Well, I would argue that 20-30 years ago that all four family members didn’t need $1k iPhones, flatscreens in each room, 1 car per person and on and on....most of it financed.
And people weren’t trying to live like their parents who had spent decades accumulating their wealth immediately upon graduating college. That was kicking off though.
I can completley see that raising 2 kids on $50k is hard these days. But again. Life choices. Say you have kids at 30. You’ve got 8 years to get your house in order and your finances set up after college. That’s actually pretty reasonable so long as you don’t start living the high life at age 23 making minimum payments on everything.
Mama wants to stay home with the kids? Wonderful. She’s not getting the $56k mini van with all the bells and whistles. Dad’s not getting his $23k Harley to sit next to his $48k truck. You’re not eating out 4 nights a week.
People have to slow down, live simpler and let their payment free income do the amazing things it can do. Normal is broke.
My wife and I combined to make $17k working 3 jobs during our first two years of marriage. It sucked. But we didn’t load up on more debt. We had our student loans/cars paid for within 3 years of both of us landing real professional employment. And let me tell you, I wasn’t making a whole lot more than our original combined income back then.
We intentionally didn’t have kids for a while, haven’t had a car payment or any payment for that matter since short of a reasonable mortgage, and we’re now able to pay that off once we make some decisions on where we want to live. Just simple smart fiscal decisions.
Goods and services weren’t and aren’t the problem. Our spending habits are.