Some creativity is "cheap entertainment" in the sense that much of it requires little material wealth to engage in, and that might sometimes spur creativity simply out of lack of alternatives. When I lived on next to nothing when I was younger, it was easy to focus on writing because I didn't have money to e.g. go out on the town. Reading back what I wrote, though, a lot of it seemed to be extremely introspective of my situation to the extent that I'd be embarrassed to let anyone read it even if it had been any good.

I grew up in Norway; incidentally, one of the most famous Norwegian novels is the semi-autobiographical "Sult" (literally "Hunger") by Knut Hamsun, describing a young writers descent into madness as the hunger grips him as he wanders around in what is now Oslo.

But I've also seen the flip side, where you spend so much time worrying about money or acquiring a semblance of security that everything else gets pushed aside.