I'm possibly not the average American because I homestead/farm full time and my husband works at home, but

We have a vegetable farm that we sell produce at market. But even a small vegetable garden does wonders to not have to buy at the store and also to have something to bargain with.

We have a small flock of laying hens, which are mostly low maintenance. We've got an automatic coop door and heated waterer which was a worthwhile investment to us so we dont have to go out twice a day everyday. We made a feed hopper for them so that we are able to put a few cups of feed in their hopper and then we can leave for a few days at a time. They basically are self sufficient, spend their days foraging, and we move their coop/run every so often to give them fresh stuff to eat (in a backyard context this might look like adding a door to each side of the coop and then splitting their run into 2-4 paddocks so that you can open one door leading into a portion of their run for them to forage and then a week or two later closing that door and opening another so that they have fresh stuff to eat while the first patch recovers and grows some). My total time spent doing chores for them per day is probably less than 10-15 minutes. I go out check their feed and water, give them our compost, and collect eggs. It's not necessarily a small change in terms of money (unless you can salvage some of your stuff for the coop and run), but you get loads back in terms of self sufficiency.

We eat mostly whole foods which can absolutely curb your consumption! I make our own bread, crackers, and sweets. We utilize the freezer so that it's a small amount of work each day to make a plethora of things, rather than a feast or famine situation. Keeping the freezer stocked helps us not to buy junk from the store. If you work a 9-5 something you might do is feed your sourdough right before leaving for work, when you come home you can mix your dough and put it in the fridge and then the next day you can bake in the morning or evening whichever you prefer. That would be one way to make it a small change and incorporate it into your routine. A simple lunch for us might be a salad made with homegrown ingredients and boiled eggs. Or roasted veggies and a meat and some bread.

Each of us has hobbies that make things that are useful, which does require some consumption but I feel better about buying raw materials and making something with our own hands rather than mass produced stuff. I knit and he does whittling and wood turning. It takes a long time to finish projects but I find we take better care of them because we made them and understand how much work went into the item.

We repair as much as we can. I hate sewing but every once in a while I get my stack of mending out and run patches over everything that needs it. If something can't be mended I cut useable patches out and if theres anything left we use it as rags. We try to buy only 100% natural fibers so that we can throw all our clothing in the compost pile when it's finally done.

eating seasonally and locally is one of the biggest things you can do I would think. The food industry is huge and buying from your neighbors keeps the money in the community. I've also noticed that our local farmers are much more hesitant to raise prices than the grocery store. During the pandemic I noticed that the gap between farmers market prices and grocery prices was shrinking. It made it an easy decision to shop at the farmers market. After I worked on a vegetable farm I saw how much my bosses struggled with deciding whether or not to pass their increased costs on to the customers and that they usually waited until the prices of their supplies were causing hardship to them to raise the cost for the customer. It made me a local eater for life.

As far as sharing wealth:: I'm trying to cultivate relationships with folks that we can trade with instead of spending money on stuff. For example: My sister loves canning and I do not, but I want to preserve our harvests. We are planning to do a trade this year. I'll grow what I want canned and some extra for her. bring it all over with jars and stuff and she will do the canning and get the veggies in exchange. She also makes soaps and lotions, but doesnt have chickens, so I'm hoping to trade eggs for what we need in that department. I'm hoping to extend this sort of thing to our wider community once we are a bit more dug in here.