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"Anyone regret being too thrifty in your younger years?"
not me.
Compound interest is my friend.
This! I did survive a divorce but ended up better for it financially because the Ex was a spendthrift who was unemployed the last 5 years of the marriage and we each took a very nice chunk of equity from the sale of the marital home. Instead of buying myself a new Maserati, I added a large mortgage to my stake and later sold the new place and cleared $200K, and didn't need that much for a new place because I moved to a LCOL area. Nice chunk to add to the retirement savings, in addition to the $100K my new husband cleared when he sold his house.
I've always been driven by a fear of being old and poor. Over-saving was better for me because there was utility just in having a pile of money that I'm unlikely to outlive. And, once I married someone whose financial priorities matched mine (live modestly but travel), we started traveling together. So many wonderful memories and, although he died 2 years ago, I'm still at it.
Over-saving also allowed me to retire at age 61 when I got fed up with corporate BS, and to donate generously to charity and to the grandkids' 529s. No regrets at all because travel was the one thing I REALLY wanted to do and I did that.
I regret not having the money or time to do certain things when I was younger. Sometimes, it wasn't about money, either. It was about not getting time off work to travel anywhere.
But now you find yourself on a big wad of cash that's waiting to be spent but not enough time to spend it or your body is too worn and beat up to enjoy travel and other hobbies.
No, I don't feel at all like I have to spend all my money before I die. We have some charities in our will and I am thrilled that they are going to get some money from us. So we are not spending like drunk sailors.
What I do regret though is the part about health and being worn out. That has affected DW and me faster than we thought it would and I wish we would have retired earlier to be able to get more done.
No, we spent just enough to feel comfortable and keep most of the creditors away. Now we're in a savings mode; no kids, but my niece is doing amazing work in Haiti and Nicaragua, and I want to help fund her work there. She opened my eyes to a lot of people that are in desperate need of help. I only wish I had more $$ to help more people, both here and abroad. I now know what I would spend it on if I won the lottery.
We studied budgeting and tax-planning. We focused a lot of our energy on building our net worth. It paid off for us, I was able to retire early. We are not wealthy, but we get along okay.
Now I am 17 years into retirement and my body is beginning to fail.
There is a part of me that regrets not spending vacations doing fun things. During my working career, I was deployed a great deal so I missed a lot of our children growing up.
I know it balances out, if I had not done that phase of my life, then I would not have retired as early as I did. Retirement is nice
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