I think it's important to differentiate between being cash poor versus being in debt. For instance, in all honesty I had more disposable income to spend on luxuries back in college than I do today, yet I made only a small fraction back then of what I make today. I had more available cash back then as well.
Right now I feel like I'm cash poor due to all of the liabilities and expenses that I owe each month, but we do save quite a bit also. As far as outright debt is concerned, I have two car payments (one's a lease) that total about 650/month, I owe about 10k on the one car loan that's not a lease. I have a 680/month mortgage on a roughly 130k loan, and I owe about 3k on my home equity LOC b/c I'm doing a bunch of home improvements right now. We also have a 1500/month payment for three kids in private school.
Many months I'm down to under 200 in my checking account as the month ends (I'm paid monthly). I contribute the maximum 1250/month (15k/year) into my 401k, and the company contributes an additional 6% of my gross salary at year's end no matter how much or how little I contribute to my 401k. I also put 300/month into a 529 college savings account, 350/month into an INGDirect savings account for non-frequent bills like car insurance, real estate taxes (I don't escrow my mortgage), sewer bills, etc. I also put away 350/month into another INGDirect account for emergency savings. So, all total I'm saving 1250+350+300 = 1900/month into various retirement and savings accounts.
I have zero credit card debt, well actually that's not entirely true at the moment, I bought a gas stove for 750 that's still on my Sears card, and I just put 750 on my Home Depot card for flooring for my master bedroom. Both are 12 months no payments/no interest until next summer. I'll pay them both off before then. So all total I have about 5k in debt outside of my mortgage and car loans. I have 10k sitting in my INGDirect savings account that I could use to pay off anything, but I keep that money around for the express reason that the future is unpredictable, and if you don't have anything to fall back on, you get into serious financial trouble very quickly.
Wife is starting work this fall as a teacher, so we'll have another 3k/month gross income to play with (probably low 2000's net I estimate), woohoo!!!!
