"I just want to be able to afford a small house to live with my family. If I saved 100% of my salary for a decade I still would't be able to afford half of it."

"I just want to be able to afford a small house to live with my family. If I saved 100% of my salary for a decade I still would't be able to afford half of it." In what country and what area? There are places which will pay you to move in, and living there is free. They might not be places you want to live, especially not with a family, but they exist Then there are places that are super cheap by developed-nation standards.. like Eastern/Central Europe, parts of South/Central America, Asia, Africa... pretty much anywhere. Even in the US, if you live far enough from a metropolitan area or in some less desirable locations you can find really cheap homes, or cheap land on which you can plop down a trailer or a kit-home, or build your own out of cheap alternative materials. Again, you might not want to live in such places for a variety of reasons.. but they're affordable.