I personally do place a great deal of importance on how much I earn but there a limit to what can be done depending on where you live and what you feel comfortable doing. For me I have worked in call centres for 10+ years, got to a breaking point of not being able to do it anymore as its just too stressful having to deal with people. In a job at the moment where I don't have to speak to anyone directly and its in a small office, still making what I did before as up here that's generally the cap for "unskilled workers" unless you go further into something.
Also keeping in mind different areas of the country have different spending/cost of living, up in the north east having £300+ spare each month is a good chunk of change, most are broke or living payslip to payslip.
On top of that any money I have extra say £200-300 if I decided to spend some of it, goes straight into savings and will just make the £10k+ savings I have go up and up with money there for emergencies that isn't really going to get touched.
I'm in very I'll say "privilaged" spot, I have £84800 in the bank currently in my savings just saved over a 10 year span of time (I've been lucky enough to be able to put away 1k every month for the most part in savings), by the time the sale is complete I'll have around £10-11k after all fees/solicitor costs/buying simple furnature. Even more if it takes longer than January (which it will haha)
I'll be mortgage free in 10 years time (assuming nothing bad happens!) something not many first time buyers can say. I see plenty of people who buy waaaaaaaay above there means taking out 95% mortgages as they are maxing out what they are capable of lending. I suppose thats a biproduct of the recent years of very very low interest rates, which is not going to be the case going forward.
I'm not a mimimalist, but I hate "things", clutter, the only things in my house would be the basics. TV, 2 seater sofa, bookcases, double bed with a side draw, computer desk/computer and then a few "things" such as a big rug in the living room, some pictures on the walls, a cat climbing tower, maybe a bean bag chair, washing machine/fridge/wardrobe is already there won't be changing them anytime soon. Would I want more, yeah sure but its a WANT, not a need, I don't miss not having "things" and prefer to keep things as simple and clean as possible. The cat is where my money goes the ungrateful sod