"You spent how much on that cartridge?"

Agree.   I purged many LPs back in the day , but I kept a decent amount.   Enough to justify a new table recently.

I had a 12 year or so hiatus from vinyl.   I sold my player but fortunately kept a few hundred records.    Never knew how good my existing records could sound. Definitely not a waste of money.  Especially since I often buy used LPs around  10 bucks or under.   

This is a non-issue. No one needs to know what you own or want or can afford. If an individual is so insecure as to require someone else to say how much he or she should spend in proportion to some other expenditure, well, that is unfortunate.

My turntable is 30 yo, the tonearm the latest model in a series I have owned with the turntable and a new optical cartridge/equalizer. Most of my records are from college in the 70's and into the next couple of decades, but after that I got real busy and something had to slide. The albums are still in great condition and I am delighted I get to hear them on this level of a system.

My cartridge cost about 1/2 what my turntable cost.