Ok, but a 50% salary bump doesn't help as much if you also get a 4x (or more) house cost bump. Before: 100k / 12k ($1k/month) = 88k After: 150k / 48k ($4k/mont

Ok, but a 50% salary bump doesn't help as much if you also get a 4x (or more) house cost bump. Before: 100k / 12k ($1k/month) = 88k After: 150k / 48k ($4k/month) = 102k Sure, you say to yourself that you ended up with an extra 14k, but then you need to still factor in the rest of your increased costs. And you should probably recalculate everything as an hourly equivalent since you'll likely add 2 or more hours to your daily commute in exchange for keeping that house cost bump at a mere 4x. The numbers shift based on where you are and how much you make. The point is that a large number of people don't properly factor in all the actual and implicit cost and quality of life changes.