>>2733244The two big factors are not earning enough and spending on wasteful stupid stuff. If you're making 40, 60 or even 90k in some places there just isn't any more left over for anything anymore. Once you pay rent, car and home insurance, car payment, car expenses like gas, water, gas, internet, other utilities, a cell phone bill and couple nice to have like netflix there's just nothing left. Never mind things like surprise medical problems. Some of those income levels spend reasonably on food and don't eat out all the time. This wasn't the case until the last few years of inflation. Prior to 2021-2022 if you tried a little bit you used to be able to live a middle class life in most of the US and also save for retirement and cover emergencies. That's just not true today people making at or below median income which is about 75k.
Otherwise it's wasteful spending. The two biggest ones I see are houses and cars people can't afford. People "think oh the luxury car payment is only 250 dollars a month! I can do that!" Then they get it and realize it's a 120 month loan instead of a 60, that insurance costs 100 bucks a month more, that an oil change is triple the cost, that tires are double as much and that trivial 1000 dollar repairs on most common cars are 3 to 10x as much.
Then all the stuff you said, food is another big one, we call it as wasteful discretionary spending.
I don't agree with cutting your life to nothing to save money and retire early, but I do think the world would be a much happier place if most people would budget. My top recommendation is expense tracking and a budget. You don't even have to change what you're spending it on. Just know where it goes.
>>2733383things like this do happen but is the exception not the rule. The way one of my mentors explained it to me the stanford marshmallow experiment. The vast majority of people choose immediate gratification over long term goals.
