Sorry! :$ My "poverty" statement wasn't intended to be taken by you as a judgment about your personal situation - which I know virtually nothing about. It was meant to be a general suggestion on the right balance between enjoying life before retirement and enjoying life after retirement.
IMHO it doesn't make a great deal of sense to forego most of the pleasures of life in order to build a large enough nest egg to live like a 1%'er in retirement. Similarly, it doesn't make sense to plan for a lower standard of living after you retire. Maintaining your standard of living seems like it might be the best compromise.
Hah! no worries man, I didn't take it to mean that. I did mention early on that my perception of things and advice shouldn't be taken by anyone as a call to override your own happiness.
Certainly different individuals are going to have different definitions for happiness and comfort to themselves.
That rambling post of mine is simply a reflection of the general state of things and rather skewed perception that our current developed, absurdly comfortable and happy society has allowed us to enjoy now for several generations. Despite the political opinions of the day or what people pretend--we in the US are actually incredibly happy compared to previous generations. We have more than we ever have before and it's rather astounding that we can see messages to the contrary issuing forth from nebulous sources that have managed to convince a few people here and there that is some reflection of truth when only the slightest amount of investigation would reveal otherwise.
....anyhoo, I'm a pretty thrifty person in general but I have fancy tastes when it comes to food and some things but not much more than that. I thoroughly enjoy doing things on my own and being a molecular biologist for nearly 2 decades now, and having cooked my own food since high school, these sort of habits and skills really just come naturally. I like to spend money on fancy restaurants and crappy restaurants from time to time, but I find that I can very easily and very, very cheaply recreate successful approximations of the same class of food on a vanishingly thin budget--so I choose to do it. (vanishingly thin because I choose to make it so)
If I had maintained interest in going out boozing every other night and every weekend, and going to concerts frequently like I did in my college days, I would be spending tons more cash. I just lost interest in those things? Not everyone does, and no reason to change one's habits in such a way if that brings them happiness.
I love to travel and nothing is going to change that. I do prefer cheap ways to do it, obviously, but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet.
I'm fortunate to have lived in areas the the last 15 or so years where daily travel is cheap or nonexistent, but that is also a defined choice to live in places where I am both close to work (can pretty easily make CoS cheaper this way) and PT is plentiful.
We are irrational creatures and will always make irrational decisions in life and while I intend to make plenty of irrational choices and do so happily for the rest of my life, I still choose to reduce my irrational behavior in certain areas of life.
😉
I simply realized that my actual standard of living has, in reality, been really fricking cheap for many years and I was actually throwing away piles of money on things that brought me no greater happiness (simply eating out for lunch nearly ever day was a massive money sink). Both doing this and learning to be more efficient with all sorts of shopping (I likewise don't need a new .."wardrobe?" but every 2 or 3 years...again fortunate to work in a field where I can basically dress like a hobo nearly ever day...and it's more or less expected, unless you don't mind dumping HCL on your fancy new Ferragomos).
