A hundred years ago...

If people living a hundred years ago suddenly could see the "things" even the poorest of us have now, their eyes would pop out!

I'm not just talking about technology, although that's mind boggling, but every day, "normal" kinds of things. People weren't consciously frugal, that was just the way life was.

Take clothes. Most people used to only own two or maybe three changes of clothing. Go ahead, count how many changes you have. Granted, they wore them for a week before washing them, but do you have more than a week's worth? I do and I know I'm not alone in the frugal community!

Shoes? They used to have two pair. One for "every day," and one for Sunday.

Rooms in their homes: Most houses only had a kitchen, a living room and bedrooms and some had less than that. Even adding a bathroom when it became available, entire homes a hundred years ago would fit on some people's patios.

Besides patios, we have dens and dining rooms and decks and "master" bedrooms with attached personal baths. Only kings lived like that a hundred years ago, but now most of the most frugal among us have more than one bathroom and more than three rooms in their homes.

But remember... gout was a "rich man's disease." The only overweight people were the rich ones. Heart attacks were few and far between. Something's wrong here....