Could you elaborate? As I said, I'm assuming this is a blind spot, but assuming both parents are onboard with trading consumption for security/freedom, I don't understand what specifically would make this unworkable.
That is to say, the same logic applies to a family: If a family making $120k could survive adequately in a given location, then a family making $160k can pretend they make $120k and do the same thing. As I mentioned, the only exception I can think of is wanting to max out education spending: taking for granted that school spending is valuable for educational outcomes, does this explain 100% of the difficulty in maintaining this habit once having a family?
Other possibilities:
1) education/housing spending is often a proxy for class segregation, which I suppose is another factor you'd want to max out for your kid (I have no experience with this: my parents were upper-class in the old country so they hung out with other upper-class old country people (of various incomes) and I got the values they hoped I would without having to pay for it)
2) Perhaps it has less to do with kids than it does coupling up: anecdotally, most of my male friends who are happy to be ascetic need to start flashing money when they start dating, and most of my female friends are far more interested in consumption/comfortable living spaces. I know few people living well below their means, but 0% of them are women, despite my having many female friends. Though this is a pretty low-confidence guess, since as I said, it's based on anecdota.
> That is to say, the same logic applies to a family: If a family making $120k could survive adequately in a given location, then a family making $160k can pretend they make $120k and do the same thing.
Yes, I was trying to agree with you.
I'm married, have a family, and we do exactly what you describe. We live below our means and save as much as possible.
In our case, living below our means worked out as having a single income family, and having a full time care giver in the home. For others, that might mean maxing out two incomes and retiring earlier.
> Perhaps it has less to do with kids than it does coupling up: anecdotally, most of my male friends who are happy to be ascetic need to start flashing money when they start dating, and most of my female friends are far more interested in consumption/comfortable living spaces.
When we started dating, my wife joked she liked me for my crappy old beater of a car. What she meant by that, is she knew a lot of the guys with fancy cars were actually broke because all their money went into their car, and she could tell early on I was more responsible and frugal.
So be careful of over generalizations based on anecdotes. And, frankly, be careful about getting in a serious relationship with someone who doesn't seem capable of living within their means.
That is to say, the same logic applies to a family: If a family making $120k could survive adequately in a given location, then a family making $160k can pretend they make $120k and do the same thing. As I mentioned, the only exception I can think of is wanting to max out education spending: taking for granted that school spending is valuable for educational outcomes, does this explain 100% of the difficulty in maintaining this habit once having a family?
Other possibilities: