> Was there more money to spend?

In California, there certainly was. The US economy had already started its decline, but from such a high that well-to-do Americans hadn't noticed. By contrast, because Europe had had to be rebuilt after WWII, the general populace had benefitted far less from the postwar boom.

In 1982, my family had a relatively comfortable middle class existence, but buying a home computer that cost (at the time) about half as much as a one-bedroom apartment would have been absolutely unimaginable to my parents. The ZX81 they bought for me cost £99.