I bet wherever you are living you have a household income in the top 20% locally. I bet you’re spending a lot more on “something” than the median wage earner in your metro area.
Interesting assumptions. In our case you are incorrect. We really don’t ‘spend a lot more’ on anything. Our house was purchased in 2020 under what the bank would fund us for. We are already priced out of our own neighborhood. We have one car paid off and another will be paid off this fall. Our last real vacation was in 2018 and we don’t have kids or pricey hobbies. However we have observed the cost of everyday goods to be growing more expensive every day.
You are both working in tech. Are you really saying you only make the median household income for your city?
And then not to mention there are probably literally millions of enterprise devs living in major cities across the country making much less than you are probably making in cheaper places that are living a good middle class lifestyle with 2.1 kids in the burbs, going on vacations and not struggling.