My grandparents, both now deceased, worked pleasant jobs in a small town -- a part-time technician at the hospital and a high school teacher. But then, at age ~40, in the 1970s, they decided to quit working, and move to an island on a beautiful, remote lake. They chopped all their own wood, grew/harvested 90% of their food, and DIY'd all repairs. Their commute included hopping into a rusty little motorboat and putting to the mainland, then hopping into their car so they could go on their monthly grocery trip. They even began a little real estate empire in the area, by building cute little cabin/shacks on the lakeside and then selling the properties for a profit. They lived in the middle of nowhere, doing literally everything themselves, until their 70's.
But even cooler, half their year was spent traveling internationally on the cheap, by staying for weeks at a time with friends that they met on their travels. Eventually, they began snowbirding down to Florida 6 months of the year -- again living on an island, this time in the ocean.
They lived so simply for so many years, that even after 8+ years in a full service assisted living home, after my grandma had passed away, she still had enough assets left to leave a solid inheritance to her descendants.
I really admire them both for embracing such relentless frugality and an objectively more difficult life (all the intensive, full time labor ended up being pretty tough on them physically, especially in their later years) in exchange for essentially living in the wilderness, where they were happiest. They were such badasses.
There were flaws, of course. My grandpa was an angry alcoholic for most of his life, and they often swung a bit too far past frugality and into "cheap" territory. Think shoddy home repairs that their kids would have to come repair the repair because grandpa refused to stop doing things even as his eyesight was shot; refusing to move into a less physically intensive home even after my grandma was debilitated with 2 major, advanced diseases; going to auctions weekly and buying boxes and boxes of junk just in case there was a treasure inside; and some hoarder tendencies - 12 rusted, useless cars, sheds full of random junk, etc. But even then, I still really admire their story of living the life they loved.
