Five years ago I would never have believed I would be saying this, but I agree with Marion that having a woman’s nails done is practically a necessity. At $12/pop, it’s well worth it. And extremely sexy.

As for what one can afford for $100K/yr, all I can tell you is that when we bought our first place, our household brought in about $75K/yr and we sweated making our $1800 p&i&taxes a few times. We were really tapped out – no vacations, nothing extra except a $200/mo car payment and daycare of $100/week. It was during those years that we decided never to be in a house that ate up every penny of our income ever again. And we haven’t.