Living Like a Student?

So I keep reading people telling other people to live like students a few years after graduating. I've been mulling that question over a lot because we pretty much still live a lot like students, but this week, we finally started upgrading our lifestyle.

What does it really mean to live like students? I don't really know because our student lifestyle did not really feel like a student lifestyle. We had nice furniture, not necessarily new, but nice, good quality stuff. We had bought 2 new cars, not extravagent, but new. And we have taken care of these cars so after 7 and 8 years they still look relatively new and run well for their age/mileage. We have a new flat screen TV, a nintendo Wii, and a few other toys. We have cell phones, and have recently gotten HDTV.

So our lifestyle I wonder can it really be called "student"? During our leanest years of being students, we never used coupons too much. We haven't even changed our eating habits that much, except now we can afford seafood and better cuts of meat. Before we'd eat mostly chicken or ground beef, but I've never bought much prepackaged foods or processed meals. We used to cook entirely from scratch stuff like bread, pasta, and still prefer it if we have the time.

So our lifestyle has been simplistic rather than studentish. We never really sacrificed a good quality of life for a cheaper lifestyle, we just tried to the best quality items we could afford. I think that's what's helped us keep our lifestyle pretty reasonable. We didn't buy newer cars, we didn't buy a single family home (only townhouse), we didn't immediately furnish our home, and we did not just start eating out all time. Our lifestyle has slowly grown up. After about 6 months we bought a matching dish set. And we have a couch that can now fit more than 2 people.

We also bought a gas fireplace, but that was something even during our poor student days we would have deemed necessary, and if financing was necessary so be it. But now instead we just set some money aside and have upkept our house relatively simply.

So would we go back to living like students? I don't know, maybe. But it really feels like we haven't yet left the student lifestyle.