This is probably why you are broke and stuff

[SheilaT]

16. Aside from basic things going up in cost

there's another aspect to why we are broke that isn't often discussed. And it's that we typically need and want many more things than we did forty years ago. Like computers, and cell phones, and the internet. Don't get me wrong. I'm not criticizing anyone for wanting and having those things. I have all of those myself. But there simply was no equivalent to them in the '70s, let alone earlier. Kind of like by 1940 or so very many households in this country had electricity.

I have read the Laura Ingalls Wilder books any number of times, and one thing that I've noticed is how very little cash they needed to survive. Nowadays, it takes a remarkable amount of cash just to survive at the lower rungs of the economy.