I make a fair chunk, near enough to that.

A large amount goes into retirement so I can try to outpace inflation and maintain a mildly comfortable (not rich) lifestyle when I'm old--not that far away now that I'm in my mid-40s. A lot of the rest gets eaten either by taxes or the insane Bay Area rent and costs. My benefits cost a big chunk out of pocket for me and my partner, too. My actual take home looks more like maybe $90-100k a year when that's all said and done.

I'm also the primary income in my couple by a large margin, so that money spreads across two people. You also have to consider that I didn't always make this money--was about half that six years ago, and 2/3 of that for several years before that. Tech jobs are weird that way. As it is, most of my extra is going towards saving for a house. A modest three bedroom is around a million, plus or minus, where I live.

The thing is that there's a tipping point where you get wealthy enough to afford seriously good tax professionals and money managers and, especially, to defer the majority of your income into either capital gains or real estate where there are serious tax breaks. That's when you get rich. But $250k, believe it or not, isn't there yet.

With very good decision making I could be (and would have been) better off than I am, but it's hardly something that's so easy that it's yours to lose if you're not a moron. You have to know who to pay, where to look, and how to live to make it happen. I'm still very much at the point where I'd have to noticeably sacrifice to get much further than I have. And I definitely am not "rich": I have some nice toys and my savings account is starting to do ok, but I'm still shopping for clothes at the Gap and living in a shitty rented tract house (for a bargain of $3k a month).

The best I can say is that I don't have to worry about how to pay my bills and I can stay debt free relatively easily, at least until I have a $1M mortgage. Those are blessings and probably the primary benefit of my income. But the private jet and even the used Tesla are quite a ways off.

So not a boo hoo. I take home several times as much as the average family makes gross and I get that, but you'd be surprised how far it doesn't seem to go. My lifestyle is ever so slightly better than the middle class one I grew up in, but definitely not night and day.