Well this is a problem that people face when they don't buy what they can maintain. I think there is a difference between what you can afford and what you can be able to maintain. Sometimes people chose to buy flashy thing just to recieve accolades without undermining the maintenance cost. Why some buy what they can afford to maintain even if they have more. For example, a person might have $20k and he want to buy a vehicle of $20k, not that he can't afford it but will go for the one of $10k to have a balance of $10 for maintenance as a wise person, while another may have $20k and use it to buy a car of $20k, this is not a wise person because he never check the maintenance cost.
Because of this reason of not buying what one can maintain, I have seen many young guys who made financial mistake by buying what they can't afford to maintain and they sold at cheaper rate thereby losing a lot of fund. So maintenance should be looked into before buying anything. Just that some people chose to buy it for people to see that they can afford it without knowing that there is a big difference between buying and maintenance.
It is true that people should consider the maintenance cost before trying to buy any expensive things especially when it comes to vehicles. But I don't think that a person becomes unwise when he tries to buy an expensive car. The real problem is the person whether he is comfortably handling the purchase price, he is paying for the maintenance, insurance and also handling the other expenses without even being getting affected by the finances and is he a financially stable enough person or not. There are so many people who just buy expensive items to impress the people around them.
They do not need them; they just enjoy those items, so they buy them. There is nothing wrong with spending money on good quality products if you can afford it. At the same time, buying something just to impress people, just to receive praise for it, can lead to financial problems.