> We had a perfectly happy, frugal, life at around $36k.

There's a tendency for people to think that anyone not living in a house with a white picket fence in Queen Anne must be insufferable.

It seems like there's a large group of people that is simply miserable if they don't have as much as others - regardless of if that thing is going to actually bring them any joy or not.

It seems like half my friends are killing themselves to buy a boat - and they don't even go out boating more than a couple times a year. I'll never get it.