When on the road to hell, it's OK to be left behind.
But as a programmer I am quite baffled when peers my age, often without kids struggle in this kind of way. My essentials are rent, food, metro card, library card. When I hear people who make what I make say that living requires a lot of money that usually includes two dozen subscriptions, a few grand in useless electronics per year and ordering food most of the week.
Personally, I have pets, a partner, and thoughtfully selected and meaningful possessions. I don't collect crap, and nothing I own or do is particularly extravagant. But I'm not exactly living an ascetic life either. A pretty typical lifestyle, I'd say. And I don't consider any of this a moral failure, if that's what you're getting at. Though admittedly it's not as affordable as living like a monk.
I'm very much in favour of participating in culture, real culture though. You can ditch the 1k Taylor Swift tickets, Disneyland visits, and high end gym for the 20 bucks local jazz festival.
I think the people who live socially like ascetic monks are ironically the people who build themselves a home gym for 10k and then complain about not having any time for friends because everything is too expensive
Anyway..