I’m a big proponent of constraints in one’s living situations. I had the pleasure to know my Great Grand Mother up to my early twenties. She was greatly effecte

I’m a big proponent of constraints in one’s living situations. I had the pleasure to know my Great Grand Mother up to my early twenties. She was greatly effected by the Great Depression. For me the dot-com bust of 2000 in CA started a period of underemployment. And at the beginning I was adamant about so many of my expenses (I can’t possibly go without X..). Buy the time I did get back on my feet financially, there was little of anything that I felt I couldn’t live without or find a way to compensate. The biggest benefit, IMHO, of experimentation like the OP suggests (for those of us who are not professors) is learning this lesson in life.