Early in our relationship, we decided to live on one income and save the other.

The goal wasn’t early retirement. It wasn’t financial independence. We weren’t trying to optimize our lives or hack our way to wealth. We simply knew that someday we wanted to build something together, and having a little money set aside would give us options.

What we didn’t realize was how much that decision would change the way we thought about money.

Living on one income forced us to pay attention. We started questioning purchases that had previously felt automatic. We became more intentional about what we spent money on and, more importantly, what we didn’t.

And something surprising happened.

We discovered that many of the things we assumed would make us happy didn’t matter nearly as much as we thought they would. At the same time, ma ...