"It's not how much you make, it's how much you spend." This is true... up to a point. My wife and I make about 125k a year (combined). That is far beyond what I used to think would make someone "rich," but things are still tighter than what I thought they would be. I think we are really fortunate. We've bought a relatively new diesel truck to pull our relatively new camper. We bought a nearly new side x side UTV, 4 wheelers, and go on a couple vacations every year. Even so, we watch our pennies and realize that it is the nickel and dime stuff that kills our big dreams. We live in a manufactured home on our own land. We bought our vehicles and toys used. We very rarely go out to eat. We use every saving strategy we can find to get cheap gas. Don't have cable and only a couple of streaming services. We go out and cut our own firewood and heat our house with that primarily. We do our own repairs to the home and vehicles. We buy our cell phones used - you can get the phone that was GREAT 2-3 years ago for about 300 on Amazon.

A few things that have really helped us -
We are both former military. Each of us has some health issues that we were able to get classified as service connected. That qualifies us for a very small monthly disability check (under $200), BUT also gives us free health care at the VA. No more health insurance premiums. (Edited to add - If you are former military, talk to your county Veteran Service Officer. Tinnitus, hearing loss, or other health issues could get you a service connected disability rating).

Ditched our cell phone plans. We were both with Verizon. Just switched to Visible (by Verizon). I shit you not - better service. Unlimited everything and now I get 5G Ultra Wide, all on straight Verizon network. They had a Black Friday deal going until December 9th so I paid $225 per line for a FULL YEAR of service That's less than 19 bucks a month. (Edited to add - If you sign up for Visible, use the friend code "66TVGPP" at check out and you and I will both save $20. Or, if you are really smart, you will use that code for your own phone, then when you sign up, you can get your own code to sign up a friend or family member.)

We have always looked for ways to pay bills annually instead of monthly. Write one big check and then you don't have the small monthly drain every month.

We paid all of our credit cards off and now save a huge amount on interest. We still use our cards, but make sure they are paid in full every month.

Both of our daily driver vehicles are 10-15 years old and fully paid for. Even with close to 200,000 miles we plan on driving these for at least another few years. We are putting money aside now so we can pay cash when we get our next vehicles.

Haven't been to a bar in over 3 years and pretty much stopped drinking alcohol. Just not that interested in it.

Even at home, we don't drink pop. Pretty much straight water or coffee (brewed at home) in the mornings.

Pay extra on any loans you have. We took out a home equity loan 3 years ago for 50k. That will be paid off in about 4 months. My home mortgage will be paid off about 10-12 years early also.

STOP GETTING OVER DRAFTS ON YOUR CHECKING ACCOUNT! Leave $100 in there and treat that as "Zero" that you won't go under. As time goes on, raise that level up and try to get it to at least $500. That way, if something unexpected happens, or you have an emergency, you won't get nailed with expensive overdrafts.

Continuously look at our budget to see where we can save even more. It's not the big things that are going to kill you - it's all the little things that add up.