We’ll never really understand why folks at various income levels, but more so the very rich, feel compelled to want more and more material things. It’s just human nature, we guess. After all, if your income goes up, you need to keep your money in circulation for the good of the economy, right?

It’s fun to see photos of the homes of the well-to-do, and, in fact, it’s often breathtaking to see what they’ve determined they can’t live without when  their bank account says “go for it.’’  

For the life of us, we don’t see why just two people, or even one, feel the need for mansions that include ten-bedroom homes, Olympic size swimming pools, six cars in the garage, and wardrobes which mean they don’t ever have to wear the same outfit twice.

It’s not always the very rich who feel compelled to live lavish lifestyles which threaten the budget. We’ve known lots of hard-working folks who spend close to their incomes on “stuff’’ they don’t really need rather than put money in the bank. Make no bones about it, when folks earn good money, they’re entitled to live the lifestyle they’ve worked hard to afford;  we’re talking about those who continue to dream much bigger than their income warrants.

We’ve definitely become a society hung up on material things. Unfortunately, few of our young folks don’t comprehend that it usually takes a lot of hard work to get what you want, and why should they?  Everywhere they look, they see what appears to be an easy path to get what’s next on their wish list. We earnestly hope the path for them is always an easy one, but we urge them to look around them and see that there are millions of folks less fortunate in this world.

Perhaps they also need a reality check by looking at the very rich and their lavish lifestyles which sometimes come crashing down on them when they wake up and discover that overspending has put them in bankruptcy. It’s amazing to see how many “celebrities’’ have lost everything – millions.

We should all take a lesson from billionaire Warren Buffett, who still lives in the same modest house he’s called home since he purchased it for $31,500 in 1958,  frequently eats breakfast at McDonald’s and continues to appreciate the value of a dollar.