That sounds bad. Why not give it to a homeless guy or to charity or something?

>it’s illegal

Honestly, the central banks can go to hell. They can print way more money than you can ever burn, which they do, even far too much of it, bringing us to where we are today.

There is no "natural" amount of money.

there can’t be any value

These days I realize I have nearly everything I need, so if I'm buying something I figure I can't really afford it unless I'm getting the "best" out there. Best for me means researching the best performing/quality/etc. item in the category. If I'm replacing a broken item I also take the opportunity to upgrade.

For example I needed a carpet shampoo cleaner recently. Instead of heading to Walmart to buy whatever consumer gear was slapped on the shelf, I spent a few weeks deeply researching the ecosystem and ended up with something about 4-5x the expense - but with performance to match. The difference in quality makes it almost a pleasure to clean my carpets these days.

It's easy to spend money simply on fancy and not get much out of it. But I feel pretty satisfied when I make an absurdly expensive purchase like the above but still feel great about it a year later due to the value/increased quality of life it bought me. In the moment if feels ridiculous paying many multiples more than I would have in the past, but over time these little incremental improvements add up.

It's the spending that I do like a "poor person" that bothers me the most - just buying crap on impulse, or "collector" behavior. I find I need to actively mitigate both impulses or I'd end up on a hoarding TV show.