Why We Complain About Prices While Buying the Expensive Stuff

I thought while scrolling: a foldable iPhone for $1,300, a $50,000 car in every driveway, and everyone online is furious about inflation. Either people are lying about being squeezed, or they’re lying about being fine. Neither is true, and the explanation is more interesting than either.

1ne. Inflation is about the groceries, not the gadgets

Nobody gets angry about the price of a phone the way they do about eggs. Inflation hits hardest in the things you buy every week: groceries, rent, insurance, gas, haircuts. You can’t skip those or wait a year for a deal. A $1,300 phone is a choice. A $7 carton of eggs is a tax on being alive.

Prices also don’t just rise and settle. They rise and stay. Even if inflation cools, the grocery bill from 2020 never came back down. People aren’t only mad at this year’s increase. They’re mad at the cumulative one, every time they open their wallet.

2wo. “Willing to pay” isn’t the same as “can comfortably afford”

A $50,000 car doesn’t mean a lot of people have $50,000. It means a lot of people have a monthly payment. Six- or seven-year loans have become normal, and a long loan makes any price feel manageable. The same goes for phones, which come with a 24-to-36-month plan that hides the sticker price inside a bill you barely notice.

So when you see someone buying a pricey car, you’re not seeing someone who’s flush. You may be seeing someone who stretched and is quietly stressed about it. Both can be true at once, and often are.

3hree. The economy isn’t one economy

This may be the biggest piece. Economists sometimes call it a K-shaped economy: one arm of the K heads up, one heads down. Higher earners and people with homes and investments have watched their wealth grow. Many younger, renting, or lower-income households have watched their costs outrun their paychecks.

The people buying the foldable phone and the people skipping the dentist aren’t the same people. Sales numbers capture the first group, and the second group’s complaints are loud. Averages hide both.

4our. Some of it is just human

We also don’t buy things the way a spreadsheet would predict. People will cut back on the boring stuff to protect the one thing that feels like a reward. After years of price shocks, a phone or a new car can feel like a small win in a stressful stretch. Plenty of people grumble about the price of milk and still buy the nice thing because it’s how they cope.

Add status, habit, and the fear that waiting means paying even more later, and spending and complaining stop looking contradictory.

5ive. So who’s right?

Both. Prices really are higher than people expected, and wages haven’t kept pace for many households. And many people still spend, because some are doing fine, some are borrowing, and some choose a treat over a savings goal that feels out of reach anyway.

The next time someone says “people can’t be struggling, look at all those new cars,” you can tell them: look at the payment, look at who’s buying, and look at what’s going into the grocery cart.