The average American spends 75-80% of their take home pay on three areas:

•   FOOD (Dining out fast food included)

• HOUSING (Mortgage/Rent, Utilities, Repairs, etc..)

• TRANSPORTATION (Payments, Gas, Tolls, Parking, Insurance)

That leaves a whopping 20% for everything else.  So what if you could build a smaller mortgage free home, or bake your own bread and make your own wine, plant a food forest or go down to one car and and a bike or move to an area that is pedestrian?  What if your children's amusements were real and not virtual?  (Still working on this one here.)   I think life would have a sort of luxurious poverty to it and I think it would be just beautiful.