Echoing what others have said, start granular budgeting and work on increasing your salary. A couple years ago I finished the year feeling like I lost money, e

Echoing what others have said, start granular budgeting and work on increasing your salary. A couple years ago I finished the year feeling like I lost money, even though all my bills were paid. I painfully dug through every transaction from the year and found that I was down about $20k from the prior year. I thought I was living modestly, but I was actually buying about 3x the stuff than I would have guessed. I started with YNAB (not affiliated with them at all) and it changed my life. For the last two years, my wife and I have been hyper diligent about budgeting, meeting every two weeks (the Monday after $dayjob pays me) and make sure we are aligned. I left 2021 net positive about $50k because of this. I have made $25k/yr from side work for a few years and this definitely helps get ahead. My dayjob pays me about $150k in a medium TCoL area. Best of luck!