Once the modern consumerism-fuelled idea of romance starts to wear off (as opposed to decent hardworking marriages/relationships or remaining single), other things start to fall away too.

Costs for example:

• You realise that a can of coke contains £0.05 of sugar, and sells for £0.30
• Or a tea that has £0.05 of ingredients goes for £2 at a coffee shop.
• Rice costs £0.10 a portion but a restaurant will use it as a main ingredient in a dish costing £10.
• Paracetamol or multivitamin base ingredients cost and go for under £1, whereas highly marketed derivatives go for 10x the cost and people pay these prices and think it's normal.
• A pair of jeans that costs less than £10 to make retailing at £70+ and if you're lucky, you find on "sale" at ~£30.
• Branded cereals that cost 2-3x more for almost exactly the same thing (which I suspect then goes back into further brainwashing via advertising to make people buy more of the same).
• On-the-go fruit salads that cost £3 when you can just buy a box of fruit from a supermarket for £1.

It's as if our entire world economy (and in the west especially) is just propped up by these forces which are in a large part quite empty. Full of things that you not only don't need, but are actually better off without. All this social engineering/advertising yet is geared to make us think the opposite. Just like with the romantic industrial complex.

I by no means advocate living on overly tight budget, especially if you have money to spare, spend it. But I do find myself spending money more on things that have more actual value, and help produce more value - work tools and fruit, and essentials such as milk, for example, rather that things that are just heavily marketed and addictive, and, quite frankly are often at the bottom quite predatory, evil inventions, predicated on, and encouraging laziness.

Is anyone else starting to notice similar things?