Learning To Spend Money

I think this happens for a few reasons.

1. Entrenched monetary habits. A lot of software engineers have moved up social classes from their upbringing. Their parents aren't that rich and instilled a strong habit of saving and living below your means. The high fraction of East Asians in tech, also notoriously high saving cultures, contributes to this as well.
2. Advertising doesn't sell what they want. Something I've noticed with the mass media environment is how targeted it is to the average person. It assumes people want fast cars, hot women, and drugs. Software engineers are a very different personality style. They like building things and solving puzzles. Most advertising doesn't offer the opportunity to do that. It offers things the engineers don't value, so they don't see the point of spending money.
3. They lack innate understanding of social graces. No explanation needed.
4. DIY attitude. Software engineers value competence and like doing things themselves.

When you have strong entrenched habits and advertising doesn't give you a dream you want, you have to get creative when learning to spend money. You have to first imagine how your life could be better, then spend the money to make that happen. For young people just getting into spending money, there are a few things I find always worth it for the quality of life boost. (Unfortunately every else wants to spend a lot in these categories so they've been subject to tremendous inflation over the years)

Housing

It's nice to live in the good part of town. You find many enjoyable small businesses to patronize and places to meet friends. You are often closer to your place of work and shorter commutes play a big role in increased happiness.

Health

I can't begin to imagine how many people are walking around with chronic health problems that are so easy to fix. As a personal example, I always had trouble breathing through my nose growing up to the point I sometimes privately wondered if I had asthma. Constant mouth breathing definitely hurt my facial and cardiovascular development. That changed when I decided to fix this in 2020. I went to an ENR specialist and discovered I had a deviated septum, allergies, and chronic sinus infection. He said it was no wonder I couldn't breath. I got surgery to fix the deviated septum, antibiotics to fix the infection, and allergy drops to fix the allergies. Modern medicine is a miracle and many health problems are solvable.

Time

Get groceries delivered. It saves you a couple hours and costs $10, way less than your time is worth doing something else.

Beauty

This is often hard to hear for nerds, but appearances matter a lot more than you were raised to believe. All the junk about the inside counting was meant for the normal kids adults knew needed to hear it and wouldn't take it seriously anyway. As such, spend money on getting fit, hygiene, fashion, and even cosmetic surgery if you think you could benefit.

Relaxation

Many software engineers bring their analytical personality to every purchase. Stop. Set a threshold, and below that threshold never comparison shop. Just buy the first thing that looks good. If it sucks, buy something different. It saves a lot of stress.

There are some benefits to not spending too and I am compelled to mention the downside of the trade-off. Keeping money is a powerful form of peace. If you have enough it means you don't have to worry about making rent for 1, 5, 10, or more years if you get fired. There is freedom in being able to quit your job whenever you want. That is when and why it is smart to save and invest.