Sometimes helpful, but unrealistic for many

The show provides a lot of good info. But I think a lot of the advice is unrealistic for people who live in a high cost of living area. Stating that someone should never pay more than 30% of net income for housing is totally unrealistic for someone in San Francisco, DC, NYC, etc. I make well over 100k and that math would mean I couldn’t afford the average one bedroom apartment. And the host here literally says if you can’t make 30% work, you need to earn more money. So, when I make 200k I can maybe afford a 1 bedroom plus den? Is that the logic here?

The math does. not. work. in big cities. I wish more finance people actually used realistic math and weren’t so prescriptive. Also, using net income to determine what you can afford, and then assuming if you go over 30% spending you won’t be saving enough, ignores the fact that net income will go down the more you save pretax (HSA/FSA, 401k, etc).