What people earn is often only a tiny fraction of the equation.
We earn multiple times more than our next door neighbours, but as they inherited a large house divided into flats from a savvy grandparent who gifted it in stages to avoid inheritance tax (and didn't earn the money to buy it either - farming family built on land they owned generations ago) and they rent out two large flats as well as having other unearned passive income, they are better off than us.
If the OP has actually inherited enough to own a family house mortgage free and has enough in savings from that inheritance to find her children through university and her own pension, it really isn't comparing like for like when people with huge mortgages, who are prioritising savings, tell her she'll need random large sums if she wants to spend 2k a year on coffee, 12k a year eating out, 15k on holidays and 60k every 5 years (12k per year) buying a new car.
Actually she'll need about 40k for these luxuries, 12k a year for the M&S shop she wants, and 20k for other bills including electricity, gas, internet, TV, council tax unexpected replacement of white goods and car insurance, fuel, public transport although it sounds as though they plan to work from home/ from cafés... is fairly generous (no mortgage, rent, childcare or savings).
So 72k after tax for everything because the biggest cost for most families are not costs for them.
A family with a full time earner on 80k gross and part time earner on 20k gross could afford that comfortably.
Because they have a free house, unearned savings for the children's future and the part timer's pension and are content not to save more.
Earnings are only pocket money for some people who have had the big costs taken care of by previous generations. People paying for everything themselves aren't playing the same game.