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I'm one of those that save/invest 70% of their take-home income. It's not about frugality at all - I would gladly pay for an increased quality of life - but it'

I'm one of those that save/invest 70% of their take-home income. It's not about frugality at all - I would gladly pay for an increased quality of life - but it's simply not on offer. Past a certain threshold, a threshold well within the reach of western upper-middle-class households, the exchange rate between money and the quality of life becomes essentially zero. What's left are pointless status seeking games, scams and useless trinkets. The Bible's Book of Ecclesiastes describes it poignantly: > I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure[...] Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun

EEREPRESENT 5y ago
same experience here. i can afford everythihg but i dont need much. i dont think people understand what kind of stress relief is to say that u can live the life you want for 30-40 years without having to work.
bradlys 5y ago
You must live in a LCOL and/or make an extremely high amount of money and/or like to live an unusually low quality of life for your income. Saving 70% of your take-home in some place like the SFBA is saying you're an extremely high earner and/or you really like studio apartments.
fleddr 5y ago
Fully agree with you. I believe a few years ago there was research stating that roughly speaking, 70K per year (in spending) is the happiness threshold. Any spending above it leads to no, marginal, or only temporary extra happiness. I put that bar far lower, personally. We already have the stuff we need and don't enjoy shopping. We're basically stuck at a particular spending level whilst income grows over time. Saving a large portion of our income is effortless, and not at all a sacrifice of quality of life. The secret to life is to not want so much. It makes life so much easier and better.
- devonkim 5y ago
  The study is cited frequently but it’s misinterpreted frequently or in a disingenuous way. It merely says that among people earning so much, more money does not contribute as much for happiness. This has some sad realities: by and large the wealthier / higher income are much happier than our poorest, and giving money to our poorest have the largest gains in aggregate happiness. This is consistent with other studies on happiness - money makes everyone a little happier at least, and not having enough is a big problem. Sure, other studies also show how our poorer may be fairly happy and connected to communities and all that, but if you take a look at the data they are from decades and decades ago and include retirees as well. There is certainly an argument that diminishing returns is true in terms of happiness, but at the same time incomes explode beyond a certain point and data points become a lot more sparse and difficult to correlate back to the population. It’s quite difficult to not want so much given much of social pressures in developed countries are around consumption. This, the criteria to me is more broad than merely not wanting much - the question is about resisting social pressures and to be comfortable and thankful, and this seems to be inline with the data so far on happiness and social relationships as a whole (happy couples tend to have certain habits and innate drives prior to marriage like being selfless, gracious, etc for example)
  - fleddr 5y ago
    I think the direct implication of saying that 70K is the point of diminishing return is that people making less than it are less happy? I think the study therefore is consistent with what you're saying? For very high incomes, even without research data, I still find it only logical that excessive spending doesn't add much to happiness. This is due to almost every product/service not linearly improving as you spend more on it. A sports car is awesome but after 2 weeks you realize it still only takes you from A to B, and you internally normalize it. You can buy 30K worth of audio equipment but it will not sound 30 times better than 1K equipment, more like 5% better. Note that I'm purely looking at it from a spending perspective. As for societal pressures, I disagree. There's a lot of room for a compromise here. For example, our expenses on daily consumables is zero. We don't do Starbucks, going out for lunch, or any of it. Zero. Nobody is pressuring us to make those daily expenses and by looking at us, you can't tell whether we do or don't. This alone is a considerable monthly savings. We may use our clothes and shoes twice longer than a typical person, yet the wardrobe is large enough that absolutely nobody would be able to tell. Or care, for that matter. When you enter our house, you won't see some stripped down project by a frugalist. In fact, it is above average luxurious. We have furniture that is of such quality that it is effectively ever lasting. We have very high end electronics, not budget stuff. And so on. We may even appear richer than average whilst spending less than average. So the societal pressure is zero, because we don't appear poor or poorer compared to our peers. Cut daily expenses, buy quality and utilize the longer lifespan, put this delta into additional savings. Spend part of savings to lower cost of living (mortgage, energy bill), and get even more savings. Difficult? Easy.
ZephyrBlu 5y ago
If you already have good quality of life and it's not about frugality it sounds like you're a very high earner, in which case the point is moot. Most people don't have the option to save 70% of their take home pay and still live comfortably.
- troupe 5y ago
  Maybe, but most people who do have the option to save 70% of their take home pay don't. Perhaps our definition of what it means to live comfortably is partially to blame. I know a family of 10 that live very comfortably in a small 3 bedroom home, but most people wouldn't define it as comfortable for themselves.
mensetmanusman 5y ago
Ecclesiastes is the best, totally cured me of materialism, and I am happier for it.
nmfisher 5y ago
A lot of truth to this comment. I can’t believe the amount of money I wasted in my early 20s on…junk. Things that, with the benefit of hindsight, actually brought me no pleasure at all. I’m glad I realised this, and I totally agree - once you realize that consumerism doesn’t materially improve your life, your “minimum income threshold” drops considerably. For me, the biggest exception is travel, which really adds up if you want to take a couple of overseas trips per year.

EEREPRESENT 5y ago

same experience here. i can afford everythihg but i dont need much. i dont think people understand what kind of stress relief is to say that u can live the life you want for 30-40 years without having to work.

bradlys 5y ago

You must live in a LCOL and/or make an extremely high amount of money and/or like to live an unusually low quality of life for your income. Saving 70% of your take-home in some place like the SFBA is saying you're an extremely high earner and/or you really like studio apartments.

fleddr 5y ago

Fully agree with you. I believe a few years ago there was research stating that roughly speaking, 70K per year (in spending) is the happiness threshold. Any spending above it leads to no, marginal, or only temporary extra happiness. I put that bar far lower, personally. We already have the stuff we need and don't enjoy shopping. We're basically stuck at a particular spending level whilst income grows over time. Saving a large portion of our income is effortless, and not at all a sacrifice of quality of life. The secret to life is to not want so much. It makes life so much easier and better.

devonkim 5y ago
The study is cited frequently but it’s misinterpreted frequently or in a disingenuous way. It merely says that among people earning so much, more money does not contribute as much for happiness. This has some sad realities: by and large the wealthier / higher income are much happier than our poorest, and giving money to our poorest have the largest gains in aggregate happiness. This is consistent with other studies on happiness - money makes everyone a little happier at least, and not having enough is a big problem. Sure, other studies also show how our poorer may be fairly happy and connected to communities and all that, but if you take a look at the data they are from decades and decades ago and include retirees as well. There is certainly an argument that diminishing returns is true in terms of happiness, but at the same time incomes explode beyond a certain point and data points become a lot more sparse and difficult to correlate back to the population. It’s quite difficult to not want so much given much of social pressures in developed countries are around consumption. This, the criteria to me is more broad than merely not wanting much - the question is about resisting social pressures and to be comfortable and thankful, and this seems to be inline with the data so far on happiness and social relationships as a whole (happy couples tend to have certain habits and innate drives prior to marriage like being selfless, gracious, etc for example)
- fleddr 5y ago
  I think the direct implication of saying that 70K is the point of diminishing return is that people making less than it are less happy? I think the study therefore is consistent with what you're saying? For very high incomes, even without research data, I still find it only logical that excessive spending doesn't add much to happiness. This is due to almost every product/service not linearly improving as you spend more on it. A sports car is awesome but after 2 weeks you realize it still only takes you from A to B, and you internally normalize it. You can buy 30K worth of audio equipment but it will not sound 30 times better than 1K equipment, more like 5% better. Note that I'm purely looking at it from a spending perspective. As for societal pressures, I disagree. There's a lot of room for a compromise here. For example, our expenses on daily consumables is zero. We don't do Starbucks, going out for lunch, or any of it. Zero. Nobody is pressuring us to make those daily expenses and by looking at us, you can't tell whether we do or don't. This alone is a considerable monthly savings. We may use our clothes and shoes twice longer than a typical person, yet the wardrobe is large enough that absolutely nobody would be able to tell. Or care, for that matter. When you enter our house, you won't see some stripped down project by a frugalist. In fact, it is above average luxurious. We have furniture that is of such quality that it is effectively ever lasting. We have very high end electronics, not budget stuff. And so on. We may even appear richer than average whilst spending less than average. So the societal pressure is zero, because we don't appear poor or poorer compared to our peers. Cut daily expenses, buy quality and utilize the longer lifespan, put this delta into additional savings. Spend part of savings to lower cost of living (mortgage, energy bill), and get even more savings. Difficult? Easy.

ZephyrBlu 5y ago

If you already have good quality of life and it's not about frugality it sounds like you're a very high earner, in which case the point is moot. Most people don't have the option to save 70% of their take home pay and still live comfortably.

troupe 5y ago
Maybe, but most people who do have the option to save 70% of their take home pay don't. Perhaps our definition of what it means to live comfortably is partially to blame. I know a family of 10 that live very comfortably in a small 3 bedroom home, but most people wouldn't define it as comfortable for themselves.

mensetmanusman 5y ago

Ecclesiastes is the best, totally cured me of materialism, and I am happier for it.

nmfisher 5y ago

A lot of truth to this comment. I can’t believe the amount of money I wasted in my early 20s on…junk. Things that, with the benefit of hindsight, actually brought me no pleasure at all. I’m glad I realised this, and I totally agree - once you realize that consumerism doesn’t materially improve your life, your “minimum income threshold” drops considerably. For me, the biggest exception is travel, which really adds up if you want to take a couple of overseas trips per year.