re: The average monthly car payment is $745 for new cars and $521 for used

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Imagine paying that much for something without a warranty

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We drive pretty reasonable vehicles relative to income. My wife has a 2024 Accord. Honestly, the ones that were a year or two old with 30k miles on them were close enough price-wise to new ones that I'd rather just have the warranty.

She drives little enough where we'll get the full 3-5 years out of it.

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Family money and/or crushing debt is all I can figure.

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I think there’s a fair amount of both a play in Society, but there are also a lot of higher earners in nicer neighborhoods.

I lease. Always have a new car and choose one I can afford, and I should be able to retire easily by 50. Both can be true.

You'd best earmark about $18K a year for health insurance.

Exactly why I have zero interest (no pun intented) in ever buying a new car again. I will keep driving my old cars for as long as I can find parts. Cars of the last 10 years are designed to fail with plastic parts and piss poor engineering...

People seem to have no problem with it and will continue doing it to impress others.
Look at the number of people wasting over 2x mortgage payments to lease DR Horton homes.

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You'd best earmark about $18K a year for health insurance.

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Will do

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I think there’s a fair amount of both a play in Society, but there are also a lot of higher earners in nicer neighborhood

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Yeah, I just see/know/meet a lot of people who have a fraction of my earning power, living a MUCH more extravagant lifestyle than we do.
Granted, I purposely work less so I can be around my young kids. My wife doesn’t work and homeschools the boys 3 days a week, and I pay tuition for two days of expensive classical “prep”school, max out every retirement account to try to catch up from some lean years, and have rental properties. I’m also self-employed, so health insurance alone is an insane expense. We have never had family help to speak of and zero dollars of inheritance of any form.
But we don’t do vacations (per se) or eat out much. I haven’t had a drop of alcohol since October, wife doesn’t drink much, our cars are old and paid off, and no expensive hobbies (skiing could be, but we do it cheaply).

I guess if I changed a lot of that (to dual income, public school, employee benefits, put a hit out on some family members) then I could afford a $100,000 SUV, $2M home. and $50,000 vacations.

We also intentionally don’t have nice things because our boys would just destroy them. Last week, for instance, my four year old ran over my $800 chainsaw with the self-propelled 80V mower when I turned my head. That’s the level I’m talking about here.

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Giving money to a church in 2025 is like lighting money on fire. It’s stupid.

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I take 15% i would give the church and invest it in 20 year bonds. When they mature ill tithe the original investment and keep the profit. Me and the church both win.

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I say this all the time to my husband but we must be doing something wrong in life cuz everyone we know if living it up in 500-800K homes, riding around in expensive SUVs, all kids in private schools. LIKE HOW???

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Grand parents buying things for their kids and grandkids