40k is good money yeah, my parents combined salary isn't much more than that. They never have a huge amount of money but they do ok, my dads debating buying a relative new audi this year so it can't be that bad.
You could live extremely comfortable with a mortgage, nice car and holidays on that kind of dough. Less comfortable if you had kids etc. But then you'd have a second income from the wife and eventually kids would get jobs.