??? You wash your towels, but you don’t throw them out. And anyway, even if you did buy new you’d just buy the same color again so it would match. I don’t understand your question at all.
I should have explained;One thing I could not do is to have towels all in the same color.
@romanigypsyeyes, I get what you are saying. I grew up in a pretty small house, filled with lots of kids. 
When we built our “dream house,” and moved in the first night, it seemed so big, I thought we’d made a huge mistake. But eventually we got used to it, and it never seemed as big to me again. When we put it on the market 15 years later, it sold immediately and we had to scramble to find a house to rent short term. There was an enormous house in our neighborhood for sale (and had been on the market for quite awhile) that was vacant. DH got the seller to agree to a short term lease if we agreed to stage it really well for them. It was over 7000 sq. feet, and though very very pretty, seemed so so big. D2 absolutely hated that house (we lived there over Christmas break). She said she felt terrified and very alone upstairs. She would lock her room (it had a deadbolt) every night because she was afraid if someone broke in, we’d never hear her screaming upstairs. I didn’t know any of this at the time.
The house we bought is the same square footage as the one we sold, but the way it is laid out, you would never guess. It seems much smaller and very cozy.
So often, just the way a house is laid out can make all the difference in the “feeling” of it. So can the building materials (lots of marble floors and such vs. warm hardwoods, stone fireplace vs. white brick, etc.) and the furniture and decorating.
Why couldn’t your towels all be the same color? Do you assign different color to different family members? I wouldn’t care in the least if my H took a shower, dried off, hung the towel to dry and I used that one. We don’t have cooties.
I’m not a towel sharer, but I have several towels in pistachio green (matches bathroom trim). Each one has different trim or 2 shades of green. My bath rugs are all green.
All the still good but non-green towels are used at gym and pool. The oldies were donated.
I don’t know. I just can’t. Once I choose salmon pink for shower curtain, I am condemned to slamon pink everything? No, I can’t do that. Nothing matches in my house.
For crying out loud, no one said you are “condemned” to anything. Put what you like in your house.
You said you “couldn’t have towels all the same color” which I interpreted as - you assign different family members different towels out of some germaphobia.
And no one said you had to match your towels to your shower curtain. But you said “how would you do it because you change towels more frequently” and that’s what I didn’t get. How often do you actually go out and buy new towels? Every 10 years or if you change the decor maybe?
Never mind. This is going weird.
For those that carry the high end bags…is there a theft concern? It seems to me that something worth a minimum of 11K dangling on one’s arm would be an attractant of the wrong kind. Would you put such an item on the floor, always keep it on your lap, dare to hang it on your chair while eating?
Maybe if you’re wealthy enough to have an entire shelf of these types of items it’s different…hey…easy come easy go…but if it’s your ‘special thing’…how does it work?
I was paging through a magazine I had never seen before, it advertised off site fur coat storage …with the proper temperature, humidity etc…sounded like a PITA.
That’s always what you do with fur coats. They go into storage over the summer. They just can’t hang in your coat closet.
That’s one area where the tide has turned. I do have a mink coat. It has now sat in storage for probably 10 years. It just doesn’t fit my lifestyle today. I would sell it but my h was proud of buying it for me way back then and it would hurt his feelings so I don’t.
Growing up my parents were very frugal, which meant they never replaced their old towels, and their towels were always very thin and rough. Once I could afford it, I always bought big thick towels whenever they went on sale. I tend to use white or tan color scheme, not pink, green, purple, any color that would be hard to match up.
I am in the camp of not sharing towels.
@dietz199 - if you walk around NYC, you will see many women (some men too) carry expensive handbags. I am careful where I put my bag just like everyone because of what I carry in my bag. The only thing I maybe more concerned about is not to put it where it would get dirty. One place in particular is under the seat on a plane because there is a chance the person in front of me could spill drinks on the floor and get it on my purse. When I know it is going to rain, I would carry a not as expensive bag, but if I should get caught in a rain storm I would put a plastic bag around it.
Knock on wood, carrying my bags on the subway and around town have not caused any problem for me. I also wear my diamond rings/earrings too. I guess it is because whatever I am wearing is probably not worth those thefts while (there are people with more expensive ones).
I have no idea how I got on a digression about house size in a purse thread.
I’m hard on purses. Buying an expensive bag would be a bad investment, as are expensive earrings. I have lost too many earrings to count, so it’s costume jewelry for me as to earrings. I do have some nice watches, however.
“I have known people who say, " if I had the money, I would never…”- buy such a large house, buy an expensive car, send my kids to private schools, buy an expensive watch, go on expensive vacations. " I would give it to a worthy cause." And then some of them became wealthy. And they moved to a bigger house and sent their kids to private schools, etc. and some were also very, very generous in their giving. And their time.
The point is, no one never knows how you will act if you earned much more than you are currently earning. Most of us have no idea what it is like to earn millions a year."
You’re assuming everyone lives at the edges of their means. I live below my means. So I already make choices of foregoing luxuries I could technically afford. So I know that even if Warren Buffett died and left his fortune to me, I wouldn’t be buying expensive cars, expensive liquors / bottles of wine, or spending lots of money on home decorating. I would, however, spend on clothing / accessories, travel, and education, including education funds for future grandchildren. That’s just me - that’s not better or worse than anyone else, just different. But I do think people do have a sense what they’d splurge on and what they wouldn’t.
If you’re rich, you don’t share towels because you don’t share bathrooms - everyone in the family has his/her own. Guests don’t share with a family member. Also, towels don’t match the shower curtain because rich people don’t have shower curtains…always a separate shower in the bathroom, and never a tub/shower combo.
The $95K Birkin bag, et al are often sold to extremely wealthy Saudis, same with hugely opulent"high" jewelry…most of it is for “private use” amongst that class.
MomOfWildChild mentioned moral superiority. That hits close to how I was raised by religious parents - that conspicuous spending is immoral. Probably part of the reason we still live in the same house we bought 27 years ago and don’t do many of the things morrismm mentioned even though we could well afford to. A few years ago my in-laws were convinced to set up trusts to avoid estate taxes, which I don’t believe in either and caused me a great deal of mental anguish, as I DO NOT want to be part of a family that acts that way. They have started to regret it as the reality of dealing with the lawyer every year for taxes, etc, has become expensive and a pain. I made my peace with it by deciding if I outlive my H I will seek to break the trust or just give it all away. My kids are doing fine and not looking to become ‘trust fund’ people. Makes me nauseated thinking about it still.
“If you’re rich, you don’t share towels because you don’t share bathrooms - everyone in the family has his/her own.”
Husbands / wives still share bathrooms. I do agree that more expensive homes most likely have separate showers, not tub/shower combos with shower curtains.
Mamabear - what’s wrong with setting up a trust? It’s immoral to break the law to avoid paying taxes, but it’s not immoral to use whatever tax shelters legally exist within the system to minimize one’s taxes and keep the money that one has worked hard for. I think you’re being just a bit prejudiced against “trust fund people” - like anyone else, people who have trust funds run the gamut from hard working to lazy, nice to jerky, etc.
@nrdsb4 I completely relate to what your D is saying and agree about the layout. Our house seemed too small when we moved in so we knocked out most of the walls and have an open floor plan. I love it. In fact, I love it so much that I’ve spent the last month or so trying to figure out a way to buy it.
Some purses being discussed are as expensive as houses ( or cars).
Oh, while I am a cheapie cheepo, one thing I do not like are purses as big as houses (hyperbole alert).
I hate lugging big things aroubd, plus I am one of those people who accumulate things in their purse.
I can’t imagine that you WOULDN’T set up trusts to minimize taxes. That’s just sound financial planning!
Nrdsb4, you can take your earrings to a jeweler to have the posts threaded. I have lovely (tiny) diamond studs that don’t leave my ears - they have tgreads and screw backs. I only take them out to clean them by sonicating in ethanol periodically in the sonicator in the lab (when no one is watching 
).
The price of education is on the rise. I cannot imagine what it will be like when our kids try to send their own children to school. The tax savings on those trusts could make the difference between just getting by and giving the grandkids the kind of education we gave our children. There is NO shame to setting up trusts. No laws are being broken or skirted. I don’t understand the guilt or revulsion AT ALL.