My buffer started at treat £2k as zero. As my wages went up I quickly started going over £5k and then £10k, didn't even know how to spend it. So I didn't spend it.

Within a few years of saving like £5-10k a year I had enough for a pretty good deposit on a house, like 15% or so. The house we got wasn't even at the higher end of what we could borrow. I don't want to min/max wealth, I want to live comfortably, and there are allotments across the road from us.