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Comment by arkades | Hacker News Reader

As marginal utility goes, though, it sounds like “spending more money” in this story includes things like “having more than one room to live in.” And, admittedly this was an inference rather than baldly stated, “nice vacations.”

Money doesn’t just buy a different grade of items. It also buys a whole slew of novel experiences, of which you only get so many in your life.

Yeah, some amount of spending can make you happier.

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The ROI from vacations when your younger vs much earlier retirement seems to favor early retirement.

I emphatically disagree. If your job has high stress, then relaxing and checking out can pay huge dividends; up to and including the ability to maintain your high stress job. Additionally, for those of us who take more exploration-learning-bucket-list style vacations, the memories and knowledge offer more value the earlier in life you take them, as they contribute to lifelong education. Finally, the vacations provide networking opportunities, opening doors due to shared experiences leading to new friendships and possibly new jobs or clients.

You don’t need to travel to Hawaii to destress or make interesting memories. I simply recommend cheap vacations in your youth.

...and then you die at 35.

Live while you're alive. You don't know when the bus is going to come around that corner a little too fast.

Humanity has been having this debate for thousands of years, e.g. the fable of the Ant and the Grasshopper. It's a virtue to work hard and plan for the future. Delayed gratification is a foundational building block of civilization. There's a balance that each person must strike but I'm hesitate to criticize unless someone has parked at one extreme end of the spectrum or the other. The secret may be to more carefully measure and unnderstand experiential ROI from money spent which our traditionally materialistic focused consumer culture does not make very transparent.

That’s more convincing if you ignore interest. I do take long breaks between jobs, but I also avoid debt and save a huge percentage of my income.

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