However, living beyond your means and buying luxuries you can't actually afford, and living a lavish lifestyle is entirely a personal decision. the problem with living paycheck to paycheck is that life happens. you get into an accident. there's a fire. your dog gets hurt. you get laid off, through no fault of your own. the company just decided to downsize. and now, because you don't have any savings, you can't absorb that loss, and then you're out on the street. homeless. hopefully not literally, there's a grace period before you're kicked out. but food and shelter aren't as solid as they were before. your life could become very difficult. all that hardship was an avoidable problem with an emergency fund because you weren't able to not doordash dinner.