I quit my well-paid, normal, boring job two weeks ago because I realized I fell into this kind of trap. It's been just two weeks and I already cut my spendings in half - no more expensive stuff when cheap would suffice, no more electronic toys which have zero ROI, no more spending just to make myself feel better. No more buying stuff because I'll be traveling a lot soon and just won't be able to take it all with me. I actually ended up putting lots of stuff on eBay because I realized I won't need it anymore.

When you get a paycheck every month, there is zero motivation to save. When you know there'll be no paycheck, you finally get your brain going and you start inventing ways to make money instead of slaving away.