See, my first thought about this was that it was an impulse control thing- people fail at saving money because somehow it always gets spent, and this solves tha

See, my first thought about this was that it was an impulse control thing- people fail at saving money because somehow it always gets spent, and this solves that problem. Except, you're exactly right- the stuff that the money gets spent on will frequently be wildly more important than the sofa. It should be saved, and then it should be spent on the more important stuff. And then you never get a sofa, but at least your transmission works and your kids aren't eating ramen six days a week.