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The Luxury of Low Expectations: What We Gained by Having Less

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AUTHOR: Mark Crothers on 10/02/2025

The daughter of a close family friend got married a few months ago. My wife Suzie and I recently had dinner at the newlyweds’ home. It was a lovely evening hearing the details of their honeymoon to New York and onward to Mexico.

Being a keen observer of the human condition, although Suzie suggests I’m just nosy, I couldn’t help but notice the material abundance this couple starting out in life have already acquired. It’s a stark contrast to our own humble beginning to married life.

Suzie and I purchased our first home in the fall of 1988 and spent the time until our marriage in the spring of ’89 happily stripping, painting, and fixing up what we could to make our decidedly worn-out house comfortable on a shoestring budget. For the first four months, daybreak was our wake-up time because we had no curtains to dim the morning sun.

Our young friends were having a lively discussion debating what color and shape of built-in bedroom furniture would best suit a spare bedroom. Different times indeed, I thought. I can remember the excitement of getting an actual bedroom floor covering the week before our first Christmas—it was our early present from Suzie’s parents. In fact, the reason we bought our house was that the seller was moving overseas and was happy to leave the furniture and cooker; otherwise, we would have had nothing.

My thoughts during the evening’s dinner revolved around the generational divide and something important that I think has been lost over the nearly forty years since my marriage. This generation has it good in so many ways by most measures, but I think something fundamental has been discarded. The change from the simple low expectations that myself and many of my peer group saw as normal might be thought of as something to celebrate. I view it differently.

Of course, I can’t argue the facts, today’s young adults face challenges I never did. Housing costs have skyrocketed, making homeownership feel out of reach. Job security has largely evaporated, replaced by gig economy uncertainty. Student debt that barely existed for me now follows graduates for decades. Their material abundance might be less about excess and more about seizing what they can while they can, in an economic landscape that feels far less predictable than the one I navigated.

Yet despite these very real pressures—or perhaps because of them—I wonder if something valuable has been lost in translation. This lower baseline of expectations and the lack of the modern “immediacy of wants” phenomenon let Suzie and me live without certain pressures that seem endemic today. Debt to fund lifestyle wasn’t front and center; saving for what we needed was much more the path taken—it was just how things were done.

Take my young friends again. Their whole spare bedroom refurb was financed by the supplier, essentially enabling the work. Our whole house was completed piecemeal as we had the funds. The rewards of delayed gratification—finally putting carpet in a bedroom or hanging curtains after months of patient saving—created a contentment that made not ordering that Friday takeout or going to that party worth the sacrifice. Vacations were a fantasy.

While I wish my young friends all the happiness in the world, I wonder if easy credit has created a perfect storm where immediate gratification feels both necessary and possible, even when it’s financially risky. The real luxury for Suzie and me wasn’t a beautifully decorated house on day one, but the simple satisfaction that came from building our lives slowly, deliberately, and always within our budget. No credit required.

I’m not romanticizing our tiny budget—today’s economic realities are challenging enough. But watching my young friends navigate a world where traditional markers of security feel increasingly elusive, I wonder if we might all benefit from occasionally pressing pause on our purchasing power. Maybe it’s choosing to save for something instead of financing it, or deliberately waiting before buying something we want. In a culture where both instant gratification and economic anxiety coexist, perhaps one of the best things we could do is rediscover our ability to wait and show prudence.

The generations have clearly changed, maybe for better, maybe not, but at least one thing hasn’t: dessert at the end of the meal. While I waited for the recent groom to lay down my treat, my mind wandered, settling on the famous line from the writer L.P. Hartley: “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”

These words, I think, perfectly sum up my doubt. Life is different now. As I finished my sweet, I was left not with criticism, but with a quiet conviction: that the slow, deliberate pace of our early married life—our forced luxury of low expectations—was simply a different path. Perhaps in another reality, Suzie and I would have taken the money lender’s coin, but I’m glad we didn’t have that temptation. We truly enjoyed the slow process of building our home.

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baldscreen
12 hours ago

Mark, this was great, loved it, and the comments too. Our 30 y/o son bought a 100 year old house during Covid. It had been a rental and needed some love. He has learned so many valuable skills as he has lovingly updated his home. We are so proud of his can-do spirit and he is not afraid to try anything. The latest project is exposing the brick on his fireplace and replacing the mantel. Chris

Last edited 12 hours ago by baldscreen
bbbobbins
14 hours ago

You had a shoebox? LUXXXURY!!….When I were a lad….

Can see the way this thread is heading 😉

Catherine
21 hours ago

My teenage bedroom furniture was unfinished pine “bought” with trading stamps. Were they green or gold? Two kinds? I can’t remember. I do remember licking the stamps to paste them into books and going with my mom to a stamp redemption store, then painting my new dresser robin egg blue, it went with me into my first shared apartment but vanished sometime thereafter.

My “adult” furniture for many years? I once described my interior decorating style as “Early American Garage Sale”. I thought I’d really arrived the first time I went into a furniture store to buy something brand new.

When my late spouse and I moved into the house where I still live (half time now), we couldn’t afford a refrigerator so for weeks (until we’d had a couple paydays) we kept things coolish in an Igloo cooler on the patio since we’d have to replace the ice and drain the melt water every day.

My brother and I have talked about what losers we are, not borrowing for a better house or nice new cars during the extremely low credit years, I’m no good with credit or leverage, they make me nervous. I admit a reluctance to borrow that’s probably tied to Depression era sad tales my mother would share when we were young.

Ultimately I seem to have had enough to live a respectable life and hopefully at the end there will be a little left over though I’m trying to give now with a warm heart rather than later with a cold hand.

“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” Equally true about the present,

DAN SMITH
12 hours ago
Reply to  Catherine

I was influenced by my parents’ stories of the depression.

DAN SMITH
1 day ago

I’m trying hard to not be the old man snarling “these kids today”. I know plenty of retirees whose financial lives are a wreck due to reckless and un-deliberate living. So while I don’t think today’s kids are that much different from us, I absolutely agree that it’s easier than ever for young adults to get hooked on easy credit, and all the  cool stuff it buys.

David Lancaster
1 day ago

When my wife and I got married our apartment at graduate school was the equivalent of a concrete bunker. We moved from Arizona with all our worldly belongings in a Ford Pinto and a Chevy Chevette with rooftop carriers. Our first couch was a twin bed with throw pillows. We had my 9” black and white TV that I bought in high school. We bought our full bed frame and refinished a pine dresser each for $50 (we still use both in a guest room). No money to go out except one night a week for spaghetti night at a local Italian restaurant. Our entertainment was watching Cheers which had just started being televised. It was a little piece of home as we were living in the corn belt in Illinois, but both originally from New Hampshire.

Kristine Hayes
1 day ago

Of course, I can’t argue the facts, today’s young adults face challenges I never did. Housing costs have skyrocketed, making homeownership feel out of reach. Job security has largely evaporated, replaced by gig economy uncertainty. Student debt that barely existed for me now follows graduates for decades. Their material abundance might be less about excess and more about seizing what they can while they can, in an economic landscape that feels far less predictable than the one I navigated.”

When I read statements like this, I have mixed feelings. I do believe every generation feels like the generation before them had it ‘easier’ or ‘better’ or “fill in the blank”.

So much of what you mention is about choices. Job security has largely evaporated? Maybe if you are a computer coder or a newspaper reporter. But if you are a plumber, an electrician, a welder, an HVAC technician or employed in any variety of ‘hands on’ jobs? You can pretty much have your choice of jobs in any city or state (or country for that matter).

Student debt? Most trades are done in apprenticeship programs–no loans needed. Many apprenticeship programs pay their apprentices right from day one. In one of the states I used to reside in, first year electrical apprentices made as much as $20/hour (and that was several years ago).

Housing costs are indeed higher than they were forty years ago. But so are housing ‘desires’. It seems like many people no longer want ‘sweat equity’ when it comes to home ownership. Instead, they want their first house to have 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, no less than 2500 square feet total and a three car garage (with room for an RV).

Young people who choose to pursue the trades not only (typically) have less debt and more job security, but they also have the wherewithal to be able to fix up houses that are more affordable. They also typically develop a strong networking system with other tradesmen/tradeswomen who they can then barter with to help them fix up said houses.

R Quinn
1 day ago
Reply to  Kristine Hayes

Good comment Kristine. I agree with you especially about the first house. Our first house was built in 1918. It had none of the bells and whistles demanded today. There was one tiny bath. We bought only what we could actually afford. Everything about that house was small.

Kristine Hayes
12 hours ago
Reply to  R Quinn

My first house was built in the 1920’s. It was 700 square feet–2 bedrooms and 1 bath. It was a true ‘fixer’. It was listed for $65,000 and I got it for $62,500. It took five years to fix it up to a presentable level. I was able to sell it for $125,000. I not only walked away with a sizable down payment for my second house, but also a wealth of knowledge about what I was (and wasn’t) capable of fixing and repairing. That knowledge has served me well over the years.

R Quinn
11 hours ago
Reply to  Kristine Hayes

Our first cost $29,000. When we moved in we found many windows missing, the fireplace was fake and the oil burner so old it couldn’t be fixed. When the owners left they ripped up a grass carpet in the bedroom leaving over 100 nails sticking up out of the floor. Those were the days before inspections.

We sold it five years later for $42,000 in 1975. Last I looked it sold for $400,000.

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