Spending scolds don't just come out and tell people to not buy new cars or lattes. It's almost always in response to a complaint by someone that they are having

Spending scolds don't just come out and tell people to not buy new cars or lattes. It's almost always in response to a complaint by someone that they are having trouble making ends meet. The advice is spurned because they aren't atually trying to solve a near-term budgeting problem, they really are just expressing jealousy of richer people, and in particular jealousy of their richer lifestyle. As such, any advice suggesting they adjust down their own lifestyle (which is easier than trying to earn more, as it is more fully under your own control) is to them offensive and is going in the wrong direction. I take this from two data points in my personal dealings, which is a small dataset, but considering I've never had anybody actually need and use budgeting advice I suspect it's broadly true. TO ADD: I'm not saying nobody has a budgeting problem, I'm saying that those who don't take seriously the advice to curtail spending probably have more of a jealousy problem than a budgeting problem.