If you are striving to live a frugal or simple life, you probably already know the motivation for ‘giving something up’ is what you stand to gain.
It is all attitude on my part. If I look at it as giving something up I will not be happy. It is a big adventure for me. I love the things that come up everyday. I can do this and am a better person for it.

What have you gained from living simply, frugally or sustainably? What do you hope to gain? What have you traded in and have been the better for it?
As for giving up: I have gave up headaches, high blood pressure and blood work numbers that made the DR grab pen and pad to order pills. I am healther now than ever and no pills for me. Fresh air, pure water and good food cure many things. The benifits of exercise from gardening and feeding the animals.

How have you/your family focus on what you have and not what you don’t have.
I have a paid for house and plot of ground to do with what I will. I have better health, I am happier now than before. I have Blessings untold.

I KNOW others see us as "poor" because of all the little things we do - and DON'T do. I garden, shop at thrift stores, cut hair for all six of us, sew, cook from scratch, hang up laundry and so on [and on, and on]. My relatives especially respond to us as poor and are sometimes condescending. But - I know the real truth: we have a wealth beyond measure. We gave up credit card debt two years ago and now thrive in our frugal lifestyle. Our "sacrifices" mean that each of our children is learning animal husbandry on our urban homestead - instead of learning how to play video games. I "sacrifice" a lot of time to homeschool my children in order to give them the kind of education we feel is best. Our kids are also learning life skills taught in the context of real experiences - like repairing equipment, entrepreneurship, saving for things you need, making do with what you have, basic home maintenance and repair...etc.

I could write so much more about what we have "given up" over the years. I have no regrets for the choices we have made. When I heard my 16 year old son say "I wouldn't want to live any other way" - I knew that we have gained more than we left behind!

As for what we've gained by simplifying our lives, I'm not sure you have the patience for me to enumerate all of the positive benefits we've seen in our lives. The most important, though, has been the sense of coming together between my husband and me. It's made our relationship closer and stronger, because we have this very common goal, something tangible - our nanofarm here in the suburbs - and our goal is to, someday, not have to work outside of our home and to be able to support ourselves here. As a result of simplifying our lives we have a greater sense of purpose, and we feel like we're actually doing something, something important and worthwhile, rather than just getting through the day in a hurry to get to the next.