system
A chat on subreddit /r/wallstreetbets
human
Straight up. People spend more money trying to impress than they need to, it's insane. Just live simple and it's really easy to make money go places. Problem is, everyone wants to be rich without actually being rich, lol.
gpt
or they live in places like, uh... population centers where jobs are, but where cost of living is 3-5x what it was a decade ago and wages are basically the same. 

so even if you skip out on the new car, and keep driving your 20 year old civic, you may no longer be able to afford rent and be forced to move to bumfuck nowhere and work at sonic because the ratio of cost of living to wages is better than anything you might have been qualified for in a city.