Seriously, though, there are a lot more “necessities” out there. I actually just finished a post about the government’s new estimates for in-home entertainment: $997.07 a year for TV, Internet & video game services; $1,000 a year for cell phones. Gah!

I doubt you could pry cell phones out of most people’s hands. Most of us have come to believe that we need them, which I disagree with but get tired of arguing about. But just getting rid of that would cut $50-90 out of most people’s monthly expenses.

It’s hard, though, in this day and age to avoid lifestyle inflation. It’s more about mitigating it. Sure, there are some people who can eschew cable TV and rent movies only from the library, never go online except at work and avoid video games of all types. But few of us want to live that way. Instead, we try to make conscious decisions about what we will and won’t spend money on.

Cell phones have undoubtedly saved lives, especially in rural areas where there aren’t many people to hear a collision and call for help.

Lifestyle inflation is bad, but we can also trade down in the kind of car we drive or house we live in, or cut the netflix bill, etc.. but when economic inflation is high you have little choice but pay more for simply living.

Also, despite what the popular sentiment will tell you, basic consumer staples have only gotten cheaper (indexed for inflation) than when your Mom was buying you bread and milk and eggs and winter coats and blue jeans. And this also goes for gasoline, believe it or not. For this, we can thank, among many other factors, globalization and the “Wal-Mart” effect.

So there are plenty of ways to save money now if you’re willing to live below your means; but of course, plenty of people invent newer and better ways to squander that opportunity.

As for the poster above who mentioned the childless couple living in the 5,000 sf 5 bedroom house…We bought that very house from a childless couple who was upgrading to a 4500 sf house in the same area. And as we found out at closing, they’re flat broke, in debt to their eyeballs.

If you work in fields that require you to say, monitor certain news networks and TV shows on a regular basis, you need more than basic cable TV. (You can’t even get more than a handful of channels via antenna in the city I live in, for example. Same with others in more remote areas who have been forced since the switchover last year to get cable to see any TV. Did they want to do it? No, for the most part. And some people are now without TV due to the switchover.)

The way cable tv
“tiers” and prices are structured, you’re pretty much forced into the higher prices if you need to watch anything beyond three networks.

As for broadband, we resisted for many years. But we work from home and have clients who have huge files, etc. We got the more expensive broadband several years ago when a client complained about turnaround time. (We also have a second landline phone line based on client needs–they cannot use skype due to corporate rules. We only got our cells to handle client calls due to their insistence on constant availability. Same with netbook. And the iTouch? We have to write about the apps so we have to be able to download them. We will not buy an iPhone because of the lousy service in our area. )

We have two computers. Why? because we need a backup in case one goes down as, again, clients want constant ability to work on demand. Plus, we have the need for two different operating systems due to our work.

FYI: Our home office is basically our one-bedroom apartment. We can’t afford another office or a bigger space. We hate this since our whole apartment is a work space, given the materials we need.

Could we not spend on cable, broadband and other related office expenses? Yes, but we wouldn’t be able to do our jobs and work.

So I hardly think of these things as luxuries or as being spoiled.

Spoiled is two adults, no kids, living in a 3,000 square foot house (five bedrooms, three and a half baths) that doesn’t even include a home office. Spoiled is when you’re in debt to buy high-end TVs and stuff to create a “media” room.

Some of the stuff in “lifestyle expansion” is necessary and some stuff improves our lives or adds to the quality (We use netflix and have friends over to watch. It’s fun and it’s cheap compared to a nite out). But to be honest, I would almost, at times, prefer to go back to a time when there were no blackberrys, IMs and such because I’d love to have a life back and not have to be available 24/7.

The other aspect of lifestyle inflation is your social community. Living in a major city (if not THE major city) in the U.S., if you want to socialize, there are expenses involved. Same with doing business. And if you have kids, good luck. The pressure on parents, from their kids and elsewhere, for stuff is amazing. We are shocked at what we’ve seen our families forced to spend on stuff for their kids. (Apparently your kids HAVE to have a cell phone to take certain kinds of school trips! Must wear certain kinds of clothes and shoes, etc. We were lucky we went to school when we did and had uniforms. We’d have been naked otherwise.)

There are many things we would do differently if we lived in the wilderness, but we don’t. So we will have lifestyle costs.

FYI: We finally got an LCD TV this year when our 20-year-old set died. We got a great price on a smallish model (32 inches is actually too big for our space!). No one believed we had not had one before this. (Even our building’s super has two 42-inch sets in an apartment the size of ours!)

The key is always about the value you get for your money. And not convincing yourself you have to have something you don’t, despite external pressure. (iTouch is cool, but we love our old PDAs. If it weren’t for the apps and the fact that you can access free WiFi on the fly, the iTouch would make no sense. It’s a lot cheaper and more functional than the way overpriced and overhyped iPhones. I have to laugh when I hear everyone who owns one complaining about them.