I feel fortunate to make enough money to easily afford the rent, but it's insane that in most places you need a high paying job to escape needing a car. Refugee and low-income housing here is clustered around major streets like six-lane one-way transport corridors. Unless they work downtown or close to a stop on one of the few bus lines that run frequently and reliably, they need cars. Usually the cheapest they can afford, which likely means they need to spend money they don't have to get them passing emissions tests at registration time, deal with breakdowns, high insurance premiums, etc.
It doesn't help that most of the planned transit improvements seemingly are focused on greenification of buses rather than just getting more buses on the road to expand routes, make lines frequent enough to use for commuting, etc.
My city did pass some new zoning codes which heavily cut back on parking requirements, I'm excited to see how that (slowly) pans out. I expect more high-capacity parking structures to go up, fewer surface lots. People might need to walk further or explore other last-mile options, I have hope that will turn people's eyes towards non-vehicle transportation improvements.
So, in your case, you only really need to make more to afford a walkable lifecycle if you still want to own a car and have the option to use it to drive to places outside of your walking distance. Of course, completely moving to a lifestyle where all travel is public trasit and airport-based is tough to achieve, but it could be a worthwhile price to pay depending on how often you travel and where (since the time investment is also high for cars in the U.S. with how far apart each city is from the next).
0: https://www.bankrate.com/loans/auto-loans/average-monthly-ca...
1: https://www.bankrate.com/insurance/car/average-cost-of-car-i...