You want to buy everything on your mental, happiness list. You can't. You can save for some of those things though. Try to start understanding happiness, not in terms of what you can buy, but in the financial freedom you are establishing for yourself by preparing for the future and emergencies and staying out of debt. Begin to see happiness in building a financial base that helps you take control over your life. It is good collateral.
Assets
Assets are hard to acquire on a tight budget but are desirable to obtain. Acquisition of assets like cars, property, bank funds, retirement plan savings, shows the bank that you can be trusted with money; you've used your funds wisely. This position can help when you are in need of a loan from a financial institution.
Financial Freedom
This is the dream and it can be done. It is a hard objective to reach for sure, but with proper planning, saving and spending, one can attain it. Yes, many people are either in debt or are not in a great position to retire on time. Many people today are underfunded or will have to work a few extra years before retiring on a low end retirement plan. There are two ways to go about this and neither will be easy.
The first way may seem like the easiest way and for the most part it is the easiest way. There are many investment or insurance companies that will help you including your bank. They have varieties of plans that will build up the amount of funds necessary such that one day you will have enough to stop working. The only problem with these plans is the amount of funds that they expect people to put up each chosen period (usually monthly). It takes a lot of money in regular installments to attain such freedom. If a family can put aside enough funds in such an account it will certainly be worth it when the time comes to retire.
The second way to do it is DIY (do it yourself). This takes some learning and hard work to save enough money to attain financial freedom and you must realize there are differing levels of success. Using a budget program with calculators, properly planning family goals, living within your means, using great spending habits, staying away from bad debts, saving wisely, learning to invest and not straying from the budget are some of the main necessities to success. There are many issues to overcome as well. It requires keeping a constant income, not getting into any bad debt and keeping a good enough emergency fund to withstand such setbacks. These are ways to help ensure your financial dreams flow smoothly. If need be, making a few adjustments such as downsizing or missing a few objectives should still be ok.