Status-oriented spending

post by Adam Zerner (adamzerner) · 2024-01-25T06:46:47.029Z · LW · GW · 19 comments

Contents

  Value-oriented perspective
    House cleaner
    Massage therapist
    Psychotherapist
    Professional organizer
    Mattress cover
  Status-oriented perspective
  Self-policing
None
19 comments

Recently I started spending money on a bunch of things that might seem a little extravagant:

• House cleaner
• Massage therapist
• Psychotherapist that is not covered by insurance
• Professional organizer
• A nearly $3,000 mattress cover (cools/heats bed)

My impression is that they're all the sorts of things that are mostly purchased by rich people. Not upper-middle class people like me. Rich people.^[1]

So it felt a little uncomfortable to pull the trigger on each of these purchases. In my mind's eye I imagine people learning of these purchases and passive-aggressively saying "must be nice". And I doubt that I'm alone in these feelings of discomfort.^[2]

In this post I'd like to argue that such purchases shouldn't be seen this way. 

Value-oriented perspective

Let's look at each purchase individually:

House cleaner

The house cleaner I use costs $30/hr. Since she's a faster and better cleaner than I am, what takes her one hour maybe would take me two.

I can make maybe $100/hr programming. Dirty things make me feel somewhat stressed.

Why wouldn't I trade money for time and peace of mind here?

Massage therapist

I have chronic Achilles tendinitis. It's not the worst thing in the world, but it's also certainly not the best. If the tendinitis mostly went away that'd be a nice improvement to my life.

I've tried tons of things to improve it and nothing has worked. In reading a resource I trust, I've come to believe that it's not entirely implausible that massage therapy would work. So then, as an experiment, why wouldn't I spend a couple of months giving massage therapy a shot?

Psychotherapist

The ROI of psychotherapy is just very clearly very positive.

As for in-network vs out-of-network, I've tried a few in-network people who haven't worked out. For various reasons I'm not optimistic about being able to find a more affordable in-network therapist who will work out, and this particular out-of-network therapist was recommended by someone who I trust a lot. So then, it seems easily worth it.

Professional organizer

My apartment feels way too cluttered. The clutter makes me feel a surprisingly large amount of discomfort. It's not intense, but it's a sort of perpetual, constant, slow burning discomfort that I think is actually a pretty big issue.

Yes, perhaps this could be addressed by simply 1) asking what sparks joy and 2) getting rid of the things that don't. But that isn't always possible when you live with a girl.

Anyway, the professional organizer I found seems very competent and is $70/hr for a minimum of three hours. I see this as having a very large expected value.

Mattress cover

I love my $3,000 mattress cover. It's genuinely improved my sleep, and sleep is very important.

If I lived alone, I'd sleep with it at maybe 60-62 degrees Fahrenheit. I like it cold. My girlfriend on the other hand likes it at about 70 degrees.

Before having the mattress cover we'd compromise at about 66. Neither of us were ever particularly comfortable. Since having the mattress cover, we are always very comfortable, and it's glorious.

If you'd like to purchase one, please use my affiliate link.

Status-oriented perspective

We've viewed each purchase through the lens of what I'll call a "value-oriented" perspective. Now lets look at them through the lens of what I'll call a "status-oriented" perspective.

I think the status-oriented perspective looks something like this:

A house cleaner? People who have house cleaners are usually rich, successful, and high-status. You're saying that you belong in that group?

Actually, I'm finding it difficult to express what I mean by "status-oriented perspective". Bear with me.

Maybe the examples I gave earlier aren't the best at demonstrating the "status-oriented perspective". Perhaps something like restaurant spending is a better example.

Let's group restaurants into four tiers:

• Tier one: ~$12 entrees ($)
• Tier two: ~$20 entrees ($$)
• Tier three: ~$35 entrees ($$$)
• Tier four: ~$80 entrees ()

If you see a coworker eating at a tier three restaurant by themself on a Tuesday afternoon for lunch, I think a lot of people think to themself something along the lines of "must be nice".

If you see a neighbor eating at a tier four restaurant with their partner on a Wednesday night for dinner, I think a lot of people think something to themself along the lines of "must be nice".

I'm having trouble articulating what I mean here, but I think that these sorts of purchases are often perceived as an attempt to grab social status. And like other situations where someone makes a move to grab social status, onlookers observe carefully with an eyebrow raised and a hand in the air ready to slap down [LW · GW] the attempted status grab.

But what if your coworker only treats themself to this meal twice a month? What if they treat themselves more than twice a month, but compensate by not drinking coffee or alcohol?^[3] What if they are a huge foodie and eat lunch at this restaurant every day, but compensate by riding a bike instead of owning a car?

Or, more to the point, what if they don't compensate at all and just have the money to afford it? Who cares!

There are some situations where I suppose playing the status games that we're evolutionary predisposed to play actually makes sense in the 21st century. Such spending decisions don't strike me as one of the appropriate situations though.

Self-policing

Part of the notion I'm hoping to express is that you shouldn't lean so heavily into the status-oriented perspective when observing how people around you spend their money. But the bigger thing I want to express is that you shouldn't lean so heavily into it when deciding how you yourself spend money.

I suspect that there is a decent amount of self-policing that people do when making decisions about their spending. In particular, avoiding certain purchases because they feel too much like a status grab. There's a certain dissonance of "wait, I'm not that type of person, am I?"

I ran into it myself. I was hesitant to hire the house cleaner. I was hesitant to hire the massage therapist. The psychotherapist. The professional organizer. To purchase the expensive mattress cover. There was a little voice -- perhaps a largely subconscious one -- that asked "is this really the type of person you are?".

I don't endorse that voice though. If I see it popping up in the future I'm going to try to shut it down.^[4] I'm going to try to be pretty limited in the amount of time I spend taking a status-oriented perspective, and focus heavily on a value-oriented perspective instead.

1. ^{^}

   It's not entirely rich people, of course. I just get the sense that it's mostly rich people. Or maybe just that "rich person" is a more central example [? · GW].

2. ^{^}

   I don't know how many people experience this sort of discomfort. 10%? 50%? 90%? I'd guess something like 80-90%, but I'm not sure. I do feel reasonably confident that it's not 1% and that it's a large enough niche to justify writing about this topic.

3. ^{^}

   Spending $600/month on coffee and alcohol is something that I sense is a lot more accepted, at least in the sense of not being a grab for social status. Expensive restaurants are different, I think.

4. ^{^}

   Well, perhaps I'll take a page from IFS [? · GW] and try to be more understanding and empathetic with that voice.

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