re: Here's the budget breakdown of a couple that make $500K and still feel average

Taxes are wrong, and statistically impossible. I'm not sure what state they're in, but there is no reality that gets a tax bill that high. 40% effective tax rates don't exist for families making $500k. It could be the author is confusing an effective rate with a top bracket. Social Security has a cap, deductions exist, and you are only taxed on the dollars that land in those brackets. Once you do that right, it likely frees up another $80k or so unaccounted for to save. There just is no reality where someone has that much student loan debt, property tax, interest, etc. and doesn't deduct any of it. It's worst than high school math.

If the moral of the story is taxes are too high, and government spending needs to be checked back, ok. I'm aligned. But this should be about real numbers if it's coming from CNBC. It should.