Personally, after spending most of the past decade in substandard / 'affordable' student housing, I'm now very comfortable with owning a house and making ends meet at the end of the month. I've got enough savings to keep afloat for a year if I somehow lose my job, and I even have some in the stock market because savings account interest is trash at the moment (iirc because of European money lending policy, causing cheap mortgages, causing low savings account interests, and causing climbing house prices from both low mortgage interest rates + investments in real estate).