Unpopular Opinion: “BIFL” as an excuse for overspending

I’ve followed the subreddit for a while. I suspect that there are a lot of people here who have had poor self control in regards to money and spending in the past. And that they are adopting a new “BIFL” attitude as an excuse to continue buying things that they cannot afford, by justifying its lifetime value.

Let’s face it, no clothing is “for life”. Fashions change, your body gets bigger or smaller, and some things that you wear in your 20s and 30s just look out of place later in life. Even the idea that you’re buying something to hand down to a future generation is very presumptuous, especially when you consider all of the things that are in our parents’ homes that we want nothing to do with.

Regards to home appliances, if the item hasn’t broken yet it’s pretty wasteful and irresponsible to go out and buy a new, bifl, expensive version just so you can throw away the old one.

This does not apply to everyone and everything, but having spent a few years living in a country where the quality of consumer goods is much lower than in the United States, and everyone survived just fine, I’m finding that this sub sometimes devolves into unhealthy consumerism. Some people seem to have the idea that there is a silver bullet, and that once they replace every item in their life with its bifl equivalent they will somehow be satisfied and free from want. But it doesn’t work like that!