I realise this is an "old thread" now, but I only just got back to it. FWIW, I've travelled more than most - maybe living in a dozen or so countries in the las

I realise this is an "old thread" now, but I only just got back to it. FWIW, I've travelled more than most - maybe living in a dozen or so countries in the last 50 years or so. I started out as a docker's brat in the (at the time) slums of Liverpool, in the north west of England. I was the first kid in our family to ever stay at school past 16 and not just "go and get a job"... Getting to where I am hasn't exactly been a walk in the park, but I've made good choices, and been lucky, in about equal parts. Regardless of all that, your point is well made - in comparison to others not living in a HCOL area, I'm very well off - I could afford to buy my parents a house for their old age, for example, instead of them renting until they die. My point, though, was exactly your own. Being (in the words of the article) "a god", is only really the perspective from the outside. From where I sit, I have a middling house in a middling part of the Bay Area. The job is well-paid, but the expenses are still very high - I still budget month-to-month, and I still worry about my kid going to school and all the other concerns that your average family has. The overall strategy is to build up the financial equity and then leave the area, to retire somewhere cheaper and nicer, of which there are legion. I reckon I've got about 5-8 years left before that's a genuine option, which ties in well with the kid going to college (assuming he does). Then I'm out.