10/07/2026
There was a time when $75K felt like you'd made it. Now it feels like "hope you don't have daycare."
That's really what this post is about.
A solid salary used to give you breathing room. You could cover rent, buy groceries, grab dinner out now and then, put some money away, and not feel like every dollar was already spoken for before it landed in your account.
Today, $75K can vanish FAST, depending on where you live and whether you've got kids.
Housing takes a bigger chunk.
Groceries cost more.
Insurance costs more.
Childcare alone can wreck a budget.
And that's before car payments, healthcare, utilities, and everything else piling on.
I'm not saying life was cheap across the board 15 or 20 years ago.
But a paycheck that once felt comfortably above average now feels pretty ordinary for a lot of households.
And I think that's why so many people feel like they're earning more than ever and still have less room to breathe.