Gotcha, I did not know you meant it that way, as in english, it is the former, and not the latter, and it differs from "can't afford it" in the way I described.

Gotcha, I did not know you meant it that way, as in english, it is the former, and not the latter, and it differs from "can't afford it" in the way I described. If anything, in english, it is shorthand for "too much for the value it presents", since a superyacht still has value, and thus a million dollars might not be "too much", but I still can't afford one. Indeed, both this example and the originating one help illustrate both the difference between the two and the utility of the difference: if there was no difference, the saying wouldn't make sense, as you pointed out. But it does make sense, hence why it's a saying, so the two terms must be different, and that difference is that one term applies to the thing as it relates to the payer, and the other term applies to the thing in isolation