You've said it in your post - you want the proverbial cake and eat it (yeah, I'm sounding cruel again, sorry).
This is a classic contemporary thing - surrounded by media and advertising sound-bites about work-life balance and busy lives and modern conveniences etc ect.
My wife and i had completely different upbringings. Her family ducked and dived on modest wages, council housing etc and whenever there was a bit spare they lavishly spent it. Chrstmasses were loads of things to unwrap, everything bought for convenience, making christmas a lavish affair, new bikes for the kids to keep up with the joneses and nothing in the bank.
My folks had entirely different priorities. Dad had a decent job but essentially was frugal. We didn't have a telly until i was in my teens and then only 'cos someone gave one away. Priorities were shelter and food and as much as could be was done or made at home. My first bike was from a local auction site and I had to strup it down, de-rust it, repaint it and repair it before it was rideable. My parents did spent lots of time with us as kids.. but a lot of that time was the family doing stuff together whether that was repainting or dad supervising me with the bike renovation or helping Mum baking. Holidays were camping in europe in army surplus tents and any meal out was a very rare treat.
Don't get me wrong - we had a great upbringing with parents always there and always ready to help dreams come true..but usually by dint of working for it or making it rather than off-the-shelf. When my dad decided to early retire from his job with a lump sum it was to buy a plot of land to build a house on. He retrained as a teacher and also worked as a freelance translator. For the house build he acted as labourer, carpenter and made all the cupboards, laid all the floors etc in between all the other things he was doing.
That frugal gene stayed with me. When i qualified as a vet and started working I followed that pattern. I didn't suddenly feel well off and bought stuff... far from it I started shoving spare cash into assorted insurance and pension plans and still was careful with any spending - secondhand furniture and essential clothing and care with shopping, cooked for myself despite the long hours I worked back then. Indeed I hardly ever took a holiday and when i did take time from work i usually went off and did a locum job somewhere.
When i did finally manage to raise enough deposit for a house it was a case of strip the whole thing out and fix it up. Even my wedding was a self-catered affair. It was all a slow progression. When i did finally manage to get my own clinic I still used to do the basic maintenance and tiling and stuff. I can recall more than one occassion when i was painting or tiling or fixing the conservatory roof gone midnight because i had to have stuff finished in time to get a few hours kip before morning surgery.
Eventually the business got big enough that i could relax and start to take holidays and hire builders but that was some 20 years post qualifying but even then when the time came to expand the business I abandoned all my hobbies and spends to do that and rolled my sleeves up again and worked the extra hours. My present lifestyle is a result of finally retiring and selling up and moving to a cheaper part of the UK. While I concede that hose prices back then were relatively cheaper we also went through the era of mortgage rates of 15%.
What I'm really getting at is that if you want something badly enough then there's usually a way. Look closely at what you really want and what you fritter money on- those coffees you buy out, holidays, mobile phone contracts, parties, presents the kids play with once and put away, a second or even thrid job, charity shops, buying an older banger instead of a leasing a car you never own, scrap any sky subscription, shop wisely for food, packed lunches for work. Most folk who really sat down to take stock should find significant savings. You can spend time with the kids without taking them to theme parks and expensive outing. there's heaps of museum, libraries, places of interest, diy projects they can help with and skills they can learn. How much would you have saved over the last 6yrs as a member of this forum if you'ld really been that careful - turning all the lights off at home, thinking twice about full loads in the washer. And are you prepared to do that in exchange for some land? or will you be too old and worn out by the time your dream happens?