You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat, And eat three pounds of sausages at a go, Or only bread and pickle for a week, And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.
Our economy doesn’t work as well or grow as fast when a few prosper at the expense of a growing middle class, and ladders for folks who want to get into the midle class.
Prior to that, resourceful housewives who had grown up in a less prosperous era relied on substances that they used in their kitchens, such as vinegar used to clean windows.