For some time, getting good bargains has been both fun ("Quest for Treasure": bargain hunting as sport) and a symbol of status ("Cheap-Chic": getting new designer clothes at discount prices at Target or H&M). With the advent of high unemployment, declining home values and loss of available credit options, consumers have been forced to learn how to live within their means ("New Austerity") and are now enjoying a new sense of fulfillment in life.

Thrift and consignment shops are growing in number by 5% per annum since 2005 and are sprouting in empty retail locations nationwide. Goodwill Industries alone generated $1.8 billion in retail sales from their more than 2,100 not for profit thrift stores across America in 2006—representing a 67% increase from 2001. Shopping resale allows consumers to buy within their means or generate cash for expensive items that have depreciated in value during these difficult, non-indulgent times.

With this new sense of savvy buying on whatever the budget, consumers are making thrift, frugality and modesty in and bling for the sake of bling out. Even affluent consumers have indicated that they have been living "just a little too large" and have a "great deal of concern" about their over-leveraged future.