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Comment by wickedsight | Hacker News Reader

> you could be dead by next morning

I feel like this is often overlooked in financial planning. Everything is aimed at planning for (early) retirement. Meanwhile, the '$1 today is more valuable than $1 tomorrow' trope isn't just true for monetary value, but also for the value $1 might bring.

$1 today can buy memories for the rest of your life. It can bring experiences with family members and friends. Having $1 million in the bank in 40 years will never buy back time you may have wasted working to save that money.

I'm not saying that people shouldn't save or invest money for the long term, but I do think more people should take into account what they lose today by only focusing on the long term... Especially when that long term might never come.

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The “Die with Zero” book may go a bit overboard but I think the general message is a good one - do not OVER sacrifice today (and your youth) for a wealthy future you can’t enjoy.

The Bogleheads forum is full of “I scrimped and saved and now have millions but I can’t even bring myself to buy a used Toyota.”

It’s such an old problem it’s mentioned in Ecclesiastes 2:21-23!

Another way to look at it is you have time, effort, and savings; you need to balance them all because time will run out. A local college kid can do things that Buffett will never be able to do, because he has youth and years, and no billions can buy those.

Funny how when I read this, it reminded me of something I make an effort to remind myself of as much as I can; Hording is easily leads to waste - the feeling of having a lot and control or lack of, of drawing the line.

I pivoted from a career in security operations to go full time into tech and I find myself gathering too much information to solve a problem that actually doing the thing. In a wise and brotherly Nigerian tone Too much of anything no good

But Buffett can do things a poor old person cannot.

But can he go for a run?

My dad says basically "what you have seen and what you have eaten cannot be taken away from you".

He burnt a lot of money taking us around: car trips, ski trips, windsurfing, camping, cycling. He never regretted it and now I try to follow suit and spend good time with my kids before they grow up. I could have saved the money but the money physically won't be able to buy the same thing 10 years from now. It's a race against time in a sense.

In Mexico we say "Lo bailado, ¿quién te lo quita?" which roughly translates to "Who can take away what you've danced?"

Agree. In the end there is no simple answer. One should save for the future, think about the long run (in Shaggy's words). But one should also enjoy the present - but that damn tent so your family can go camping.

What should the balance be? Nobody knows. Making predictions is really hard, especially about the future.

Like my plumber said: the best time to change the old drains and pipes in your house is the day before they break.

I agree, we hear too much about how to save and not enough about how to spend properly.

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