I’ve lived on that (or thereabouts). Quite doable.
First problem is that mortgages are the biggest combination scam & unreasonable societal compulsion. It’s not in banks’ & real estate agents’ interest to tell you that entirely comfortable & sensible housing is available in the low 5 digits (less even!); they want to persuade you to buy as much as you can shoulder (or more), and society has accepted this as the norm.
Likewise car payments: buy what you can, private-sale used, for cash and work up from there - don’t get suckered into payments for something new or otherwise from a dealer’s lot.
Next: home repairs aren’t that expensive IF you do most of them yourself, which you single young’un can.
Car insurance is compulsory, yes, but can be minimized by driving a minimal-cost vehicle you’re willing to eat the cost of if totaled.
Groceries are cheap if you THINK. I’ll feed you healthy on $1/meal.
Indeed, the core problem is young single people are no longer taught how to “live on that”. We used to (yes, inflation accounted for), but advertising has persuaded everyone they can’t live on less than the world 80th percentile income (meaning 80% of everyone on the planet lives on less than that, most quite contentedly).
And yes, you can do it with spouse & children. They don’t necessarily cost that much more, once those basics are in place and you decide to not spend profusely like everyone tells you to.
Heh - I agree with everything but the home repair part. I have zero, zilch ability (was an interior design student who couldn’t hang a picture straight to save me), and although I’m strong, I’m not young. So the home repairs part is a problem for me. Also, I recently had major electrical problems. In the past, I’ve had a big crawl space problem, have huge trees that need to come down, 20 foot bushes that need to be cut back...stuff like that. The unexpected always crops up.