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My family operates on less than 100k, and we don't live "very very frugal" as you stated. We have two new cars (albeit, they aren't Mercedes or anything), a decent-sized apartment for 3 people, we go on plenty of vacations (DisneyWorld, Cali, beaches in NC/SC, etc.). We even just laid down hardwood flooring, and we're remodelling the bathroom, but we haven't cut back on anything else as a result. We spend a great deal and we aren't living from check to check. Now I don't know how much money you grew up on, maybe your family had a lot of money so 100k seems really frugal to you, but 100k, you can make a decent living out of that. AND we live in a pretty expensive part of the country.
With that said, 100k is not enough compensation for doctors. I've been employed in places where people in small offices in a corporation make more money than that and only on a Bachelor's degree. After all the work doctors have to put in JUST to become doctors, they deserve more than that; I absolutely agree with you on that.
It's all dependent on where you live, as someone said earlier. I live in NYC and my family's income of well over $120,000 puts us barely in the middle class. So for me and others living in areas with such high costs-of-living, $100,000/year doesn't sound very promising.
Edit: funny running into you on this thread, JaggerPlate - don't we have a date to go on?

