I guess so. It's hard to see how much downgrading most families can do. If you're driving a 10+ year old car, which seems pretty normal, there's not a lot of ch

I guess so. It's hard to see how much downgrading most families can do. If you're driving a 10+ year old car, which seems pretty normal, there's not a lot of cheaper vehicles to drop down to. A family in a 2-3 bedroom bungalow or ranch, which seems to be the norm for most, doesn't have much room to downsize either. At the same time, it's not like people don't have things going for them. A house, growing retirement plans, some savings, a vacation here and there... Judging from the tone the last 10 years in this country, this qualifies you as "affluent". Which, in a cosmological sense, it is. But it isn't like it is unusual, or only something the very fastidious achieve. It's normal-ish. So it's not that I'm disagreeing, people can dig themselves in a hole by overspending. I just don't think this is particularly common, or some sort of national sickness.