Our family is rather like HowlerKarma's. We spend a lot in areas that we really care about: books, music, concerts, museums, any learning resources needed, vacation, etc. But we spend little on material goods. The kids have some electronics, not fancy, not new model, but they can play the games that they want to play (Minecrafts only these days). I think maybe we did influence them, maybe they are just similar to the parents, but my kids never really asked for much "stuff"--not when they were little and not when they are older now, and I'm really happy that they share our values. They do have friends who have tons of stuff. I remember once we did a yard sale together with a friend's family (whose kids were exactly the same ages as my kids), mostly kids toys and books. And oh my, the amount of toys that the other family wanted to sell was more than all the toys my kids had. And there are some families like this around. But my kids seem to be OK with that. But the thing is: in those families who are much more materialistic than we are, some have kids who really can't care less about academics or anything serious, and some have kids who are awesome students. So I guess it's just that we will accommodate our own comfort levels.
