Cheap consumer goods

From an article about the US economy, some but not all of which is relevant. I found this bit interesting:

Are people actually spending a higher percentage of their income on the necessities, like healthcare and housing, than they did even in the '70s?

Yes, and that's been a critical shift. Consumer spending is about the same now as it was in the '70s. But we're spending more on items that require regular monthly payments, things like childcare, healthcare, housing, things that we can't give up if money gets tighter, if someone loses a job, or gets a pay cut.

Whereas if we were spending more money on buying new suits, or new dining sets, or just lattes, it would be something we could give up. Obviously, you can't say: "OK, this month I'm not going to pay the childcare, or I'm not going to pay the mortgage."

What's confusing about this is that, thanks to globalization, consumer goods are now cheaper. So, you might be buying more clothes than you were in the '70s, but clothing costs, as a percentage of your income, could be the same.

That's true for clothes and toys and furniture. You can go to IKEA and get a whole dining set for what would have been comparably one chair in the '70s.

Now, I knew that major purchases cost a bigger proportion of your income than they did back in the day. I've gotten numbers from my grownups and played with the inflation calculator and worked out that, for example, my parents could work full-time over the summer for minimum wage and earn an amount equal to their university tuition, but I've never done the numbers for everyday consumer items. It does seem ture that they're relatively cheaper today. My mother used to make her own clothes to save money, but now I can buy a scarf for the same price as buying the yarn to make a similar scarf. That's interesting to me, because I was raised on the don't buy take-out coffee principle of frugality - don't buy little things and you'll save big significant amounts of money. Elders especially do seem to comment on how much Stuff I have as though that's a sign of decadence on my part, but it looks like it isn't as decadent as they think it is. I've always been thinking that the money I spend on clothes and toys and makeup simply doesn't feel like that much, even when I add it up over the course of a year. I guess this might be why.

I don't have on hand any prices of consumer goods from Back In The Day, but if anyone reading this does, try running them through the inflation calculator and see how they compare with the prices of similar goods today.

This reminds me of a recent Heather Mallick column deploring the fact that people buy cheap stuff that wears out quickly rather than more expensive stuff that will last a long time.

Now some people buy cheap stuff because they can't afford more expensive stuff, even if you look at it as an investment. And I do that sometimes. But sometimes, even if I could buy more expensive stuff, I buy cheap stuff because I'm not very good at shopping. I don't actually want the stuff to wear out (I'd be very happy if everything I bought lasted forever) but I don't always know how to tell if an expensive thing is actually of good quality (at this point people always tell me to look at the seams, but I don't know what I'm looking for), or whether it will meet my needs enough to be a long-term investment, or whether I'll keep liking it, or whether it will become obsolete or egregiously out of style. If a pair of boots costs $200, I'd better be certain they're comfortable and attractive and well-made and something I could wear every day for at least three years and constructed in such a way that my shoe guy can rebuild the heel (because no matter how well made they are, I still walk crooked). But if they only cost $20, then "Hey, they look like Eddie Izzard's and I can walk in them!" is a good enough reason. If they're a misfire, it's no big loss. I'd hate to have to research and comparison shop for every single thing, so (politically incorrect as it is to say) I'm very glad there is cheap stuff out there.