I'm not talking about normal people. I'm talking about the couple you described that makes slightly more money than I and my wife and yet has less than half the

I'm not talking about normal people. I'm talking about the couple you described that makes slightly more money than I and my wife and yet has less than half the savings I do. Edited to add: And I'm surrounded by academics more than anything else. To quote the millionaire next door (page 136): > Isn't it interesting that a disproportionately high number of used-car shoppers come from the ranks of teachers and professors? > How did Dr. Bill, an engineering professor who never had a total household income of more than $80,000 become a millionaire? [...] His success in accumulating wealth is based on living well below his means. The professor is a classic example of a used vehicle-prone shopper. [...] You'd be surprised how well that description fits me and many of my colleagues. So in a sense, yes, I'm surrounded by rich people, but they're rich because they're comparatively frugal, not because we all earn bay area tech salaries (trust me, we don't -- I grouse enough about this that I wrote a blog post about it a few years ago: https://da-data.blogspot.com/2016/12/finances-for-recent-cs-phds-headed-to.html https://da-data.blogspot.com/2016/12/finances-for-recent-cs-... )