Sure, you can reframe things that way, if you want to reduce all dimensions of existence to money and want to try to simplify all life as being about money, sure, go nuts. I certainly can't stop you.

You could do the same kind of exercise with whatever other measurement of reality that you consider to be the pivot of existence like free time or amounts of sandwiches available or whatever (or is that also boiling down to money?).

But that really really hobbles your model of reality so much to the point it's not useful anymore.

And, then by your own standards, were they ever NOT expensive?

Is this expense some relative state to other people, as in if other people have more it means I have less by virtue of comparison or is it some concrete measure of need one can not afford nowadays and they could before.