You may love your job. You may love helping people and fixing problems and making life better for others, whether you’re a physician or a plumber or a software developer. You might love your job so much that you never experience the so-called Sunday Scaries and that you might actually look forward to returning to work after a long, satisfying vacation.
But that doesn’t mean we don’t fantasize about NOT working and about what the life of an early retirement might bring.
That’s where I find myself sometimes. Working as the WCI content director for the past five years is the best job I’ve ever had, and I have no plans to retire anytime soon. But I, probably like you, sometimes wonder how I could fill my days if I didn’t have work and if I had enough money to last through a 40- or 50-year retirement. Part of the reason, though, I don’t think much about joining the FIRE movement (at least when it comes to retiring super early in your 30s, 40s, or early 50s) is because my wife and I are not willing to forgo spending money now on what makes us happy just so we can have more money later.
We don’t want to Lean FIRE. We don’t want to be frugal. Instead . . .
We travel internationally. We spend plenty of money on our kids’ activities. We outsource the chores we abhor.
We want to love our lives now and love them later instead of sacrificing happiness and joy now just to retire a little bit earlier.
A while back, I came across a Reddit thread on the FIRE subreddit that asked this intriguing question: what expenses do you regret avoiding to reach FIRE? Some of the answers I found in that thread and in other places around the internet reaffirmed how my wife and I live our lives.
FIRE Regrets
Here’s how one redditor responded:
“. . . I actually regret not allowing myself a little bit more freedom for small purchases. I used to beat myself up about spending at restaurants or on a little coffee or something, but I did these things very rarely and I only did them to be with people who wanted to go to restaurants or coffee shops in order to socialize.
When I started keeping really strict budgets, I noticed what an infinitesimally small amount I spent on these things, and that it was OK to spend a little more for pleasure . . . I stopped feeling guilty because it's a very small amount, and I should have stopped feeling guilty a long time ago. Monitoring myself actually ended up giving me more freedom because I realized how little I was giving to myself.”
This is the classic (and probably misguided) idea of, “Don’t spend money on a daily latte; don’t you know how much that $5 a day can compound in 30 years?” Yes, but what if you’re not around in 30 years? What if drinking the coffee today gives you joy for the next hour or two? Why not just enjoy the small pleasures of life today?
Another redditor said,
“I’m just four years into retirement. I wish I had planned to get more from my 401(k) into a Roth. I’m converting about $14,000 per year now, and can’t do much more than that without a significant tax impact, at least until I hit Medicare age. I think financially I did it right and am doing it right, but mentally, I want it all done now now now . . . I think I saved the right amount and I understood the tax situation, but realizing that my 401(k) is really worth only about 80% of what’s in there because of taxes just emotionally digs at me. So, I might have worked an extra year and mentally set that salary aside as ‘tax’ so that I don’t dwell on it so much now.”
As Jim Dahle says all the time, the Roth vs. traditional 401(k) question is one of the most complex in personal finance. But that comment is also a good argument in favor of Roth conversions.
One other person wrote,
“Buying new books—I love books. Life is too short to wait for a book at the library.”
I appreciate this perspective, but I also don’t want to have 500 books that I’ll read just once littering my home. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you could drop it off at one of those free little libraries or put it on your local Buy Nothing Facebook group or whatever, but I’d rather just drop off my books at the library when I'm done with them.
Here were some of my other favorite responses in that Reddit thread:
More information here:“Buying cheap toilet paper.”
“My [father-in-law] enjoyed eating frozen pizzas for dinner, died with $3 million just to say he was frugal and loved it. My [mother-in-law] now doesn’t cook for herself and lives in a very nice full concierge style apartment complex. The juxtaposition is wild.”
“Took a 17-hour flight . . . Offered first class at check-in for $900 . . . round trip. That was seven years ago, and I still regret not doing it.”
Living for Now
One of the most intriguing keynote presentations I saw at WCICON25 was Jordan Grumet’s What the Dying Can Teach Us About Money and Life. He also spelled out his thought process on this issue on his The Purpose Code Substack. As Grumet, who works part-time as a hospice doctor, wrote,
“When I sit at the bedside of my dying patients, not one of them regrets not working more nights or weekends. Not one says, ‘I wish I’d saved more money.' What they do regret is not living more fully. Not spending time with the people they love. Not doing things that gave their lives purpose.
FIRE often overemphasizes the dollars. Whether it’s how aggressively you save, how little you spend, or how fast your net worth grows—too much of the conversation centers on the money itself.
But money is only ever a means. The real goal should be how you spend your time, how you shape your days, and whether those days reflect the life you want to live.
When money becomes the obsession, we miss the point entirely.”
Ever since I started my journey to financial literacy in 2019, I’ve wrestled with the spending vs. saving ratio. I’m lucky that I love my profession and that I don’t feel the need to retire so I can escape from something. I’ve also spent hundreds of dollars in the last few weeks to see five concerts (Tomahawk/The Melvins, Bryan Adams, Lionel Richie/Earth, Wind & Fire, Santana/The Doobie Brothers, and The Suicide Machines), and I don’t think saving that money and not seeing those performances would make me feel happier if I could retire a month or two earlier than I normally would.
I’m also lucky that my wife and I are on the same page with this philosophy. We’ll continue to travel (though we probably won’t be buying business class tickets anytime soon). We’ll continue to treat ourselves to nice dinners. We’ll continue to spend money on what makes us happy now instead of having the ability to retire a year or two earlier.
I want to enjoy all my life, not just the life that happens once I close my work laptop for the last time.
More information here:- How WCI Readers Live, Worry, and Withdraw Money in Retirement
- Paula Pant Asks: Do You Want to Retire or Are You Simply Tired?
Money Song of the Week
As we wave a sad goodbye to Dolly Parton, who died at the age of 80 last month, let’s travel back to 1971 and submerge ourselves in one of her early hits.
I don’t need to write a long tribute to Dolly. If you loved her, you’ve probably read, seen, and heard a bunch of them anyway. I never listened much to her music (and, somehow, I’ve still never set foot in Dollywood), but the recollection of her actions to make this world a better place has made me emotional on more than one occasion in the past few weeks (seriously, I don’t know a celebrity has been this beloved since Betty White died in 2021).
She grew up poor, and though she died a wealthy woman, Dolly never forgot what it was like living in rural Tennessee as a child.
We’ve already covered 9 to 5 in our Money Song of the Week series, so let’s rewind the tape 55 years and listen to her sing Coat of Many Colors, a tune about her mother being gifted a box of rags and then using those rags to sew a coat for Dolly.
If you had to swallow a lump in your throat a few times—because of the song's subject matter, because of Dolly’s live performance, because she’s now gone—you are not alone.
As Dolly sings,
“So with patches on my britches and holes in both my shoes/In my coat of many colors I hurried off to school/Just to find the others laughin' and makin' fun of me/In my coat of many colors my mama made for me.
“And, oh, I couldn't understand it, for I felt I was rich/And I told 'em of the love my mama sewed in every stitch/And I told 'em all the story Mama told me while she sewed/And how my coat of many colors was worth more than all their clothes.”
You know, I really should be listening to more Dolly.
More information here:Instagram Reel of the Week
We talk plenty about living like a resident, but sometimes, you've just got to make the luxury purchase when you get your first attending paycheck.
Where do you stand on FIRE these days? Are you willing to be frugal now so you can retire earlier? If you've already FIRE'd, is there anything you regret?
Did you find this article helpful? Share it!
