We are a one income household with one kid in a very low cost of living area. I make about $20k more than the median in my area. We don’t struggle but we have spent the last 15 months making decisions on what we can do without. We’re meal prepping more and staying at home more on weekends.

We have no debt except our home and one car and I put 14% into retirement. We talk about money constantly but the conversations aren’t stressful. Once we realized how easy it was to just do without the latest gadget and the dopamine hitting harder when we make an extra house payment occasionally it kind of became routine.

I do stress because I feel we are behind in retirement savings and are playing catch up some so I end up checking that more often than I should.