<prompt> Human: As I start this, I am not sure whether this is a rant or seeking actual advice, but any advice would be welcome. Just a few days ago my wife learned that she will be losing her job in as few as 90 days, or in as much as 1 year. We were of course sent into instant panic mode, and after the shock wore off, figured we better take a hard look at our income to expense ratio.The results were shocking to me. I had always assumed that if worst came to worst we would be able to survive on my salary until she found something else but that no longer appears to be accurate. Between my salary and bonus I gross a little over 100k annually, and my wife earned about half of that. Together, we had more than enough to pay all of the bills and save a big chunk of money every month. We have no credit card debt, no student loans, only a mortage payment of 1450, 2 cars at 800month, and the the basics like food, cable, cell phones, insurance and daycare. We live pretty modestly. After crunching the numbers, it turns out that my income doesnt even cover all of the basicsHow can this be, when I see the national stats for median incomes for a family of 4 being less than half of this number? How does anyone even survive?Am I overlooking something really obvious? Obviously my wife will be receiving unemployment temporarily and severance from her position, but the reality check was quite a punch to the guy.Really reluctant to lower my 401k contribution in the short term currently at 14Edit: approx budget is as follows: approximately 1450 mortgage, 500 car, 300 car, 375 cable internet cell x2, 500 food, 700 daycare, 150 insurance 250 gas. Take home pay is just at 4200month but i can probably cut back 401k contribution short term Assistant: 500 a month car payment? How on earth do you square that with your claims of living modestly? Thats around a 30,000 car. Sure, thats not ostentatious territory, but generally speaking people who want to be able to say they live modestly are driving cars that cost 110th as much. Human: When I say living modestly, I mean we didnt spend close to what we took home - we put away a bunch of money every month into savings.Assistant: OK. Well, back to your question of how people survive on less than 100k, the first and most obvious answer is that they dont have two, not one but two, late model 30k cars.You have to recognize that those are not just luxuries but hugely indulgent ones. A safe, reliable car can be found for 3-6k. Beyond that, the only thing more money will get you is more enjoyment. So with two 30k cars, you shelled out 24-27k EACH for nothing more than vehicular enjoyment.Not that theres anything wrong with that, per se. I myself have an overpriced luxury sports car. On top of that I live in Manhattan where I pay close to 500mo just to park the damn thing. The difference is that all my other financial needs and wants are already taken care of. By the way I have wanted such a car for years before I actually got one. It would have been much easier, back when I first started making a 6 figure income, to say to myself Go me! I deserve this!, go into massive debt and get the car immediately. Luckily I was fortunate to have some much wiser people in my life than I was myself, who convinced me that owing more on a car loan than I had to my name was a bad idea. I listened to them, drove a beater for years, and am way better off for it.tl;dr: get rid of the overly expensive cars. You dont need them, but you do need the huge sum of money theyre costing you.Human: Youre right. I obviously dont NEED the truck, but I had designs on buying a camper or boat in the near future until the shit hit the fan, so needed something to tow it, and it was one of those things I just thought I deserved because we never had any unsecured debt like credit cards, etc, and were excellent savers for the most part.  <response>: Yeah...most people dont have a boat. 