Hey arebelspy,
We had a small discussion about this during the Belgian-dutch mustachian meet-up.
We think the flipping point was reached somewhere in the 1970’s to 1980’s (for our countries anyway). Reading the article, I see he also places it somewhere in that time frame.
I can still remember (and I am only 42) grandparents not having running warm water in the house. If saving 50% or more of your pay check would mean not having running hot water in the house I think the idea would lose a lot of it’s appeal to a lot of people. But luckily for us, technological advancements have made it so that even a more ‘basic’ living style still include almost all modern comforts.
Cars, washers, dryers, houses even. There are done. Finished. There are 0 features the manufactures can add that would push me to want a new one (except for cars to be self driving, whole other discussion and it will probably make cars a hell of a lot cheaper to use). Even the basic models of most of the stuff you use have too much features. Manufactures crammed them into, hoping they could get a sale out of you. Because the alternative is to compete on price. Which they do also. And to compete on price and still retain some profit margin they automate their production even further, driving the price even lower…
Technological innovation is going so fast now that this years budget model is the high end model of 3 years ago. Have you looked at the ultra HD televisions you can buy for 400 usd now? How are they ever going to get us to switch to 4K? why would you? The 300 – 400 USD basic models are already jam packed with features that you are never going to use. So even the new, exiting stuff is done after a few years, commoditized and then the price is driven lower and lower.
Basic living keeps getting more and more comfortable at a lower and lower price. The expensive stuff is mostly more useless feature and some bling bling (which, if you have a half decent taste, you do not even like). We are just a little bit quicker to catch on AND realize that once food, shelter and security are realized what is left is self-development. And for that you need time more than you need money so FIRE was born …