I love the “scraping by” on $400k narrative. This graphic from WSJ is my all time favorite 
https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1315785832679182336
Similar to what @vgr mentions, this is a very real thing and many people making $150k+ a year really do think things are really hard for them. I wouldn't have believed it myself unless I had actually lived and worked in these world.
My first encounter with this was in my twenties when people making $150k+ combined with their partners would say things like "I don't know if I can afford kids." They were 100% serious and it It dumbfounded me. Over time I've started to realize how this happens
Many people are trapped by the accompanying identity and status traps of high-status knowledge work. This can lead people to assume that things like buying the Porsche Cayenne instead of a CRV, $30k a year for private school, $200 meals and a $1M house are normal things
I do have to say I barely broke into this high-earning group and it did take a bit of a life reset for me to dramatically lower my cost of living, change some of my socializing behaviors and deal with the fact that I might not be sending kids to private school if i have them.
All of these can be a blow to the ego and make your insecurities go brrrr but you also realize how adaptable our dumb brains are at just coming up with new stories about success and fulfillment and being a good person.
Most of the challenges of living different lives have nothing to do with the math of making it work. It's mostly resetting your identity, shifting the groups you feel part of, coming up with new narratives of how you define success and then some luck figuring out how to make $
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