Is money really everything?

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First time posting in a while. A recent overthink of the "childless cat lady" rhetoric in the U.S. led me to share concerns.

I am single and childless. However, I am not a lady, nor do I have a cat. I'm a 38-year-old man who lives alone in his $39k owned home. I make around $30,000/year working as a local features journalist. I love my job, I don't know how to do anything else.

Because I live alone with no offspring, I can make do with making adjustments and sacrifices in life. I like going on road trips, but if I can't afford it, I won't go. If I can't afford something, I won't buy it. I make sure my bills and taxes are paid at the highest priority. I do not complain about my property taxes, I can predict and adapt. Needs over wants.

I'm not in any financial dire straits. I have less than six figures in bank accounts. I don't worry about money. I make adjustments, survive and adapt.

I'm just surrounded by people who are constantly worried about money. Unlike me, they have children and have a significant other in their lives. They are the ones who I hear about not being able to afford groceries, gas, taxes, etc. They are the ones who voted for a change in government, and, what kind of concerns me, a change in culture.

Do I, as a single, childless man, not invest in the future of my country? If I live a life not worrying about money, am I the problem? Is it my duty as a human to procreate? Or is it the duty of every human to have offspring, and, thus, crave infinite amounts of money to assure their happiness?

It seems to me that money is becoming the only thing people care about. They could have $10 billion fall on their lap and still be begging for more, IMO. Do they crave infinite amounts of money because they need a yacht? Do they crave infinite amounts of money so that they can "keep up with the Joneses?" Do they crave infinite amounts money so that they don't get looked down upon by their peers (peer-pressure), or be 86'ed?

Because I don't constantly crave infinite amounts of money, am I living life wrong and backwards?

It's like I need to have children, and thus a partner, to understand where these people are coming from. It would make me more aware of the sense of urgency. What I will not do is violently force the situation to happen. I feel that there needs to be a mutual romantic understanding to have a relationship, and thus children; but that's not part of my life plan at this time.

After typing all of this out ... whoa .... I went all over the place with no clear definition. It looks like a giant fog. I just felt better unloading it all rather than bottling it up in my mind. Thoughts, advice, criticism welcome.

I admire how you live. It seems almost spiritual and along the lines of Taoism.

I work for a family business (I am related to all but one employee here). The pay is terrible, but I don't need to spend much and so I not only live on what I make, I save a decent portion of it.

I've never been much of a consumer. Growing up far from any city and a ways out of town, the advertisements I saw on tv (very snowy signal back then) and in newspapers and magazines and advertisements on the radio, I was rarely anywhere that I could have bought whatever was being advertised. For example, I cannot remember ever eating at a fast food restaurant until I went to college. On those occasions when we went to the movie, there was only the one movie theater in the town which made it easy to decide what movie to see.

When I was a younger kid, I'd see an ad for this or that place and I would want to go. By the time I graduated from high school, I no longer cared to go to any place that was advertised. For example, I've only eaten at McDonald's three times in my life and I'm now in my70's.

I think that has saved me a lot of money over the years.

A $39k owned home? Was that the price several decades ago, or is that the current price?

House prices are typically a lot more than that nowadays, which is why a lot of people struggle to buy essentials such as housing.

Houses can run up into the hundreds of thousands for a family home in most places.

Children cost a lot of money. Over a lifetime they can cost tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands, depending on how the children are raised.

Costs of living such as energy prices and food prices, as well as the above factors, make the paltry wages in today's economy simply not enough for many people to live on comfortably.

I have it on good authority that cash rules everything around me.

Also, a $39k home doesn't exist here. You'd be lucky to find a home that isn't in the seven digits.

The right reason to plan to have kids is to love them not for "fate of the human race s**t." or to "tick the box of having kids."

Your raising a human and teaching them how to be good. Or your not having kids and not doing any damage

that's my opinion I don't have kids either

Elaborating on my concern just a little more: It seems that one particular sect of American society thinks that they control the rule book of how to live the human life. And if you do not follow that set of rules, then apparently you are "wrong" or "damaged" in some way. Do they think that a sort of utopia is going to happen if all live one singular way? I am sorry, but I feel my condition is not conducive to how they think the human life must be lived.

Money isn't everything, but there are a lot of things one needs to do which is near impossible without it.

Having money may not be enough get good healthcare or even a good meal.
Poor places often have trouble getting resident doctors. Same with good restaurants.