Comment by Kerrick

> - One can give up cell phones, headphones/earbuds, mobile phone plans, mobile data plans, tablets, ereaders, and paid apps/services. That can save $100/mo in bills and amortized hardware. These were a luxury 20 years ago.

It's not clear that it's still possible to function in society today with out a cell phone and a cell phone plan. Many things that were possible to do before without one now require it.

> - One can give up laptops, desktops, gaming consoles, internet service, and paid apps/services. That can save another $100/months in bills and amortized hardware. These were a luxury 30 years ago.

Maybe you can replace these with the cell phone + plan.

> - One can give up imported produce and year-round availability of fresh foods. Depending on your family size and eating habits, that could save almost nothing, or up to hundreds of dollars every month. This was a luxury 50 years ago.

It's not clear that imported food is cheaper than locally grown food. Also I'm not sure you have the right time frame. I'm pretty sure my parents were buying imported produce in the winter when I was a kid 50 years ago.

> - One can give up restaurant, take-out, and home pre-packaged foods. Again depending on your family size and eating habits, that could save nothing-to-hundreds every month. This was a luxury 70 years ago.

Agreed.

> - One can give up car ownership, car rentals, car insurance, car maintenance, and gasoline. In urban areas, walking and public transit are much cheaper options. In rural areas, walking, bicycling, and getting rides from shuttle services and/or friends are much cheaper options. That could save over a thousand dollars a month per 15,000 miles. This was a luxury 80 years ago.

Yes but in urban areas whatever you're saving on cars you are probably spending on higher rent and mortgage costs compared to rural areas where cars are a necessity. And if we're talking USA, many urban areas have terrible public transportation and you probably still need Uber or the equivalent some of the time, depending on just how walkable/bike-able your neighborhood is.

> on a surprisingly small salary

But if we take "surprisingly small salary" to literally mean salary, most (... all?) salaried jobs require you to work full time, 40 hours a week. Unless we consider cushy remote tech jobs, but those are an odd case and likely to go away if we assume AI is taking over there.

Part time / hourly work is largely less skilled and much lower paid, and you'll want to take all the hours you can get to be able to afford outright necessities like rent. (Unless you're considering rent as consumption/luxury, which is fair)

It does seem like there's a gap in terms of skilled/highly paid but hourly/part time work.

(Not disagreeing with the rest of your post though)

This didn't say they wanted to consume less, presumably their consumption is the right level for them.

I've given up pretty much all of that out of necessity, yes. Insurance and rent still goes up so I'm spending almost as much as I was at my peak, though.

>I'm just hoping you acknowledge that what people consider optional consumption has changed, which means people consume a lot more.

Of course it's changed. The point is that

1. the necessities haven't changed and have gotten more expensive. People need healthcare, housing, food, and tranport. All up.

2. the modern day expectations means necessities change. We can't walk into a business and shake someone's hand to get a job, so you "need" access to the internet to get a job. Recruiters also expect a consistent phone number to call so good luck skipping a phone line (maybe VOIP can get around this).

These are society's fault as they shifted to pleasing shareholders and outsourcing entire industries (and of course submitted to lobbying). so I don't like this blame being shifted to the individual for daring to consume to survive.

You aren't wrong and I agree up to a point. But I've watched a couple of people try to get by on just "cutting" rather than growing their incomes and it doesn't work out for them. A former neighbor was a real Dave Ramsey acolyte and even did things like not have trash service (used dumpsters and threw trash out at his mother's house). His driveway was crumbling but instead of getting new asphalt he just dug it all up himself and dumped it...somewhere, and then filled it in with gravel. He drives junker cars that are always breaking down. I helped him replace a timing chain on a Chrysler convertible that wasn't in awful shape, but the repairs were getting intense. This guy had an average job at a replacement window company but had zero upward mobility. He was and I assume is, happy enough, with a roof over his head and so forth, but our property taxes keep rising, insurance costs keep rising, there's only so much you can cut. My take is that you have to find more income and being looked upon as "tight with a buck" or even "cheap" is unfavorable.