A lot of people on HN don't have families, so let me illustrate some costs. Let's say you are a married couple with 2 young kids and you make a combined $150,00

A lot of people on HN don't have families, so let me illustrate some costs. Let's say you are a married couple with 2 young kids and you make a combined $150,000k and you live in Boston. Federal tax: ~26k State tax: ~7.5k Work covers 20% of health insurance premium, leaving you with 20%: ~4k OK, now we are at $112,500 take home pay. 2 BR apartment accessible to public transit in Boston and in a safe neighborhood, let's say $3000/month + $250 utilities = 39,000. (you are probably not getting a particularly lavish apartment at this price point). Now you have $73,500 left. Daycare for two kids from 8 - 5:30: $15k x 2 = 30k $43,500 left. Throw in a reasonable life insurance policy, car + insurance payments for a modest car (kind of necessary if you live in Boston and have kids, unless you spend more to live in the kind of neighborhood where you don't need a car), modest medical and dental care out of pocket costs, basic kids clothing, basic clothing for you, diapers, and groceries and you are already eating pretty substantially into what you have left. Pretty much everything above is stuff that you need to spend in order to live reasonably comfortably (by US standards). Let's say after all of that you have 30k left. So you have 30k that you can spend on quality of life improvements, entertainment, travel, etc. You can hopefully save some of the money too, but if you are hoping to save towards a down payment on a house in the boston area, you're really not going to be living a lavish lifestyle on that kind of money either.