I don't understand why people do this? Why attack me? Why make assumptions? Why think I'm living in a "bubble".? My number is different than yours because I have different goals. And I laid out those goals and my reasoning in my reply.

Aside from that $73k/yr is really not an incredibly high income. Especially depending on what part of the country you live in. In the midwest and south, 73/k is great, but it is not much at all in the north east or on the west coast. Yes, it's higher than the median household income for the entire country but not by much which in the US has been over 65k for several years. If someone is netting 60k a year, they are making well over 73k a year before taxes.

More importantly you don't know anything about me. I grew up in a small rural town in a very large family sharing a room with one of my brothers, two parents that worked very middle class blue-collar jobs. I had my first job at 16 working in a pizza resturant because if I wanted money for something my parents didn't have it to give to me. I had to leave college because I ran out of money when my school raised tuition. My mother had to sneak me a 2k from her retirement account so I could pay my tuition to finish out the year. I didn't finish my degree until almost 25 years later while working full time and raising a family.

I joined the army reserves and I worked fulltime.

It took me a decade in my career to get to the point where I was making 40k/year, and I had my own family by that time.

I've been fortunate to have a career in a field that pays well but I've also made smart decisions about my career, education, where to live and what is and isn't important. My wife and I and our two kids lived in a 700 squarefoot house, with a wonky foundation in Ferguson Missouri for years because it was more important to us that she could spend that time with the kids than it was for us to have money. We shared my 7 year old pickup truck as our only vehicle until we bought her a 15 year old Oldsmobile that we bought for $2000. In my entire life I have bought exactly one new car.

It was only after I decided to move out of the midwest that I ever even made more than 70k a year. That was a decsion, a risk and an opportunity that came along because I worked hard and is a huge contributing factor to why I do have a higher income now. But I live in a very expensive city so it doesn't go as far as it would if I moved somewhere cheaper.

My point is don't make assumptions about people, you have no idea what their background is.