Before working in high-tech, I worked in retail for a short while. My experience is in retail or other lower-paid jobs it's almost impossible to save money, and not because of the salary. I found I needed to 'reward' myself almost everyday with a relatively expensive thing to keep going. An expensive coffee, 'fancy' meal (think more expensive than the 3.50 sandwich+drink combo I could afford). Interestingly, working in tech, I never needed any of this.