You don't pay for consumer items with money. You pay with the irreplaceable hours and days of your mortal existence required to earn it.
Popularized by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin in Your Money or Your Life, "life energy" is the total allocation of conscious, waking time you possess on Earth. Money is simply something you choose to trade your finite life energy for.
Gross hourly wage is an actuarial fantasy. Taxes, deductions, insurance, and professional upkeep reduce your true hourly yield by 25% to 40%. Using your net take-home pay reveals the true, unvarnished exchange rate of your heartbeat.
Before purchasing anything substantial, stop and ask yourself: "Am I willing to trade 4 full working days of my irreplaceable human consciousness for this object?" This simple pause eliminates more than 80% of compulsive spending.
In De Brevitate Vitae (On the Shortness of Life), Seneca observes: "People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy."