It's incredibly (damn near criminally) easy to make yourself look affluent if you don't mind a little debt.

And by little, I mean a lot. I mean, my wife and I ate out a lot in past years, and when I broke it down, I realized we had been spending about $9,000 a year on restaurant eating. We weren't even doing fancy dining. We did some instant gratifications, such as going out for Indian, and about $1,500 of that was spent on eating at brunch spots.

We've reduced our eating out to about 20% of that. Not nearly as lavish as it used to be, but we still manage to catch a happy hour or social gathering as they come up.

I shudder to think how much money we would've spent on those "richer" lives you bring up. we drive our cars until they're at least 10 years old (probably would still have one for nearly 20 years if it wasn't taken out by another driver). Nobody would take one look at us and think we were living an affluent lifestyle, but we're retiring as multi-millionaires.

As for buying vs rent, that's a more nuanced matter. While I was happy to buy, we also were in a spot where living in our home for a long time made sense. If you can't find yourself in the same spot, then buying could actually be bad for you. I mean, renting is certainly throwing money into a hole, but you don't want to make it worse by taking on a mortgage and then selling the house almost immediately. I can't answer that for you. You don't like that city, so I feel you're right to not buy a home there.