I don't think there is a "healthy society" while we keep outsourcing everything to machines. In order to compete with machines, humans have to become machines, exploit themselves even more than they are now. I don't think that anybody is really willing to take on the restructuring necessary to stop the pendulum from swinging to that extreme. Even the educational system is focused on mass production, and becomes more and more machined, especially now that LLM/AI is proclaimed the new messiah for the lack of teachers (instead of making that job more attractive...). Just wrote a cynical post about that, if you like to read.

The expense part is always interesting to me. It depends so much on childhood. Lily's mom never had much, so for her it's important to give Lily what she wants to give her, not what Lily needs. We got into a lot of fights because I did not and still am not buying new clothes, but always used ones (except socks and undies). Today, Lily's mom cancelled their planned birthday trip because she doesn't have any money. I thought, but did not say - what do you think is more important to Lily? New clothes or a trip with you?

Saving as well as thinking ahead has to be taught, and to be learned. So has to be keeping the balance between that and enjoying life at the moment. It's the grey zone that matters there.