I just finished reading a book called "The Psychology of Money" Timeless Lessons on wealth, greed, and happiness by Morgan Housel which shared so many stories of people who became rich doing just the same thing as you describe. I wish someone had taught me how to do that back when I was young. Today, I invest as much as I can and am happy to be almost debt-free except for a few more car payments.
I think one's wealth is in how one perceives their lives to be. Rich is just a mindset and it rolls over into every area of your life. Money is just one factor although we all would love a great deal of it, wouldn't we?
There was a somewhat famous study done at one of the Ivy League universities, concerning money and happiness. They followed a group of people for more than a decade... and it was determined that beyond the point of having "basic comfort" met to where you are not stressing about bills, food and basics... it actually makes very little different to a person's happiness to have more money... and beyond a certain point, happiness actually starts to decline because the degree of worry associated with wealth starts to take effect.