My answer to the OP is, I didn't have any kids. No weddings or college educations to pay for. No debt and no foolish mortgages! I was pretty frugal and didn't buy pins until my early 50's and then bought an old beater and restored it. Then another. Now I finally bought a NIB...ACNC and am still waiting for it. And I have nothing against having kids. So please don't flame me for it. All decisions in life have consequences. Having no kids does too. Point being, I can afford it now.

That's what I did. Went to school for it. Earned an AAS in HVACR. Then eventually got on with a Natural Gas utility. 29 years in now. Wife also works at the hospital, but not a nurse. Lots of on call and O.T as well. Being on call sucks!!!!!!! Now I work in the transportation and storage division. No more on call!

Yup, people think you're the Maytag man just anxiously waiting for some bull shit call at 3AM on a work night! Example: I smells gas!!! It's 2:00AM Monday night in a thunderstorm! So you drag your ass out of bed and when you get there they tell you, "ya, I've been smelling it for 3 months now." Then you discover that their cat pissed on the floor! I have hundreds of such stories! Thus my move to a better position for mental health reasons mostly. There wasn't enough Zoloft in the state of Michigan Sorry for the rant! It's really much worse in reality.

I doubt many people want to disclose their incomes. I could be wrong.