Part of the COL changes are out of your control. Say you want to buy a 900 square foot house-- it's difficult to do so, since tastes changed in aggregate. Those

Part of the COL changes are out of your control. Say you want to buy a 900 square foot house-- it's difficult to do so, since tastes changed in aggregate. Those houses get torn down and 2000 sq ft homes go up in their place. You can't spend less, even if you wanted to, or minimally speaking, it's much more difficult to consume less.