Keeping Up With The Kardashians [Not the TV Series]

Keeping Up With The Kardashians [Not the TV Series]

No Senor, today's piece Keeping Up With The Kardashians is not about that very successful American Reality TV Series which ran through for about fifteen years.  Instead, we're referencing to the Kardashians as the iconic symbol of society's upper stratum.  So by Keeping Up With The Kardashians, we mean here is pushing yourself, your lifestyle, your standards up to that level of our society's upper stratum.

Simply put, we need to recognize that NOT everyone earns the same income. Therefore, not everyone can afford to spend the same as well.  It prescribes that rather than trying to keep up with the Joneses [and their lifestyle spending, WHEW !], we should live within our means.  Yet the challenge is as income rises, living 'within your means' can 

produce what is, to most, an outsized and larger than life standard of living.  In other words, while it might seem like prudent advice for those who are of struggling means, those who lift their spending up to live within their [much greater] means may be viewed with disdain. This then raises the question of whether 'live within your means' is 

actually the right advice for anyone [regardless of income] or if the reality is that the strategy breaks down as a prudent spending recommendation at some point.  A recent research even stated that there is a "HAPPINESS THRESHOLD" beyond a level of income and associated spending within its means, more income and spending doesn't appear to actually improve our emotional well-being. But people will always argue that those who earn might have a "right" to spend more.  And that as long as they're continuing to spend within their means, it remains reasonable and prudent.  

Nonetheless, the question remains: WHAT DOES IT REALLY MEAN TO "LIVE WITHIN YOUR MEANS", and is there a point where that advice is no longer relevant or prudent?  In the simplest equation ever, if INCOME Less SPENDING ends either in ZERO or in NEGATIVE, that is indicative of DEFICIT SPENDING.  Which means, with due courtesy, NOW is the time to turnaround and change overnight, if need be 📌📌📌