You have to have so much more reserves in the US because of the broken health care system, and the car dependence. I live in Germany and my wife and I were thinking about how much more we'd need to save and we found out that we didn't need that much. Healthcare is basically free, we don't have a car, we had enough for a new set of appliances and months of rent. All that with about a half of that salary. But in the US you can easily go broke with that amount of money if you get sick or have car troubles. Also depending on the state poor job security.