A house
-- Just purchased, closing is closing in soon.
two cars
-- completely mandatory. We couldn't possibly bus, we have two used cars approaching two decades old and we're dreading the day they croak.
a healthy relationship
-- married in July
a career
-- For me, finally started the career I wanted two years ago, after a decade of trying to become a programmer I finally am. Wife might be in a career now, she's not quite sure. She's happier where she is than Target, but that's a low bar.
livable wage
-- livable with the ability to go on vacations (mostly anime and comic conventions)
~~2.5 kids~~
-- don't want them at the moment.
a dog
-- ... two cats

I do NOT in any way feel like I've earned this. I have been saving to buy a house EVER SINCE I paid off my student loans. I dumped all my money for YEARS to get that debt off of my books and after I did, I immediately started saving. Didn't even change my living habits because they were habits at that point. I didn't even have a GF at the time. I just knew that I wanted to be ahead, because I knew that it was going to be a slog when I was finally ready to buy a home. Just like it was a slog to get into my career, just like it was a slog. I wanted to be AHEAD I wanted a good home. And after all that effort I got...

half a duplex for $305,000... Cheapest we could find if you don't count badrealestate suggestions on lemmy.

All that effort and I barely have a home. barely. We could've taken a larger loan but, shit happens. We could've been laid off, One of our cars could've needed to be replaced, We could've been disabled, We could've had our identity stolen, We could've been scammed, We could've been robbed, We could've come across a cop who didn't like our faces, We could've missed payments because Wells Fargo SUCKS and have our credit killed.

All of these things DIDN'T happen to us, so we got to purchase a house. Because if any of those things happened to us, we would've dipped into savings and we wouldn't be purchasing a house in our 30s. All of those things that could've happened were completely out of our control. (except for Wells Fargo, you can choose to not be fucked by Wells Fargo by LEAVING Wells Fargo)

So... there is no plan, only a lottery.