Very true but what you need to do is apply that thinking to houses....I don't know what house prices are like where you live, but around Leicester a large detached house with a double garage in a nice area is at least £500,000 - This is the price range our next house will be in.
Monthly payments mortgage payments on a £400,000 mortgage is £2000 a month at 3.5% interest 5 year fixed assuming 20% deposit. IF you can put down a larger deposit, and drop the mortgage to £250,000 your monthly payments go down to £1,000 month, because you can now access products that offer 2.2% fixed, and a lower initial borrowed sum.
Your personal situation may be different, but the same principles apply. The bigger you house deposit the cheaper your monthly cost, and by a substantial margin!!
So you can use the philosophy of 'Only live once', but if you try to budget and plan for 5 years ahead your could save your self ALOT of money by tightening the belt for a relative short time period now....And once the house/mortgage is sorted your have lots more disposable income to waste on what ever you like. Personally I much rather pay £1000 a month on my mortgage rather than £2000 a month, but for that to happen we have to squirrel away like mad for the next 5 years.
But swapping a car to change the monthly payments from £294 to £219, whilst going from a diesel to a turbo petrol performance car...I'm sure it'll be great fun, but don't kid your self that your actually making any serious attempt to save up any money towards a house....Manmaths or not
Exactly this.