay for, then that’s fine.
If you buy them as status symbols, a sign of your wealth, then you are a cock!

Remember once one purchases a luxury item you then become a target for stealing thieves.
Or worse those that are up to defacing one’s property.

There are professional thieves who steal luxury cars and transport them overseas to sell to rich merchants.

( saw a documentary on that)..now “converters” are been taken right off the vehicles in ones own driveways .

As to the expensive Rolex watch one man who won the lottery bought his father a $10000 watch then regretted it later when he realized that it made his father a target.
His father was always afraid of being robbed on the street.

It definitely depends on the product. When it comes to phones and cars, you are getting what you are paying for to an extent (after a certain point, the law of diminishing returns applies). A luxury watch is more frivolous. Do diamonds on a watch make it tell time better? No. But a cheap smartphone may crap out sooner, may be slow, may not have all the features and functions you want, etc.

It depends on what it is, whether or not you can afford it and whether you’re just buying it for the status or for the actual product itself.

I can’t afford a Mercedes and I don’t have the latest iPhone (I have a Samsung that was given to me by my job), but I don’t put myself into hock every year for a new phone or fancy car, either.

I know of a person, a doctor, who routinely sells his almost-new designer clothes on Ebay so he recoups the value of them, for the most part. I don’t have time to do that but I guess it’s an option for a way to help keep the costs down.

There are a few things I am willing to pay more for, like good soap. I don’t buy Dove or Ivory or anything like that. To me, a handmade bar of beautifully scented soap is something that’s my little luxury that I really appreciate and enjoy.

So basically what you guys are saying is that it depends according to the appetites of the person.

@Eggie No, if you read what people wrote, that isn’t what people said. It is a combination of taste, appetite and ability to afford certain things, while also factoring in what is the best way to spend one’s money for better quality.

I purposely try to have one car that is very moderate and commonplace. I like to not stand out most of the time. My husband is a car guy, so we usually have 3 or more cars, but even when we only had one each, I always had a car that was not close to being considered a luxury car.

Sometime the luxury item will last longer and over the years it is not much more money. If you will keep your Mercedes for ten years, but if you get a Toyota you will want to trade it in in 3 years, the Mercedes might be the same price over time. You have to know yourself and your spending habits.

@JLeslie: And with cars, your driving habits. A Mercedes is going to cost more to maintain than a Toyota. Some cars, the cost to maintain over the life of the car is less than others, for example, Honda.

@jca2 A lot of people forget that, good call. When I worked at the Lambo dealership, the bills were astronomical for repairs on luxury cars and sports cars. Plus a ding or accident can destroy the value very quickly.

@jca2 Absolutely. My Porsche is something like $1k for a service. I’d have to ask my husband. My husband just sold one of our cars, and I think we were paying $1,200 a year insurance. Plus, the gas mileage wasn’t great and I needed to use premium gas. It all adds up.

I generally take the “you get what you pay for” route, but only for categories I really care about.

I do care about technology for my job, so I buy Apple products. Haven’t let me down in over 25 years.

I just need a reliable car, so I buy Hyundai. Not luxurious at all, but runs great and gets good gas mileage.

I buy the upgraded internet connection, and I buy HBO. Its worth it.

Now the kids have all grown up, gone and no longer need my financial support (don’t they cost a lot?) and I’m now living off my pension, I find I have a bit more to spend on the things I want to buy.

Whereas this would in the past have been the cheapest and quite often second hand, now I find I can buy new and a bit more up-market.

Recently I bought some wooden benches for the garden and some new indoor dining chairs, at a price I never would have dreamt of spending before. But you know what? The quality is so much better.

It isn’t cheap wood and everything I built (it all arrived flat-packed) came together seamlessly. All the bolts were dead in line with what they had to screw into and all the finished items look as though they will last for years, have no factory blemishes on them, are sturdy as hell and look just like the pictures that persuaded me to buy them.

Not sure I would class these as luxury items, though they are to me; just quality.