How to live on $432 a month in America

I think the author is arguing against their own point with the illustration they chose. The very last picture can be found in the Wikipedia page for the Homestead Act and, two jumps later, one can find themselves in the Dutch version of "Sod house" [1] which has this to say:

> The living conditions there were miserable. Due to the construction method, the room was difficult to heat, it was damp and teeming with vermin. (...) The Housing Act of 1901 prohibited living in sod huts.

If the author says "you can live like your grandparents" to mean "in conditions that were already considered miserable for the standards of 1901", that's not a great selling point. And while I sympathize with the underlying message to a point, I would argue against romanticizing the past. Sure, my grandfather lived in a cheap house he built himself, but he also came back home every day with bleeding fingers that my grandmother would treat.

[1] https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaggenhut

The point could be taken in the other way, as in "hey at least you don't have to live in a house made of dirt, right?" Comparably you are much better off, so there is no point in complaining. They made it work. Sure it wasn't great, but we're all passed that now, standards are much better.