When I said we did what we could to survive in the 70s here in the U.S., it included us kids taking advantage of California's CRV so we recycled the heck out of recycling when ever possible such as the weekends. Back then most of soda products were in glass bottles so it's 10 cents per bottle. Heavy as heck hauling it to the grocery stores and/or recycle centers on foot but it helped. We cut the neighbors' grass and some neighbors only have the manual mower so lots of labor involved especially for young kids but it helped the family. We washed the neighbors' cars with no set price, just donation and that helped too. Single mom and all of us kids pitched in as family to survive. Don't want to wish that on any kid out there as a kid should just enjoy being a kid but it was a good life lesson.
Those are just a few examples of the things we do to survive during our early years here in America back in the 70s.
Took a long time for us to become middle-classers except for my oldest sister but we've all made it and that life lesson taught us a very important lesson about work ethics, intrinsic motivation and perseverance. I don't categorized my oldest sister as a middle-classer because she's actually the most successful out of all of us. I say she's in the upper middle to rich tier. She had less education opportunity because she's older but she was smart minded and worked the hardest to get to where she is now. She's the only one in the family with7 figure bank account vs. 6 figure for the rest of us younger siblings.