Is it okay to spend money on luxury brands? in today's economy?

If you have the money and are able to do it, there is no reason to cut back or stop spending on luxury brands. However, I am generally of a more cautious and, frankly, cheap nature and wouldn’t have been doing that pre-recession to begin with.

I don’t even know what Grey Goose is but I sure wouldn’t spend that much money on anything that comes in a bottle.

I was going to mention what @EmpressPixie already touched on. If you’re living within your means and it’s affordable to do so, why not enjoy what you can, when you can? What might seem like excesses to some of us might be a rather ordinary lifestyle to others.

I live within a budget and I’m generally thrifty regarding a lot of my expenditures because it’s better that way for my lifestyle. I personally wouldn’t spend that type of money on a bottle of alcohol either, no matter what it was. To me it seems extravagant but to them, who knows?

That was probably their vacation.

I’m the cheapest person you will ever encounter and I even go all out on vacations.

My mom was a person that would get our Social Security check and spend it in one week. So we would hit up food boxes for the rest of the month. Not a good way to live.

When I was fifteen I left home and started getting the checks myself. I went with the be poor and blow the remainder after the next check showed up method. My approach was better.

I work in a town where many of the residents only feel the recession through their 401Ks. While it may be troubling, it doesn’t effect their day to day lives. Even less so the lives of their clueless, spoiled children who continue to spend freely on overpriced silliness.

I think there is a movement making conspicuous consumerism unappealing, but I think a change of that magnitude will take time to ripple completely through the populace.

I don’t see why people wouldn’t have the right to spend their money as they choose.

Those youngsters must either be independently wealthy, awfully sure of their careers, or very short-sighted. What they spent on the wine might look like the difference between survival and destitution at another time. But I don’t think it is up to me to judge how they use their resources any more than it is up to them to judge how I use mine.

If those if those who have the money don’t spend it, then we’ll continue to go deeper into a bad economy… hoarding cash does nobody any good. Spending (within your limits, whatever they are) is good for everyone.

I also believe that everything is relative… I bought a new car, why? Mine was paid off, and due to the mileage no longer under any type of warranty… my neighbor just put a few thousand into theirs to fix it, rather than to buy new. What works for me doesn’t work for them. The wife was out of work for a while…they’re catching up on bills, we’re fortunate enough to still have our jobs and money in investments that have not gone awry.

@basp: Grey Goose is a very nice Vodka. What they are buying is “bottle (or sometimes “table”) service” or the right to keep the bottle at the table and also have a table and chairs at the club. This is a good description of it.

If rich people gave up drinking Grey Goose, what would happen to the workers in their distillery, the delivery drivers the people those workers buy from? Whether it’s Grey Goose or Kool-Aid, closing down a company is going to put people out of work.

Maybe the silver lining is seeing how non judgmental everyone seems to be – each to their own and their own means

@Calvin – What you said.

Sure why not. It is your money after all.

@Calvin Marketplace (American Public Radio) ran a piece on this very topic on tonight’s show. You might be able to listen to it on the Web.

Of course it’s okay if you have a secure job or a savings account like you should. If you can afford it, don’t not spend it just b/c other people are having hardships.

Empress
Thanks for the information.
Thing is, I really don’t believe in telling others how to spend their money either, but I, personally, wouldn’t spend my money like that.

Their money, their choice – my money, my choice. I agree with @galileogirl though, every consumer product purchased benefits someone, somewhere. It’s easy to judge someone elses choices, but again, to each their own.

There is one circumstance that I would take offense to if a couple spent their money like that and that would be if their purchase was at the expense of another’s well being. For example, if that person had children or a dependant adult that they were legally or morally obligated to take care of and they are being neglected/abused because money is being spent frivolously.
In other words, if you can’t afford to buy the baby milk you don’t have any business buying alcohol at that price.

@basp: Thats the difference between being frivolous and negligent.

Yes, bythebay, you are right. But some folks don’t know the difference and therein lies the problem.

Theres no such thing as luxury, just varying degrees of adequacy.

@Noel_S_Leitmotiv – luxury, or extravagance does exist.

A watch that costs $25,000 tells the same time as one that costs $50.

It is its extravagance or excessive value that makes it obscene, and not just adequate or satisfactory.

You’re assuming that a wristwatches only function is telling the time.

I didn’t assume anything. I set the qualifiers.

you set the qualifier that a watches only function is telling the time.

In my example I set the qualifier that those watches function was telling time.

That is not an assumption.

Whenever I travel the world in my Grumman G5, my yacht, or my house on wheels (RV), those luxuries adequacies are judged by many, I would think, to be luxuries, especially in an economic climate that is as poor as the one we are currently in.

@Bluefreedom – I would agree with you.

I don’t agree with Noel_S_Leitmotiv on this point but I don’t really understand the point he is trying to make with his questioning after my post.

@Bri_L. I don’t understand that either.