[flerchin]

In my own life over the course of twenty years I went from: living in a tent with 3 others for a year, to a one bedroom apartment with a roommate in the living room, to an apartment with just my wife, to buying a house and starting a family, to then buying a house with a pool and sending my kids to decent schools.

The point is that rice and beans is temporary. As a worker, I continued to work towards better employment that provided the life I required. The vast majority of folks I knew along the way did the same. All 4 of the folks in that original tent with me are comfortably middle class nowadays.