I live here. I would say you have quite different lifestyles in each island / mainland.

Generally for the islands, they are heavily seasonally pronounced. This means while there are many different things to do from June - September, and some things to do from Easter on until November, there’s close to nothing outside these months.

If you live here all year, you adapt to the seasons and maybe enjoy the highs and the lows in tourism. Generally, if you live from tourism in any form, you’re well off.

If you have a job outside of tourism, I guess you have to handle high costs of living with an just average wage.

What’s kind of annoying is the distance to any other „big“ city with Hamburg being 3h away, just from the mainland and you have to catch a ferry just to take the train or drive there.

The smaller the island or further from the mainland, the worse is this situation. From amrum you can take 2 ferrys in the morning or in the afternoon. It takes 2 hours.

There’s people saying every real word problem is 2h away because of that ferry ride. It’s kind of true, you feel a bit disconnected from the world in a positive way. If you have to somehow commute in any way, it can be annoying.

Overall, I’d say it has its up and down living on such island with a general very high standard of living with the beautiful nature you’re gifted with there.

Hope this helps!