We’re told the American Dream is proof we’ve made it, but no one talks about how much life we’re quietly exchanging to keep it going.

Many of the foods Americans call “superfoods” are just normal backyard stuff in a lot of other countries, things people literally pick off a tree or out of the ground and call it breakfast.

In one place, it’s a mango from the tree your grandmother planted. In another, it’s an $18 smoothie with a branded lid and a motivational quote. Same fruit. Same nutrients. Very different story.

“The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.” – Henry David Thoreau

Most of us are taught to look at the dollar amount.

But this quote asks a sharper question: how much of your life are you handing over for the things you buy, finance, and chase? That’s really what this is about.

And I say that as someone who has worked in marketing, lived the "American dream,” and now looks at all of this partly from the outside, as an expat. This isn’t really about food. It’s about how an entire country has been branded, packaged, and sold to us as a lifestyle we’re supposed to chase—no matter what it costs in money and life.

When breakfast becomes a luxury product

The “superfood” pattern is pretty simple:

1. Take something ordinary.
2. Change the name.
3. Wrap it in a story about performance, glow, and longevity…
4. And quietly, the idea that consuming it makes you just a bit more elevated than the guy next door.
5. Triple or quadruple the price.
6. Tell people they’re missing out if they don’t have it.

On a farm or in a small town, that ingredient is just… Tuesday. In a US grocery store, it’s suddenly a must-have if you care about your health and your status.

And that status piece doesn’t just pull Americans in. It also draws people from other countries who come to the US not only for safety or opportunity, but for the feeling of being above where they were before: a better zip code, the right brands, the polished version of life that says, you made it.

The American Dream isn’t just about stability. It’s marketed as a chance to finally be the one on the higher rung.

Once you see that pattern with food, it’s hard to unsee how often the same trick gets applied to everything else: the clothes we wear, the purses we carry, the cars we drive, the homes we finance, even the dream we’re told we should be living.

The American Dream as a brand campaign

The American Dream gets talked about like a value, a promise, a birthright. You can also look at it as one of the most successful branding campaigns in history. The story goes like this:

• Work hard, and you can have it all.

• Having it all means the big house, the nice car, the walk-in closet, and the right labels.

• Your worth shows up in your zip code, your square footage, your handbag, your job title, and your kids’ schools.

What we’re not encouraged to talk about is how much of this having it all is actually borrowed. From the outside, it looks like Americans are rich in things. From the inside, a lot of people are rich in payments.

The bank technically owns the home. The bank technically owns the car. Credit cards quietly own the furniture, the flights, the appliances, and half the closet.

On paper, you’re the owner. In reality, you’re often the person exchanging pieces of your life—your time, energy, health—for the chance to keep making those payments. Thoreau would have a field day with our billing statements.

Working to sleep in a house you barely live in

There’s another cost that doesn’t show up on any invoice. The version of success we’re sold in the US often demands a schedule that doesn’t leave much room to actually enjoy the life we’re working so hard to pay for. Long days. Back-to-back shifts. Side gigs stacked on top of main jobs. Nights when four or five hours of sleep start to feel normal.

People work 12 to 18-hour days, six days a week, to sleep in homes they barely see, in neighborhoods they barely explore, with people they barely have the energy to connect with.

The house becomes a very expensive charging dock. Leave early. Come home late. Collapse. Repeat until retirement, if your body and mind hold out that long.

On paper, you have the house. In practice, the house has hours of your life.

Clothing and purses and cars, oh my

The same “superfood” trick shows up in our wardrobes and garages.

A shirt’s real job is to keep you from being naked and cold. A bag’s real job is to carry your things. A car’s real job is to get you from point A to point B.

Add the right labels, campaigns, and stories, and suddenly:

• The shirt becomes proof that you have elevated taste.

• The purse becomes evidence you’ve arrived.

• The car becomes your value statement on wheels.

And let’s be honest: there are high-quality, beautifully made items out there. Some pieces are genuinely well-crafted, built to last, and designed with care.

The problem is that in the American Dream ecosystem, that quality often comes with a 200–400% markup because it’s attached to the dream. You’re not just paying for stitching or leather or engineering. You’re also paying for:

• The feeling that you made it.

• The story you’ve been sold about what success should look like.

• The illusion that this item nudges you up a rung.

So the real question isn’t: Do you really need that purse, or are you wrong for wanting nice things? The sharper questions sound more like:

• How much life are you exchanging for this? Not just dollars—hours of work, stress, fatigue, missed dinners, and ignored health issues.

• How much of your workday is about servicing debt tied to lifestyle markers that were marketed to you as ‘normal’?

Because here’s the quiet truth: You could absolutely enjoy a well-made bag or beautifully cut clothes in another country, too—often at a more reasonable price, without the same American Dream tax baked in, and without needing to work yourself into the ground just to match the story.

The issue isn’t the object.

It’s the system designed to keep you chasing the next object, parting with money you don’t actually have yet, and burning through your time and energy to maintain the image, while quietly increasing the amount of life you’re exchanging for it.

Quality doesn’t have to mean 400% markup.

If you love quality, you don’t have to give that up to step off the American Dream hamster wheel.

Love beautifully made clothing?

Ask @_katrina_michelle_ about the custom pieces she had sewn just for her while living a slower, softer life in Vietnam—tailors who got to know her by name, fabrics chosen in person, clothes made to fit her instead of a random size chart.

Obsessed with mango smoothies?

Ask @mochamoizelle about the mangoes she picks every week in Jamaica, then blends at home while easing into her day instead of gulping something down in the car on the way to work. No $18 superfood price tag. Just fruit, sun, and a nervous system that isn’t running on fumes.

These women aren’t living a lesser version of life. They’re living a different version, one where:

• Quality doesn’t automatically come with a massive markup

• Luxury looks more like time, ease, and custom-made pieces than panic and payments

• The good stuff is part of everyday life, not a rare reward for surviving burnout

Healthcare as a profit center

Then there’s health. Staying alive and functional is a basic human need. In the US, it’s also a profit center. Instead of: “I’m a human being with a body that sometimes needs help,” you become: “A customer inside a system that needs me to keep spending.”

For many people, the choice isn’t between health and no health. It’s between this bill or that bill, this medication or this overdue notice.

And all of that is happening inside a culture telling you, “Don’t worry, you can always work more.”

If you break down physically or mentally, the message is often: “You didn’t manage your stress well enough. You didn’t prioritize wellness.”

Meanwhile, there’s an entire industry waiting to sell you fixes: therapy apps, supplements, gym memberships, tracking devices, cleanses, more superfoods. Wellness gets branded and tiered—basic, premium, elite.

Again, the real cost isn’t just the money.

It’s the amount of life you exchange sitting on hold, fighting with insurance, working extra hours to cover the next invoice.

Seeing the brand from the outside

Living outside the US, even part-time, makes the contrast louder. In some places, you’ll see:

• Smaller homes that people actually live in and fully use

• Clothes repeated often without embarrassment or commentary

• Fresh foods sold as food, not as clean, guilt-free, or functional.

• Public spaces where people gather without needing to buy something

• A pace of life that includes time to sit, talk, and actually be present

Is every other country peaceful, cheap, and perfectly fair? No. Capitalism travels. Marketing travels.

But the American version of normal is a very specific flavor:

• Bigger.

• Faster.

• Louder.

• Busier.

• And usually, more financed.

From the outside, it becomes easier to see how much of American life is designed to keep money moving, even if it means keeping people tired, indebted, and constantly comparing themselves to the next person.

Waking up abroad

For many expats, that realization doesn’t land while they’re inside the system. It lands after they’ve created some distance.

Not all expats feel this. And yes, some people move abroad mainly to export the same mindset: bigger, shinier, and above the locals, just in a different time zone.

But there’s another group. These are the folks who:

• Step out of the 24/7 marketing noise

• Stop walking past ten must-have stores on the way home

• Live where people make a full meal out of what Americans call ingredients for a detox bowl.

• Watch neighbors live decently without chasing every upgrade.

And in that quiet, when the pressure to consume eases up, something shifts. They realize the American Dream they were chasing was exactly that, a dream. A scripted fantasy that looked real because everyone around them was acting in the same play.

Being awake doesn’t mean discovering a brand-new miracle. It often means finally seeing what was already there:

• Community that doesn’t require a subscription

• Satisfaction in: enough, instead of almost there, almost there, almost…

• Health supported by daily habits and accessible care, not just expensive emergency fixes

• Food that fuels you without needing three buzzwords and a glossy label

Creating that space to pause, stepping away from the relentless push for consumption that keeps US capitalism humming, is what gives a lot of expats clarity. They start to see how much of their life back home was built around fueling an economic system, not protecting their well-being.

Or in Thoreau’s language: how much life they were constantly exchanging, almost without question. Once you see that, it’s very hard to unsee it.

I’ve been inside the machine

As someone who once worked as a corporate marketing strategist, I’ve sat in the rooms where we talk about positioning, target audience, pain points, audience psychology, perception, and aspiration.

We ask questions like:

• What do they want to feel about themselves?

• What are they afraid of missing out on?

• How do we make this feel essential, not optional?

• How do we make this product feel like the smarter, higher-status choice?

Marketing itself isn’t evil. It can educate, inform, and connect people with things that really help. The problem shows up when the primary engine of a society is: “Buy more, work more, sleep less, repeat.”

In that setup, marketing becomes less about meeting real needs and more about keeping the machine fed. Combine that with the branding of the American Dream, and you end up with a quiet message: “If you’re exhausted, anxious, or falling apart, something’s wrong with you—not the system. Try harder. Upgrade. Level up.”

So what now?

I’m not here to tell you to burn your stuff, move abroad tomorrow, or live with one wooden spoon and a floor cushion.

I’m also not pretending I’ve always lived outside this system. I’ve chased the dream. I’ve swiped the cards. I've had the big house, luxury purses, and luxury cars. I’ve also had seasons where my stress triggered illnesses and demanded that I strip things down to the basics. It forced me to rethink what enough actually means.

Here’s what I am saying: You deserve more than a life spent financing someone else’s idea of success. You’re allowed to question the script. You’re allowed to ask yourself:

• Where am I paying for a story I don’t actually believe anymore?

• How much life am I exchanging for things that mainly serve an image?

• What would enough look like if no one else could see my home, my wardrobe, my car, or my résumé?

• How do I want my days to feel, not just what I want them to look like online?

• Is it worth it?

Once you start asking those questions, the American Dream stops acting like a product you’re trying to qualify for and starts turning into a series of choices you get to make.

Maybe that leads you abroad. Maybe it leads you to a smaller place and a bigger sense of peace. Maybe it leads you to less elevated, more grounded.

Maybe it just leads you to look at that $18 superfood smoothie and think, "I can do better than this for less life and less money."

The point isn’t to reject every branded thing. The point is to remember what Thoreau was trying to tell us:

“The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.”

And then decide, very honestly, whether the exchange still feels worth it.

Why this matters if you’re thinking about living abroad

If you’re a woman who has been quietly wondering whether life has to be this exhausting, this is the heart of the conversation.

Moving abroad isn’t just about beaches, stamps in a passport, or cheaper rent. It’s about changing what your life actually costs you. Not just in dollars, but in sleep, health, peace of mind, and time you never get back.

When you start to see the American Dream as a branded story instead of a universal truth, you get to ask different questions:

• What if my days didn’t have to feel this heavy?

• What if “having enough” didn’t require me to live in survival mode?

• What if I could still have quality food, clothes, and a comfortable home—without a permanent sense of financial and emotional strain?

• What if living abroad (or semi-abroad) was less about escaping and more about choosing a gentler equation?

That’s the work I’m doing now—helping women explore what life could look like outside that pressure cooker, and how to practically plan and fund it.

If this article stirred something in you and you’re curious about creating a softer, saner life abroad (or semi-abroad), you can:

• Request to join my community of future expats and digital nomads, or

• Learn more about my Move Abroad Plan and resources here.

No pressure. Just options.