What is Frugal is subjective to your income. What makes a person feel good or bad is consequential of his social circle and what his friends/acquaintances have.
For eg: a person making $1 million a year, could buy a $40K car and feel like he was not compromising if all his friends had $30K cars.
However, a guy who is making a similar amount of money might not be too happy if he had to buy a Jag and all his friends had Ferraris.
Ignoring the whole loser argument that the author is making, the one good thing to consider here in the article is, its a good idea to spend proportional to the time you will be spending with the product.
For eg: If you are spending a lot of time on computer, you probably want to get something that is "good" quality and which is good for your eyes and has other benefits.
For eg: a person making $1 million a year, could buy a $40K car and feel like he was not compromising if all his friends had $30K cars.
However, a guy who is making a similar amount of money might not be too happy if he had to buy a Jag and all his friends had Ferraris.
Ignoring the whole loser argument that the author is making, the one good thing to consider here in the article is, its a good idea to spend proportional to the time you will be spending with the product.
For eg: If you are spending a lot of time on computer, you probably want to get something that is "good" quality and which is good for your eyes and has other benefits.