This is not necessarily irrational, but a different expression of relative preference compared to the "most sensible" case. The reason I say this is because yo

This is not necessarily irrational, but a different expression of relative preference compared to the "most sensible" case. The reason I say this is because you cannot define a "rational" set of relative preferences. It is hard to say whether or not someone insanely frugal like Sam Walton is acting rationally or not, for example. Irrational behavior, in this context, could be that someone does value food over phones, but somehow ends up constantly buying phones to his misfortune. Not the same as someone who actually values phones over food.