I always believe we should grow bigger than our problems. It's the way to make a big problem smaller, simply because you've grown bigger in size. I've written about these topics at length here:
1. Of dragons and men
2. The relative size of your problems
3. Outgrow your problems
4. Growing bigger than your problems
In the past, I used to fret about $10 meals. I only had very little pocket money and that's all the budget I had which also includes transport, stationeries and other expenses. That happens all the way up to university where I had to plan my meals properly. If I had too many restaurant meals (even those around $10 to $15), I'll have to scrimp and save the rest of the pocket money to last the entire month. So, during that time, my threshold was $10.
As I work and earn my own keep, ......