Your lifestyle has already been designed
Recently, I learnt about a customer segment called HENRY (high earning not rich yet). Luxury companies ‘nurture’ this segment over multiple years, not as current buyers, but as potential buyers, who need to be groomed (read: marketed to) today, to be high spenders on luxury goods tomorrow.
To this pervasive marketing, add the side effects of the 9-5 corporate cycle, which most employed individuals face…side effects which ensure that the more you earn, the more you spend.
Based on your income strata, you have to stick to the lifestyle that's now expected of you. Even if a person were immune to status-signalling pressure, basic logistics will force you to spend more in the 9-5 set-up: your move to a big (more expensive) city, spend on domestic help for cooking and cleaning, expenses on take-out or bills incurred in order to abide by the norm of socialising in the evening, at the nice restaurants/pubs.
And now that you are eating ordered food and not doing basic chores that require physical effort, you will have to spend on diets, exercise or medicines. Given the investment of mental and physical bandwidth in 9-5, you will also need an amazing vacation to justify your hard work during the weekdays.
Neat, no? Go on then, indulge in this free but rich blog post by David Cain.
Reading time: 15 mins