I agree. A bit younger than you but my parents are probably a bit older. We ate out about 3x per month. And 80% of the time that meal was pizza. My parents did all of their house maintenance and remodeling. My dad worked two jobs. We almost never went out of the house for entertainment. There weren’t fancy, expensive sports teams or fast fashion or door dash. There was no Amazon. I didn’t get on an airplane until after college. We took 1 vacation a year in the summer. Somewhere we could drive within 5-6 hours of home. No one I know was living like a king. We were mostly just home or out in our local neighborhood, having potluck gatherings, playing at the park, or having friends over.
A lot of unnecessary things got way cheaper (eating out, fast fashipn, door dash...).
And the very few essentials (cost of a home) got way more expensive.
It is a well-researched behavioural economics fact that people who have a hard time affording the big, important things in their lives love to at least splurge on little luxuries they can afford.
I'm not sure what is so hard to understand about this.
A lot of unnecessary things got way cheaper (eating out, fast fashipn, door dash...).
I’m confused by this because I always see how insane fast food and eating out in general is.
And door dash is NOT cheaper than delivery 20 years ago. More accessible, sure. But not cheaper. (Neither is eating out. But if you wanna play that side of the coin, I’ll bite.)
Splurge and impulsive spending, overall, is more normalized. Access to buying is a lot easier with cards and the internet. And social media makes “the Joneses” more in your face and a much wider depth and scope to look at.
This isn’t a comprehension problem for me, but attack me if it makes you feel better, I guess. I’ll never understand the need to be a victim.
Does it makes you feel better to victimise yourself despite me *not* attacking you?
> This isn’t a comprehension problem for me
So what is the problem then?
Is delivery not cheaper today than it used to be? Is it not more widely available? Seriously? In the place where I live, we have Amazon delivering next day. In fact, sometimes the *same* day. Many other businesses deliver next day. I can even get groceries delivered. That existed 20 years ago, but it definitely wasn't as widespread as it is today.
But I don't think we're discussing what was 20 years ago. We're discussing what was 50 years ago.
Eating out is definitely more expensive now than 20 years ago, it outpaced inflation. Cost of food overall, though? That's a different story, and it decreased compared to growth of median salary.
Nevertheless, my point stays.
Splurge and impulsive spending? Of who? When? What sample and demographic?
Social media definitely has that effect.
But whatever, what matters is numbers.
House prices have grown roughly three times faster than wages since the 1970s.
And my point is - many more can afford a dinner out a few times a month - and will do that as one of the few luxuries they allow themselves.
Compare that to the price of an average house in the UK (yes, that's where I live).
I’m not contradicting myself from comment to comment or inside of a comment. Keep insulting me to feel good about yourself. Sheesh. Good luck with your goals.
I'm in my mid 40s and was the first generation to have never had an outhouse at home. My kids have a much higher standard of living than my parents did.
My dad moved to a house with indoor plumbing pretty early on. That house is probably gone, I'm sure the land is quite valuable now as it is no longer rural at all.
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u/QuesoChef 15h ago
I agree. A bit younger than you but my parents are probably a bit older. We ate out about 3x per month. And 80% of the time that meal was pizza. My parents did all of their house maintenance and remodeling. My dad worked two jobs. We almost never went out of the house for entertainment. There weren’t fancy, expensive sports teams or fast fashion or door dash. There was no Amazon. I didn’t get on an airplane until after college. We took 1 vacation a year in the summer. Somewhere we could drive within 5-6 hours of home. No one I know was living like a king. We were mostly just home or out in our local neighborhood, having potluck gatherings, playing at the park, or having friends over.