Pp here with three kids and a few more thoughts. We make about 225k and we do often feel poor living in the city. We don’t mind, but we hardly ever eat out, we drive an older car, and we rarely travel, esp not by plane. I like cooking, and since we don’t spend hours commuting, it’s pretty easy to eat our meals at home. I wish we could travel more, but it’s just not feasible. We try to go on one vacation a year plus visits to grandparents. We also send our kids to public school. And we are pretty laid back people in general, I think that’s important. If this lifestyle seems good to you, i vote go for the third! I love how messy and joyful our lives are.