Extravagance: where do you draw the line?

When I wrote a post about a $7,000 facial yesterday, it really struck a nerve with some of you (including the man who offers the facial!).

Check out the comments if you want, but be warned -- some of them get pretty nasty.

This is the kind of subject I can't bring myself to get personally worked up over -- I just personally find a $7,000 facial to be extreme and I wrote about it. It goes beyond my personal limit of acceptable pricing PLUS I don't believe that Mila Kunis's face at the Golden Globes looked any better after the facial than any other actress's face that night, and I thought it would make for an interesting discussion.

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But the rancor I stirred up among some of you made me realize that we could have quite an interesting discussion today about where you draw the line when it comes to extravagance.

So let's talk about it.

When I began writing for The Stir, I quickly realized that the readers here come from many different financial situations, and I've tried to address that in my posts. For example, while I think $150 is a great price for a winter coat, others of you wouldn't pay more than $50 -- so I try to give you a good range of prices from the incredibly inexpensive to the splurgey stuff.

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In general, I don't have a problem with the way women choose to spend their money, provided they can afford it. Personally, I've lived through lean years when I could afford to buy nothing at all, and I've had years when I could afford some luxuries. My husband and I are adamant about being financially responsible, about giving to others "until it hurts," and about enjoying ourselves, too. I would hope everyone would try for all three of these things, whether they're making $30,000 a year or $3,000,000.

But yeah. A $7,000 facial crosses the line for me. $7,000 for plastic surgery sounds reasonable. A $7,000 wedding dress? Okay. A $7,000 hotel suite? WOW. It had better be SOME HOTEL SUITE. But I find it very hard to believe that a $7,000 facial would give you any different results than a really good $300 facial.

However, if Scott-Vincent Borba asked me to try out his $7,000 facial for free, you know I'd be all over it because I'd love to be proven wrong!

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I'd also love to know what kinds of things have struck you personally as over-the-top. Where do you draw the line? Is anything too extravagant, period, or is it all relative?

And let's not get nasty and insult each other. My original facial post wasn't meant to hurt feelings (It really wasn't, Scott-Vincent, and you're putting yourself out there as a public figure so expect some criticism of your work. I do.) and I'd like for feelings to not get hurt in the comments.

Written by Lindsay Ferrier for CafeMom's blog, The Stir.

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