On being a consumer

Phoenix is sorely testing my penny-pinching heart.
Since I don't know anyone, I accept any invitation to go out- lunch, movie, happy hour, rock gym- because that is how you get to know people. And because there is so much to experience here! But it also gets costly quick, especially for someone who has had just about no social life for the past 6 months. Which brings me to the question I wrestle with: When is it OK to splurge? To silence my inner piggy bank in the name of socializing or indulging in organic flax seed?
I like to say that it is better to find ways to spend time with people that don't involve money, that those activities are always better. But that doesn't always work in the very beginning stages. Especially in this busy, rather yuppie, city, with so many things to do and see and explore (most of which cost money). I think I'm coming to realize that there's going to have to be some initial investment- dinners out, rock climbing shoes, gas money- to get to that point where I know people well enough to say: "let's just grill out over at my house". Or throw frisbee in the park. Or watch my Netflix movie at home.
And aside from social spending, there are the costs that come with the expanded options for "the good life" in a big city. Mostly here I'm talking about food (of course, it's me). See below.

Spending money is exhausting. I don't know if everyone feels this way. If it is because I am such a penny-pincher, or because consumerism is exhausting in general. But today I spent:
-$30 (and an hour) on lamps and plants for my office at IKEA
-$2.75 on gas for my scooter
-$100 to get my scooter tuned up and the oil changed (yes, I feel ripped off, but with few alternatives...)
-$1.18 at Walgreens for clearance nail polish
-$40 at just one of the unbelievable number of organic/natural foods/expensive yuppie grocery stores within 2 miles of my house. (The sheer quantity and breadth of grocery stores within a 2 mile radius of my house is nothing short of stunning: 2 Fry's, Safeway, Trader Joe's, Food City, Sprouts, Walmart, and a handful of other small specialty grocery stores)
-$5 for roasted red peppers and sesame oil (for making hummus) at another grocery store
-$31 for gas in my housemate's car (who, in a very generous and characteristic act, loaned me her car while she was out of town this weekend)

This is not a normal day, thank God. (for one, I'm not going grocery shopping again anytime soon!). But a day like this gets me thinking- how many places in the world can you blow over $200 in a matter of hours just on basic necessities of life (plus some lamps and nail polish)? I get a little nauseated when I think about how I just spent the equivalent of a year's salary for someone in Africa or Haiti. I think about just the food I bought: quinoa, organic garbanzo beans, sesame oil, asparagus, brown rice. Fancy (yuppie? no, I prefer hipster, thanks...) food, things that I like, but definitely not the bare essentials. Is it greedy, extravagant, to venture into Trader Joes, rather than stick to my (still, beloved) Food City .60 cent/pound tomatoes and .33 cilantro and .40 canned black beans?

I'm not sure what the point is of this whole play-by-play of my President's Day shopping. Except that it brought to a head my anxiety about how much money I have been spending, and my guilt and conflicted feelings about "discretionary income" spending in general.