Paycheck to paycheck is relative. I’ve seen families bring in $500k/year and barely have any retirement savings. They go buy a home with a mortgage that’s $16k/month, a few fancy cars at $1000/mo each, childcare, maintenance on a home that expensive, and everything else that money is gone quick. They want to give the illusion of stupidly rich at the cost of spending every dime that comes in. Pretty common in every income bracket. Majority of people are terrible with money.