The OP isn’t the “typical American”. He is making FAANG salaries. But I had six months worth of living expenses in the bank by the time I had been working for

The OP isn’t the “typical American”. He is making FAANG salaries. But I had six months worth of living expenses in the bank by the time I had been working for a year and a half in the 90s. I made $11/hour as a computer operator. But they needed someone to build a data entry system and do some other development for their second site they were trying to build. I saved every penny of my after tax overtime. I’ve made sure I’ve had six months worth of expenses saved from the time I was 22. I am now 49. Anytime I took on a new fixed expense, I made sure I had six times that amount in the bank shortly thereafter. That mindset kept me off the hedonic treadmill. I work for $BigTech remotely. Until last year I was driving a 2011 Ford Fusion that I got from CarMax in 2012 for $14K. I won’t get started about how we gave up everything to live out of three suitcases and fly around the US half the year and stay in our own vacation home/rental property the other half.