Some people are so lucky, but let's say you each have university debt, and you have 2 kids, and you need to pay for childcare, and you have 2 cars so you can ea

Some people are so lucky, but let's say you each have university debt, and you have 2 kids, and you need to pay for childcare, and you have 2 cars so you can each get to your jobs, and your 3-4br apartment rent is 2-3k/month -- good luck saving 20k/year on ~70k take-home! And that's all if you can live in a small-town-enough place where homes "only" cost 400k -- in many cities in the last 5 years (i.e. places where there are easy jobs to find), that's just not a realistic house price anymore. I was a brick/stone-layer's labourer back around 2005, and we built a home that cost ~400k at the time, on the edge of a mid-sized town in southern Ontario. It was a mansion. Stonework, 4-car garage, big lot, 3 stories tall, 5 bedrooms, 3+ baths, the works. Today, I think that house we built could sell for ~1.5-2M.