People are accusing you of trolling (which is an ad hominem attack and should not be made on HN, and people should be downvoted if they do that).

- I agree with what I think your main statement is, and will put it into an alternative argument, so others here can understand.

There is a statement "a penny saved is a penny earned." This is true. But if you're spending a penny the most you can save is a penny: if you're trying to earn more, you can earn a penny, nickel, dime, quarter, or dollar. The most you can move up in lifestyle by living "frugally" is whatever you're saving. But if you put that same effort into earning more you can have a better quality of life more easily.

To put it into concrete terms: if you have someone who nets $1200 per month and are living within the budget that gives you, then the most that they can possibly "save" is up to $1200 per month. It is mathematically impossible to shave more than that off of your current spending, because by definition there is no more than that. So the theoretical maximum that you can possibly 'save' or reduce your spending by $1200/month. Try to reduce your rent, your food, your transportation, whatever, to fit within your $7/hour budget and you will spend a lot of time with very little to show for it, because the most that you can possibly show for it is... $7/hour. That's a theoretical ceiling on savings.

But by focusing on increasing your earnings, there is no wall. So through all of the work in the world, you have a theoretical maximum that you could save of 1200/month - however it's fair to say that by moving to $2400/month everything in your old lifestyle was "free", and you can now buy new things, or a few better things. It's the same as if you saved 100% of all of your former costs, without doing any shopping around or anything else to actively save - it's as if those costs magically dropped to $0 - you can buy them all, and still have $1200 left. And all by focusing on your earnings and ignoring all that savings stuff.

So what's easier, shopping around until you've shaved some percentage of your $1200 spending -- or moving from $1200 to $2400 in net wages?

The latter is considerably easier than the former. I would say it's not possible to do the former, you can just approach it. Through hard work "saving" you could shave off let's say 40% or even 50% -- it's still easier to move up in wages by the same amount instead.

EDIT: I got downvoted. Are people getting what I'm saying? Someone making $1200 (which is 14.4K/year) can never save more than 1200, even if they are so good at it that they're able to reduce their spending by 80%. The most that they can save even in theory is $1200. But they could have the same net effect by working on increasing their wage. There is no ceiling on the latter. It's far (far!!!) easier to move from $1200 to $2400 in earnings, than trying to save 80% off of your spend @ $1200. And even though it's easier, it has a bigger effect.

Let's put this into concrete terms: if you're a barrista making $10/hour in Silicon Valley, you are having a hard time making ends meet. You can try to absolutely cut out all of your costs, rent, transportation, food, etc, and you will still have a hard time. Or you can put the same effort into learning to design, putting a small portfolio together, and trying to get hired as a designer. While completely ignoring trying to save on those costs, and instead just, say, deferring some of your demand. It's easier to make money than to save money, other than possibly the easiest optimizations. (such as making sure that you're not drastically overpaying for anything by 3x or 5x). And it has a bigger impact on your life.