"If our situations were reversed- and you had a comfortable income and a house would you happily trade all of your money/assets in and be happy living within much smaller means?"
Honestly. I have never been as well off as you are, but I have been been better off than I am now and while of course I did spend some of that on myself/dd, more dd after she was born, I also have never been someone that is particularly into wanting certain material things. That's not because I think there's anything wrong with that per se it's just not who I am, I've always been someone who's happy as long as I have enough to live on and do fairly cheap hobbies/interests - again not because there's anything wrong with other hobbies interests it's just mine tend to be free/cheap. I also have always donated to my preferred charities whenever I've been better off and been a volunteer in a variety of roles when my health was better, I still do what I can to support the causes I care about albeit as I'm housebound that's limited to some minor admin for a local charity, signing petitions etc.
My dd is 18 now and will be leaving home in the next few years. I am giving serious consideration (in part for health reasons) to not even living in a one bed flat but moving to a studio or houseshare, though a houseshare could be problematic health wise, I don't need a whole flat to myself! Indeed there are some members of society I think need to be more open minded to living in different ways as older adults rather than under occupying larger properties (though I don't agree with forcing it via things like bedroom tax, and I think availability of smaller properties is part of the problem)
"Are there any examples of truly socialist societies which work?" It's never been truly tried anywhere to my knowledge (disclaimer I am not an economist or anthropologist) Communist countries aren't socialist, they're the extreme end of left wing politics but also somewhat of a bastardisation of socialism I feel.
I don't think taking what relatively ordinary people already have to give to those worse off is particularly workable and that's far closer to communism.
But I do think we need to even things out much more.
I don't think it's right that there's eg the CEO of Tesco in a huge house, with expensive goods like multiple cars etc and getting a salary of millions when the people on the ground doing the work which brings IN their profits are not even paid enough to live on!
It needs evened out throughout our society.
I don't think it's wrong to cut his/her salary by a couple million and reduce shareholders profits in order to pay the people doing the bulk of the work a decent living wage.
Which is good for our whole society in a number of ways as has already been pointed out. Everyone benefits from a healthier, happier, better educated, less crime prone society.