Back in my day when I was a high school, it was as little as $40 to 50K/year (1980's). My dad dropped $40K on a Chrysler New Yorker, that was a big time status car then, like driving a tricked out Escalde now. We even had a Satellite TV system (C-Band) that thing cost more than most people's cars. We were living in a tiny rural prairie village though, our house cost all of $6000 when purchased in 1981. It was a smaller older house, but we were only living in this town temporally for a few years so it was enough.