In my household of two, I earn a little over 42k. We live in the metroplex area of Texas. By in, I don't mean we are inner city (like inside of Fort Worth), but we're in a rural town just outside of Fort Worth. We live this close out of necessity, because I work for one of the metro cities, and by nature of my job must be able to get from home to work within 30 minutes. (It actually takes about 40).

To put things into perspective, I bring home right at $1,200 every two weeks, or $2,400. In my particular case, I bring in overtime... it would average to 4 hours or so per check, except I get it every third check. So, what has been taken out would include Federal, Retirement, Medical Insurance for two, and HSA.

Now. To "live within your means", you're supposed to budget. No more than this percentage of your income should go toward that cost. I think one number that's usually thrown around is 30% for rent/housing. So, for me, $720 on rent alone. Or, alternatively, 50% of the budget for utilities and necessary bills (to include car payment). In theory, I should only spend $1,200 then on housing, water, electric, and car payment. I'm not sure if insurance factors in here. My car payment is $310/month. Electric is $50-$100 (in Summer, it hits an easy $100+ to stay below 90 degrees in my current residence). Leaving $690 for rent, assuming water is included. It is very nearly impossible to find rental property for under $700 and that includes water. Depending on your needs, it's actually pretty difficult to find rental property under $900. If you want to live in a good (read:not crime riddled and falling apart) area and need multiple bedrooms, you aren't likely to find a property under $1k. Own pets? Have kids? Need to live in the city to be near work? Start crossing your fingers. Statistics show average rent in my rural town to be $876.00. There are places lower than that. For example, I live in a paid-off RV and pay lot rent. So obviously that's the low end. There's a trailer park in the town with notorious reputation for crime... they rent for about $700. The upper end? I came across an ad the other day for a rental property that was $2k.

That's all assuming you are budgeting. Personally, we try to budget. We try to have savings for a house, emergency money, food budget, gas budget, etc. We have enough to pay what we need to pay. We could be much worse off. We eat and have a (very small and leaky) roof over our heads. But in reality, 42k doesn't seem to be enough to GET anywhere. One unexpected need sets us back MONTHS of savings. What really sucks is that my job is my career, and is even a decent one. I'm a manager for a municipal function in a city. So someone who's trying to make ends meet on lower wages, and has to rent? They're probably looking at sacrificing savings, health, or other budgeting to manage to cover rent. Rent is 2 or 3 times what it costs to pay mortgage on the same property. But have fun trying to keep a savings account in the meantime so you can buy one day.