The thing is that Elle has never been “boujie” until around the Joe era. Previously she was scrimping and saving, outlet shopping, and while the superiority complex was always there the lifestyle had yet to catch up. Joe era was her peak. As speculated earlier in these threads, Joe covered the rent & her Pearl/Scarf business was at its peak. Honestly, youtubers and their businesses make a lot. Given Elle’s huge margins, if 300 karens that year bought stuff from her at a $100 profit margin, that’s an additional $30,000 on top of her probably 60-75k annual at MFDA. Affiliate links are also significant, for every 1000 subscribers (out of her huge database of videos and links) who click her link, she gets around $1-$10. And a few thousand bucks can certainly subsidize a lot of Nordstrom and Sephora hauls. there is also YouTube Adsense money. In addition, I doubt Elle is paying full taxes on her youtube and side businesses. An extra 30k a year on shopping makes a big difference, especially since Elle spends solely on herself and material items. She doesn’t travel or do fine dining on the regular, and is extremely cheap with others.
When she lost the MFDA day job, you could see the decrease in spending & coincides with her expensive move to Florida. At the same time, because she lived with rickets, she at least didn’t pay rent. Rent is a big expense for most adults and not paying it definitely helps disposable income.