Sure - there's benefits to both ways of thinking about it. It's less that I tightly couple them and more that I find, for a sufficiently low percentage of my in

Sure - there's benefits to both ways of thinking about it. It's less that I tightly couple them and more that I find, for a sufficiently low percentage of my income, it's not worth stressing that much about the expense. My mental model is quite close to yours for larger purchases ($100 or more, generally), but for something whose monthly cost is less than my hourly wage, thinking too long about if it's really worthwhile is probably not a great use of my time.