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Comment by pavs | Hacker News Reader

One of the most important lesson I have learned is the importance of savings and living a frugal life. Even if you are independently wealthy, living a frugal life can give you a sense of introspection that is hard to understand for most when you are wealthy.

Save. Save. Save.

They say you learn your biggest life lesson as you stumble through your experiences in life. Poverty is something you would NOT want to experience in your life and there is no guarantee you will survive through it and when (or if) you do survive it might take a big chunk of your life you will never get back or recover from the process.

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My desire to do this though, causes the problem that I feel like I can't stop working and constantly increasing my savings.

The idea that if I take time off for a while to work on something at a loss, the damage will be too great due to the long time effects of compounding interest etc and the desire to build a prosperous life for my family.

So I think I have the opposite problem. I have a hard time stepping off the gas pedal to pursue things that would probably be more beneficial and enjoyable.

it seems as though you are talking about something different from the OP. you are emphasizing building wealth, the OP is emphasizing restraint.

It is two sides of the same coin: you can't build wealth without exercising restraint. Look at all the professional young sport guys who earned millions in no time, and who wasted it all on senseless bling-bling.

And he says, "work on something at a loss", which is definitly not building wealth, it is anti-saving. If you are a saver, you'll always save money no matter how much or how little you earn. Spending your savings is against your nature.

Saving money is living in the possibilities, in the mind.

~30,000$ in rice today was significant wealth 1,000+ years ago. (It's all the calories someone needs over a reasonably long life.)

However, IMO wealth is best measured as a multiple of your lifestyle, someone with a billion in the bank who spends 300 million a year can't retire without cutting back, but someone with 1 million in the bank who spends 20k/year can.

It's not just about restraint. His point on frugality (I think) was it's important to release capital for reallocation. It depends what you read into "save", because you'll not build much wealth by holding cash on deposit. I would put it more as "invest, invest, invest". Read "The Intelligent Investor" and go from there.

i disagree, although i don't look it as the dichotomy between "save your money" vs "spend your money on stuff", either.

i don't feel like you should stockpile your money for the nebulous future. yes, you should save it up to have an emergency fund. yes, you should start saving some for retirement. yes, you should save your money to make larger purchases instead of using credit. etc..

but you shouldn't let the drive to save money create anxiety and thereby lock you into a lifestyle. save, yes, but don't let the need to save dictate your life and your career choice. if you're much happier doing something where you don't have the $ to save as much, life will be much better.

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