Please do enumerate the solutions you are alluding to if you're willing - I'm sure I'm not the only person on here who is curious and has no idea what you're talking about or where to start looking.
Yeah, it takes effort. Ease has a price. The main issue, as another poster noted, is that most people are indoctrinated with consumerism from birth. Fact is you can live well, cheap; takes work, but it's not really that hard.