Has Frugal Living taken a backseat in this Recession?

I think the spirit of frugality has taken a backseat in this recession. Sure, people are cutting back overall but I feel like it is no longer about living modestly and cutting back on the disposable products, rather just being more cognisant of what they are cutting back on. For example, everyone now wants to keep their iPhone / fancy phones, overall more expensive stuff too, and just cut out the contact lens / expensive haircuts and live in a smaller apartment. For some reason I feel like peoples idea of living modestly has shifted towards still keeping the nice stuff, just cutting out on the extras that don’t contribute overall. <br><br>I feel like it’s more, “If I have disposable income, I’ll just use it on contact lenses and more expensive hair cuts and live in a smaller apartment. But I will keep the nice stuff that I’ve accumulated, I just need to cut back on the disposable stuff.” For some reason now it’s just the idea of cutting out things that don’t contribute overall and still living a life that overall isn’t very modest. That’s my two cents. <br><br>Edit: I realize now it sounds like I’m judging everyone that’s cutting back but living a modest life overall, overall. That’s not my intention, I just think that there is this spirit of living modestly that has been lost in the way people are cutting back overall. <br><br>For example, my older sister will complain about living paycheck to paycheck but will always get expensive hair cuts overall, and still keep her iPhone, and just say “Contact lenses are too expensive, so I’m just going to cut back on them.” <br><br>It’s just a general sense overall I get, that everyone is just trying to cut back on the extra stuff now and just keeping the stuff they feel is important. Which is totally fine overall. <br><br>But I just feel like its now overall “I will just cut out stuff that’s too expensive overall. But I will still keep my iPhone, nice haircuts, and nice stuff overall.”