you should say "thank you hashem" today and everyday that you already have a house and a car (when they were still affordable). try buying a house today with lakewood prices and bidenomics mortgages, if you're lucky, you'll find a small house in howell for 600k with your mortgage being 4200 month with no basement, otherwise you'll have to be gevirish and buy a duplex for over 1m with the mortgage being 7-7.5k monthly, and if you're lucky to find a tenant for 2k, it'll "only" be 5-5.5k. (for some reason the developers are the ones that make the money on the basement, as the prices they calculate to buyers is always after the basement income).
Do you really NEED to buy the newish car today and the house that is double the size your parents (grandparents if you are that young) considered spacious for a growing family?
My car was affordable because I bought an older sienna, ran it to 150k miles, and then traded up to a less older sienna. The thousands saved by not going for a newish model or a lease are what enabled me to now have a lower car payment. My first apartment could be generously called a one bedroom at $500 a month and we rented a two and then three bedroom for over a decade total, watching friends stretch to buy houses (“you have to buy now because prices will keep shooting up and you will be priced out forever”)until our earning power and savings were in the ballpark and the market dipped and we were able to afford one.
TIP- in the long term working class housing prices cannot be unaffordable for 90% of working class people. It defies economics. Either housing prices stagnate, salaries and inflation exceed housing price movement, or both. Tune out the hype. It doesn’t mean Your favorite block will be affordable. But there will housing that is affordable to the average working family regionally in the intermediate term. Patience is a virtue.
We make our own choice in life. Sometimes ignoring the Joneses and living within one’s means pays off later.