What Am I Doing Wrong?

I've been trying to figure this out for a while now, and I have no answers.

I don't have some prestigious job or anything, but it's alright. I don't make a ton of money, but I make enough to where a single guy should be able to get by pretty easily. So why am I not?

I look around and I see new cars everywhere. I see people taking trips left and right. I see new homes. I see consumption on a mass scale. And I'm cutting coupons and milking my paycheck to the next payday. How did everyone but me get rich?

It's weird, people I know who make the same amount as me seem to be living large. So what am I doing wrong? Are they faking it through credit?

Growing up, my dad worked a civil service job and got a pension from the Air Force. My mom didn't work, yet he supported a family with four kids and a ton of problems and we seemed to do alright. We weren't rich or anything, but we never lived hand to mouth. My friend Chad, his dad was in the Navy and his mom worked for the county. Not glamourous jobs. Yet they had a really nice house, always had new cars, and just seemed really, really well off.

I know these are all material things, and I shouldn't be so shallow. But dammit, I'm an American, and wanting things is part of our DNA. Home ownership, new cars, overseas vacations, they all seems so completely out of my reach that for the most part, I've stopped even thinking about it.

Am I the only one who feels the American Dream is passing them by?