My parents starting salary in relative purchasing power is higher than mine, they had less taxes, they were able to finance a home and a plot of land on those salaries, and a car. Something that if I had to do I probably would 4-5x the salary I have now

They went on far more vacations, and even got cleaned out on investment in the dot com bubble and were able to recover

I can't say I have that same quality of life, and runway for a risk buffer. I don't remember my parents thinking they need to scale down ever until they hit retirement, here I am doing it in my early 30s