> Something is making our perspectives very different, and I'm trying to understand how

Out perspectives are different because I used to be in the rat race, and I used to believe it wasn't possible to get out, and I didn't understand how or why people could ski half the year and not work much and still make ends meet.

I've been doing it myself now since 2009 (taking years completely away from work to drive around the world even) and so I not only understand that it is possible, I live it first hand every day.

> A new phone is less than a months rent, so is a TV. A new car is cheap compared to real estate. So those things are far from a marker of wealth.

I think this is one of the major things that people don't understand when it comes to saving money, spending less and working less. This is where the whole "Don't drink a coffee every day and you'll be set".

The reason I bring up those things is because I literally don't earn enough money to have them. If I had those, I would have to work more. I'm right on that line. And for me, not having them means more freedom from work, so I choose not to have them.
So do many, many other people in this little mountain town.

> Most people aren't in the rat race because they have an insatiable greed. They are there because they are desperate to have a roof over their head. If they can sort it out, almost everybody will be cool with chilling with a barbecue and riding quads in the woods instead of preparing a powerpoint to suck up to the boss.

In my experience, while that sounds like it makes sense, it is not true. I give talks and seminars about how I'm able to spend less, take years off work and have grand adventures around the world. I go into great detail about the financials of it all, and what a person would need to do to be able to afford something similar.

Then without fail I have ten people tell me to my face they can't afford it, while making car payments, phone payments, using every streaming service, eating out 5 nights a week and whatever else.
People want all those conveniences, and going to work "full time" is the only way to get it. So they do. They don't want to cook their own food, chop their own firewood and buy used things.

> You either had some real estate money from elsewhere to use to get established, or big city salaries to pay for cheap real estate there

No we did not. We had neither of those things. We didn't hack the market in any way. Everyone works a pretty ordinary job for this area, and they can afford an ordinary house for this area. Again, in the same way we don't have car payments, none of us has a big new house either - because we don't want those things.

> The people born there who don't have real estate have to get the hell out (not because of people moving in), and go to a big city to try making some wealth to one day purchase real estate.

That is not true at all. The dental hygienist who cleaned my teeth today has lived here her whole life. She's just turned 40, has a 4 year old, bought a house a few years back.

You're on the outside not understanding how it actually works, and I get that. It made absolutely no sense to me either, and I spent years thinking "I wish I could do that.. too bad I can't". But actually I could.

I feel like this is the standard Reddit meme that is on the front page every day that says "You're telling me I have to go to work, commute, grocery shop, cook, clean, maybe have half an hour to myself and do it all again tomorrow? Shoot me now".
If you choose that life, then yes, that's correct.
But there are other choices out there.