<prompt> Human: I am just frustrated tonight. We got our taxes back from the accounted and it looks like we will owe around 4,000. I work a job that pays 50,000year, the wife makes 20,000 a year and we have a side business that made around 30,000 in 2017.I look at the statistics for this state and see a median household income of 50,000. We are making double that, our newest car is 9 years old. Our house payment is 600 month. Is everyone just in debt that badly? Or what am I missing here? EDIT: Reading through everyones replies, quickly makes me realize that we are in a unique location and industry. Which makes asking for advice from the general public not as useful as I hoped. Everyones comments where helpful though, I just needed to some outside influence to get over my pity party  <response>: We had a similar feeling a few years back and decided to make a change. We opened a YNAB account and started charting everything. We quickly realized several gaping holes in our spending and shut all that off. We are now saving over 15 a year and have built up a nest for 6 months fund with no job. We start investing next year for retirement.It wasnt easy, it is all about sacrifices at first, but later on, you realize all those things you thought you couldnt go without were actually negatively impacting your life. Cut off anything that isnt essential to life, and I mean it. Then see where your budget is at, and go 6 months without those things tv, movies, coffee, eating out, lawn service, etc. Once you go 6 months you will realize how much timemoney you wasted watching tv, how much money you spent on eating out and how much money youre now saving. For example:1. Basic cable package: 75m adds up to 900 a year.2. Eating out: we spent 200m adds up to 2400 a year.3. Lawn serviceweed control: 75m adds up to 900 a year.4. Eating too much meat: 100m adds up to 1200 a year.5. Buying books, instead of using our county library: probably 500 a year, we love to read.I could go on and on, but you get the point, once you start adding all those small things up it becomes monumental, and we didnt have any credit card debt either. We were just spending almost what we made most of the time. We are much healthier now. When we stopped eating out we lost weight. When we stopped eating so much meat for dinner, we lost more weight. We spend more quality time with each other. We get out in the yard together to maintain the grass and do the yard work instead of someone else doing it. We play board games and all go to the library together to pick out books for the week. Our family has gotten much closer because of the budget, it was super hard at first, but after the 3rd month, everything started improving. My son will even change his mind about stuff in the store and go, daddy do you think this is worth the price? he is 7. I am not saying all this to brag, just to let you know it is possible and we have done it. It sucked at first, but now I cant stand watching TV. I feel like its a huge time waste. When you sit down and really think about what you just watched after each show you start to realize it was a huge waste of time. Same with eating out and a lot of other things. Is eating out really that good, most of the time the things you cook at home are a lot better. Anywho end wall of text. 