Counterpoint: I'm making a comfortable living as a developer in California, and my wife also works. We don't exactly have a mansion or a personal airplane, but it's not like we're short of money, ever.

My wife will still be very angry if water bill goes up from $100 to $200.

Price anchoring is a really powerful tool: you can cut down plastic bag usage drastically by simply mandating that they should be sold at 10 cents.