Aggressive MMM savings strategies aside, $52k isn't a ton of money... Your profile says you are in Kansas City, so lets run some numbers really quick...
$52k means take-home (after tax) is about $38.5k.
This site [1] says monthly rent is about $1.4k plus $150 in utilities. One car payment on modest transportation will be about $200/month and insurance and gas might cost $200 more.
We're up to about $2k/month in expenses for what is a relatively normal cost structure. That monthly take-home on $38.5k annually? $3.2k.
We're down to $1.2k remaining cash each month and haven't considered heathcare, food, student loans, retirement, savings. And there aren't any kids in this equation yet, which causes another pile of problems if we assume the 1.8/family rate from the CIA Factbook.
These are just ball-park, but then, so is that household income. It is very easy to eat up income without living an extravagant lifestyle full of smartphones, laptops, and luxury vehicles.
$1.4k is way too much for somewhere that you're still driving to work from. I think a lot of people overestimate the value of a big house. You just end up filling it with junk.
If you get a smaller house - say $1k/month - suddenly you can afford to live very comfortably, and save some as well. $52k is absolutely a lot of money; of course there's always more things to spend it on, and I won't pretend more money isn't very nice, but $52k really should be plenty. Putting it another way: if $52k isn't enough to make you happy, $100k probably won't be either.
I appreciate the critique - I'm not from the KC area, so I don't have local intuition. Seattle rents in the city are about $1.2k to $1.6k for a single-bedroom apartment, and a 2-bedroom (as would befit a couple or small family) are north of $2k, so I don't have local context.
Can I ask what you mean by "really should be plenty"? I left out costs which, in my part of the country, would vastly exceed the remaining $1.2k in our little exercise. I guess I should have been explicit about this assumption. I am better off than the average American by far, but even so, student loans from my grad school (an extravagance, I know) hurt to the tune of $1k/month. I don't have kids, but feeding/clothing/sheltering them would take a pretty penny too, nevermind the costs to time, commute, etc.
Any one of the un-accounted-for expenses could vary wildly person to person, and could easily swallow up all that excess. I'm all for frugality and feel like folks have a lot to learn in that regard. Still, $52k for a household doesn't seem to math out without a whole lot of scrimping and luck.
I'm not from KC either, so I may be off base there. I do live somewhere with a higher average salary than nationally though.
Certainly there are places (SF in particular) where you're in a pretty bad place if you're making the national median, but I think anyone making the local median in those places is doing all right. The median is by definition not going to be a good place for keeping up worth the joneses. But if you opt out of the competitive things and just spend on what you need, I really think $52k is a pretty good place to be, and if you're struggling at that level (and aren't tied to a job in an expensive city) you should seriously look at downsizing your house/car/whatever your biggest expense is, because I have to wonder where all that money's going.
Of course plenty of people really are struggling - half of the country is on less than $52k after all. Below about $40k I'd definitely say "it's not you, it's your income" or something on those lines.
You're in Missouri so that might feel like it's a lot of money because you're living in a place with a significantly lower cost of living (10% lower than the rest of the country) but also a lower median income ($45,321 last year).
So for you that median income would be a 14% increase over what you expect - in an area where your buying power is also higher than the rest of the country on average...
Even throwing on a mortgage payment a couple can easily afford this - and this is a lot of luxury.