The opening comments resonate with me quite a bit. I’ve been food-stamp and Medicaid poor. My wife has always been upper-middle class. Her idea of tightening he

The opening comments resonate with me quite a bit. I’ve been food-stamp and Medicaid poor. My wife has always been upper-middle class. Her idea of tightening her belt is quite a bit different from mine. I think on some level she really can’t believe there are people who simply forgo things that she perceives to be basic necessities. (This is how you get those NY Times articles about people who make, say, $250k year claiming that it’s not that much money, really, once you account for all the spending on basics (private school, two vacations, violin lessons, two new cars, maxing-out the 401ks, etc, etc)).