I’m not so sure. My son and his wife are very frugal - incredibly so. They do not collect possessions, they do not eat out very often and they eat well but frugally. My son also works two and sometimes three jobs while his wife was on parental leave. It hasn’t been easy for them. I did some calculations around incomes and housing and I think the ratio of average income to average housing cost is in my generations favour.

the problem I see is that we’ve created an economy based on double income families

biting out of town is fine if your job allows that but it’s not always possible