"The belief that if one can afford something they should be allowed to do it, build it, use it or consume it is ingrained in American religious and cultural life. And I don't believe that is a good thing.

Material goods take resources to create, and people only need so much. Anything more is a "feelgood", wasted. I realize this is anathema to poorer Conservatives, yet the wealthy Conservatives I count as friends live quite frugally."

Perhaps, they can *afford* to live more frugally.

Much of getting rich requires "sales work". One could consider it possible that even buying a very expensive sport cars or diamond jewelry as an investment in a image that enables one to make more money. And on the opposite side of this, much of being rich, seems to require one to belittle one's wealth. Both can be fairly superficial. And neither is necessarily morally superior.

Of course if one is frugal [perhaps "excessively" so] this mind set, can be a major part of reason one becomes rich. John D. Rockefeller founder of Standard Oil is example, but many other people who become very rich could be considered excessively frugal.
And then we have people such as some movie stars or rock stars that earn millions of dollars, but spend it, and indebt themselves to such an extent that not only are not rich but go bankrupt.

Of course being frugal doesn't have much to do with quantity of money spent, but rather more discipline to buy things that are worth the money spent. E.g. Buying an investment costing millions of dollars can be frugal if that investment has a return on the money spent.

Ah, here is article that perhaps explains this better than myself:
"Well, let us see where frugality might fit into ethics. It is not a virtue, at least in the sense that philosophers use that word. It may be a virtue in a popular, everyday sense: that is, generally a good thing, a thing to be admired or praised. I shall come back to that possibility in a moment. By a "virtue" philosophers mean a disposition that will carry one through typical trying circumstances in life, when, without the virtue, one's spirit would be either deficient or in excess.
Temperance is the classic virtue closest to frugality. ...,"
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1310/is_1998_Jan/ai_20355188

Well, after skimming through the whole article it is not very interesting to me. Now, I was thinking that modesty might be better approach:
"Modesty is the virtue that presents goodness in its proper color: one of elegance rather than affluence, economy rather than extravagance, naturalness rather than ostentation. “What a power has white simplicity,” as Keats has aptly remarked. Modesty is the virtue that allows one to focus on what is good without being distracted by irrelevant superficialities."
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0283.html

So I would say it *appears* that many people are "distracted by irrelevant superficialities." Specifically, it's not that I object too much that people would do this, but rather being "distracted by irrelevant superficialities" seems to *overly* promoted [worshipped] by media and educational "fashions of the day". And many conservatives would point to this as a symptom of our "moral decline".