Well, by way of another datapoint (and it’s certainly true that this forum self-selects for the fortunate)…

I’m 32, my wife is 25. I finished grad school in semiconductor engineering in 2003, post-doc’ed for a year, working since then. My wife has a couple years to go in grad school. So between us we make about $125k. Monthly, we pay $1650 in rent, about $400 in utils, $1700 in other stuff, plus my wife has LASIK this year. We drive 10-year old cars that run fine, eschew TV, but spend on hobbies what we would on cable. I’d say we live somewhat frugally, but I hardly feel like we’re missing out on anything… I really don’t understand how you’d ring up $3000 a month on credit cards without kids, but it sounds like many people manage it.

This all comes out to spending $45-50k a year, which lets us max out my 401k, fill both Roths, save $20k more, and donate what’s left. So we pass the savings test pretty comfortably, but I really can’t wrap my head around paying more than half a million bucks for a shitty mass-produced house, and we really don’t want to be locked into our jobs by an obscene mortgage