In San Francisco, anyway, having "a decent apartment to myself" and "a decent car" already seems like a huge extravagance. Median 1BR rent is $3,620, add $300/mo for parking and let's say $300/mo for a car lease, you're at $4,200ish before any sort of food, travel, etc. Even if you're making nominally $120k/year, you need a lot of frugality to make that work.

I remember moving to SF and making ~$110k, and renting a ~$2500 studio in a mediocre part of town with no car (I got a motorcycle eventually) and it was difficult to save any money, even if I wasn't bankrupting myself.