Many people live paycheck to paycheck, because they don't have the skills to create a budget and limit spending on stupid stuff. These days they have to have the biggest TV, the newest iPhone, $200 sneakers, thousand of dollars worth of tats, yet they'll live in a tattered trailer, smoke 2 packs a day and drink a case of beer a day.
This is very true. It is the one legitimate criticism that people from other countries have against us. They see how we live, and how we think we have to have these things in order to live, while they manage on a tiny percentage of what we have.
My cell phone bill is insane. Because kids now need them. NEED THEM!
Houses have to be large now, we NEED them to be huge. Because although we lived in small houses as children (most of us), the thought of doing that as an adult is out of the question.
Land, we NEED land. 99.999999% of us aren't farmers, but for some reason we need land. I'm out on this one, because I am happy to have a lot in the city.
This list varies for everyone, but the list is huge. We pay for things that we absolutely do not need, and we don't pay cash for these things.
We are a two-car family. A few decades ago, we would have been a one-car family. Mainly because my wife doesn't have a job outside the house, but also because I am in a truck 99% of the time, and even if she did have a full time job, we could manage with one car. Our kids don't have cars. We adulted one already without having her own car, and about to adult another one without having her own car. So, we have managed with two vehicles.
We live in debt because we think we need things that we absolutely do not need, and are willing to pay for them with interest because they are so important. We will most likely replace these things before they are even paid for, because we need the newer model of them.
I'm out on shoes. I buy the old model of shoes for $30 somewhere like Ross, or in the clearance section of a department store. Those shoes were over $100 the year before.