It's rent, food, childcare, healthcare, and education. These are not luxuries. Cellphones cost nothing compared to these real costs, which can't be reduced by a "low impact" life.
Food - I read a report recently that said the amount of hours the average person has to work to feed himself has dropped dramatically over the last 100 years.
Rent - accept 60s level housing and you can easily afford it, 1 bathroom each kid doesn't get his own bedroom etc..
Childcare - not applicable if you are living a 60s lifestyle you're wife won't work.
Education - Expensive b/c the govt subsidizes it.
Healthcare - problematic, but only b/c healthcare now is so much better than healthcare then.
Rent -- I've lived in multiple places built in the 1960s and all had enough bedrooms for 2 kids and a separate bathroom for parents and kids. These places were built for middle class families.
This comparison also matters where you are. At least in the SF Bay Area, housing prices have doubled in real terms since the mid 1980s (for the same house!). You aren't getting better housing now.. just more expensive housing. (Note: Such price rises are not the case in areas w/ plenty of land, e.g. outside major coastal metro areas)
> Rent -- I've lived in multiple places built in the 1960s and all had enough bedrooms for 2 kids and a separate bathroom for parents and kids. These places were built for middle class families.
Survivorship bias. The average house has increased in size steadily, just as families have become smaller. People really did have a lot less room then. Houses that end up too small for current tastes tend to get expanded or torn down and replaced.
It's NOT that stuff though. That stuff is cheap.
It's rent, food, childcare, healthcare, and education. These are not luxuries. Cellphones cost nothing compared to these real costs, which can't be reduced by a "low impact" life.