Every thought about personal finance I've ever had, as concisely as possible
&gt; generally look for quality items with lifetime warranties, 1 coat that costs $1000 but lasts 30 years has better ROI than buying a $100 coat every other year. Plus it&#x27;s less mental strain since you don&#x27;t have to think about replacing it and you&#x27;ll get to use something you actually like.<p>This is a common thing I hear, e.g. the rich man&#x2F;poor man parable about boots, but I have never been able to give it real credence. It just isn&#x27;t a realistic choice, whether we&#x27;re talking about coats, boots, beds, knives, or whatever.<p>First, I cannot assess the value of a good I do not yet possess to a sufficient degree to determine if it will really last, and will be something I&#x27;ll &#x27;love&#x27; for &gt;5 years, and I wouldn&#x27;t trust any company to actually honour a &quot;lifetime guarantee&quot; on a meaningfully expensive purchase. Very few of those are even advertised.<p>Second, trying to make that sort of assessment for most purchases sounds <i>extremely</i> stressful. What if I go wrong? A lot of business depends on tricking un-knowledgeable consumers into spending big money on perceived-but-false &quot;quality&quot;. One mistake puts you way in the hole overall in this cost&#x2F;benefit analysis, and the internet is full of shills.<p>So rather than trying to find the coat that&#x27;s &quot;really worth&quot; $1000, and hoping beyond hope it&#x27;ll last <i>30 years</i> without any way to tell, I will spend ~$150 on a coat, and it should last ~2-3 years.<p>I learned how to mend buttons and sew small tears, and my actual coat that I bought for ~$150 lasted almost a decade before it was done. I spent 5 minutes at the first store I found in the mall, way back in college, and just asked for something warm. Last year, I did a lot of research and I spent $700 on a new coat, and it had lost a button and gained a hole in its pocket within a month.<p>I have a more controversial take overall:<p>Wealth is, unfortunately, only really available to the lucky, so most of this just doesn&#x27;t matter.<p>I&#x27;m comparatively lucky, (I was born in North America! I have a ton of majority privilege! I liked computers!) but I don&#x27;t have connections to anyone from any top 10 schools, and I am unlikely to even ever work for a FAANG.<p>Living frugally and intelligently investing will likely make the difference between whether or not I can take vacations during retirement, and maybe move the retirement date around by 5-7 years, provided I don&#x27;t actively throw my money away on things (like GME).<p>But becoming &quot;wealthy&quot;? That would require a lottery-type win. The literal lottery, or the startup lottery, or similar. As a ~30-something, (hopefully) competent, privileged urban software engineer, with a decent scholastic and vocational pedigree, actual wealth just probably is not in the cards, no matter what actions I take.<p>So (again excepting learning not to throw all my money away), I just can&#x27;t make myself feel like personal financial advice really matters overall. Either I win the lottery someday, or I don&#x27;t.<p>I&#x27;m curious though, to anyone still reading, what makes it matter to you?