My husband is the youngest of 10 children - all raised during the depression. Raised on a farm and did not "buy" anything except what was absolutely necessary. He said that they would get a new package of underwear for Christmas - how sad.
He will not eat oatmeal, said he had too much of it as a boy. I was surprised, because they raised chickens for the meat and the eggs. He said they could not afford to eat the eggs - they had to sell them to get some money. They had a HUGE garden. We have never had a garden, have good heat and air conditioning and BUY all of our meat and vegetables. He was telling his cousin the other day "how good we have it nowdays".