alt Hacker NewsAvoiding scaling your lifestyle with tour current wealth seems like an extremely important lesson people could learn here. Very few people know what "enough" means to them.
Its probably worth noting that I mean "enough" in the context of consumption and physical goods. "Enough" wealth doesn't really matter, its only a number in a database or a piece of paper until you spend it.
Replies
Not only that, but it’s important. Needless to say I am not comparing net-worths :) My rent spend started increasing around 4-5th year (steeply) of starting my first job and I saw it and kinda stopped/curbed it at somewhere like 7th year. It has remained there (give or take) because it had reached a really good level (below luxury or ultra premium so to speak) wrt my city’s general rental trends and spends (of course inflation factored in). It’s been 8 years since and I have been without a job for last two years (a bit by choice, if certain things can really be called choice) and pretty much my other spending trends also kinda plateaued around those years (experience spends kept going up slowly but I find them easier to manage). I can’t explain how much it has helped me when I have been living on savings for straight 2 years now. Not just the specific relative smaller amount but more so the predictability of it.
>Very few people know what "enough" means to them.
Does this ultimately come down to Taste?
It is hard to judge what is enough. While a Civic is a perfectly good car, it certainly isn't the safest, nor does it have the best riding experience. Once you get into attention to details, what is "enough" often means mediocre.
I want "good enough" from a crazy perfectionist. Like Steve Jobs' Apple.
To a certain extent this is true. You shouldn’t be going into debt just because your income level allows you to get more loans etc. But once you reach a certain income threshold it doesn’t really matter.
So what was the point of him living a frugal, simple lifestyle? I would argue that its just something he was used to and found joy in, and thats ok. Some people like that. Others might want to use their money to unlock new experiences that come with it. Thats ok too.
I don’t disagree, I just don’t think “living in the same house for decades” qualifies as a clear signal of living simply. It could just as easily be a front or compulsive frugality. Or a really nice house to begin with. For instance, there’s no way my family would fit in the first house my wife and I bought. And we couldn’t have afforded our current house back then, either. It’s also worth noting that 60+ years ago was a very different house-buying experience. So I don’t think there’s much to learn from the fact that Warren Buffett bought a house back then and still lives in it, other than that it worked out for him and he’s not flaunting his wealth for whatever reason makes sense to him.