My wife and I lived the double-income, no kids lifestyle for about 8 years. She had a solid union job and I was doing ok in IT, we definitely had a good time, lots of travel, fancy dinners, live music and theater. When we had kids, it all went to hell, financially. She left her job, we have a ton of added expenses, etc etc. She's probably going back to work this year but the kids make it impossible to travel like we used to, and their interests don't mesh much with ours, so we don't get to do as many of the kinds of things we like.