The point missed in most save/invest vs. spend arguments is this:
If you've been raised to be a saver, you are well trained at living cheaper/less frivolously. Note that this presupposes that you make enough money to live reasonably and save; I'm not talking about the extreme poverty cases where immediately spending the rare windfall actually makes sense.
By cheaper, I mean one car instead of two, simpler vacations, less eating out, less fancy house, "using up" quality consumer goods instead of constantly replacing them with the latest fashionable stuff (e.g. second complete kitchen makeover in 15 years).
Suppose person A makes X and spends X and saves nothing. Person B makes the same, but spends 0.5X and saves 0.5X. Now suppose an economic disaster where all those savings are wiped out and A and B additionally end up taking a 50% pay cut. Who will continue to live in comfort, albeit with misgivings about not being able to save up again?
It's protective against downside, but can constrain your upside. I was raised a saver, and it's been very hard to hire out simple tasks & let go of trifles, which in turn constrains how much time & energy you have to focus on increasing your earnings. As a low earner, it's better to focus on efficiency & DIY, but as a high earner it's irrational to spend an hour getting bent out of shape over a few dollars.
Absolutely agree, which is why, for example, I don't do my own car repairs any more. But you can still have a less fancy car and keep it longer. And I don't want to focus on increasing my earnings. I'd much rather be fixing something around the house.
The problem with car and house repairs is that even if you have money to pay for it, managing them still takes tremendous amount of time. In fact so, that for trivial repairs it's easier to order supplies and tools and do them myself. So one way or another car and house consume time.
Next level is to hire people to manage it for you, but this is completely different level of income.
If you've been raised to be a saver, you are well trained at living cheaper/less frivolously. Note that this presupposes that you make enough money to live reasonably and save; I'm not talking about the extreme poverty cases where immediately spending the rare windfall actually makes sense.
By cheaper, I mean one car instead of two, simpler vacations, less eating out, less fancy house, "using up" quality consumer goods instead of constantly replacing them with the latest fashionable stuff (e.g. second complete kitchen makeover in 15 years).
Suppose person A makes X and spends X and saves nothing. Person B makes the same, but spends 0.5X and saves 0.5X. Now suppose an economic disaster where all those savings are wiped out and A and B additionally end up taking a 50% pay cut. Who will continue to live in comfort, albeit with misgivings about not being able to save up again?