http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/jason-rohrer/simpleLife.ht...
This is the real, real big issue. We are surrounded by our peers spending money and ads that tell us to spend more. It makes us lose touch with what's a need vs a want and what sort of spending would actually improve our lives. It's going to be different for everyone, of course, we aren't the same, we all have different priorities in life. I remember reading a Reddit post where someone thought a stay at home mom selling her (financed) car was totally ridiculous because the kids might have a doctor's appointment one day. This was an upvoted post. This was a second car and the family was in very siginficant debt. Sure, a second car is very nice but not anywhere near a "need" for a stay at home parent.
Like, uh, if she needs the car one day she can jut drive her husband to work and pick him up again.
Personally, my family can certainly afford a second car, but we have one car because a second car would costs thousands of dollars and it's just not worth thousands of dollars to us just to avoid the inconvenience of dropping my husband off at his work on my way to my work and picking him up again. That money is better spent on things that give us more joy then avoiding spending more time in the car together.
Every dollar spent requires trade-offs.
Having a spouse that agrees with you in the realm of personal finance and life goals is incredibly important. I don't think a marriage could last without having the same financial/life goals. Not without a large amount of resentment anyways.
Living on $10k doesn't have to mean only having income of $10k. I personally say "we live on $50k" but our income is more than 3x that.
It might be easier to start with a goal of maybe 80% first before moving to 50%? Seems overly ambitious to start with.