You may be slightly out of touch if you think saving $700 a month is poor. Huge portions of America have no savings and live paycheck to paycheck. Many more have only a few hundred in savings total.
Not being able to save $700/month or to come up with $2,000 in an emergency situation in the USA is poor, no matter how much useless crap you bought with the rest of your money.
50% of Americans couldn't come up with $2,000 in an emergency (citation: http://money.cnn.com/2011/05/24/news/economy/americans_lack_...). Only 25% were "certain" they could come up with the funds.