There was definitely a point in my career where I was making 50k CAD/year and it was a bigger change than my previous job when I went from 40k to 45k. I’m in a HCOL area.

I was able to have rent my own small 1 bedroom apartment (price has more than doubled since then 🤮), go on small little trips locally, finish paying off me debt, buy a few nice things, and actually save money.

Over the years my salary increased a lot as I retrained as a software developer, and sure, the money is nice and I can buy more nice things and save more, but the big change was at 50k when it finally felt comfortable.

If it was 50k then though, given rent increases and other cost of living increases, I’m not sure you’d get that same experience until 70-75k now though.