One paycheck with the taxes taken out teaches you more about the value of an hour than any lecture on it.

An abstract number becomes real the moment you have traded hours for it and watched part of it disappear before you ever see it. Nothing explains the cost of things like knowing how long you personally had to work for them. It reorganises spending in a way no advice manages.

Work out roughly what an hour of your time is worth after everything is taken. Then price the next few purchases in hours rather than dollars. Some will still be worth it. A surprising number will quietly stop being.