I've never had debt and still don't have any. (comparison is the root of all unhappiness, I know □) We just feel average at best in comparison. and because we live in a bubble where a lot of people are VERY wealthy, and a lot of people our age have inherited multi million dollar houses and their parents may still cover a lot of expenses. It's just that everything feels more and more expensive so I always feel I/we should save more even though objectively we're spending very little compared to peers. We still save far over 50% of our joint income between retirement accounts, stock plans and investments. Nothing extreme and even though I wouldn't do it myself and it stresses me out a bit, it's fine. Id say that when I was by myself I lived very frugally whereas now with my SO we'll spend a bit more on some nicer things (we have some media subscriptions vs I had none, will buy some nicer food like salmon to cook at home every so often vs I used to shop at grocery outlet, we'll stay at slightly nicer hotels when we travel instead of the cheapest possible, I’ll buy something to make life easier on Amazon instead of not buying anything I didn’t absolutely NEED etc).
For example I now rent a home with my SO (my part is $1800 monthly) instead of renting a room for $1000/mo. Childcare here would be more than housing.Ī bit of life style creep I think always happens sure. Instead we feel like we have to work very hard to provide ourselves with a fairly average life and save for the future at this level, and that having kids for example is doable, but difficult. We don't FEEL like it’s a significant sum like OP - though objectively of course it is. I make about half of that (through should match if not exceed him in about 5 years if all goes to plan). For what its worth my fiancé is that engineer making $600k. But I think you would still be considered rich, but maybe just not obscenely rich. There's just such a huge gap between 300k, 1M, 10M and $50M/year that it doesn't feel like you're even in the same ballpark as them.
But you're still better off than 95% of the people in the country and probably 90% of the people in your area. Making $300k/year probably won't let you fly 1st class to month long vacations to Europe multiple times per year or give you a mansion in the hills with a Ferrari and a speed boat, so it doesn't feel "rich". I think why you don't feel rich is because there is such a huge gap in the levels of richness. So even in the highest COL area in the country, as a single person, you are making 2.5x what the average household together makes. Even in the VHCOL San Francisco itself, the Median household income is $126k. However, even in California the median household income is $84k. Now many people correctly point out that the COL of your area skews things. That would probably put your single income in the top 5% of all household incomes in the country. The top 10% for household income across the country is $212k and 1% is $570k. $300k is more than 4x the median, and that median includes all earners in the house, not just an individual.
The median household income for the country is $71k. I think some statistics might help your view.