I always find it weird when someone puts forth the attitude of, essentially, "you don't really need these things that other people have, so just deny yourself the things you want and it's all good!"

I will certainly agree that "keeping up with the Joneses" is a very real phenomenon, and we are marketed to death to get us to want things we don't need, that actually won't make ourselves happier or our lives better.

But there's a lot of wiggle room there. Debt is a useful tool, and it can measurably make our lives better if used wisely and responsibly. Should a few mistakes push you into a different class of people who don't have access to that? I would say no, that's unjust.

And that's without getting into all the ways that a credit report often doesn't accurately reflect your ability to manage debt, either just because of its imprecision, or because of reporting errors and unaccountable businesses that don't care who gets screwed over.