Humans can and will turn anything into a status symbol. Cars, careers, kids, even how many birds you've seen and photographed. But we all want to believe good things about ourselves; we all want to believe we have made good decisions. There's some great FI lazer-focus on these forums, for example, but you really have to pick the savings rate that is best for you, and this is going to be different for everyone. For example, I'm at 50%, but there is no shortage of people killing it at 70%+. I just realized that going higher was going to push me to insanity and not leave me with any flexibility. It turns out that I still save more than this, but some of this is earmarked for fun and life. Also, I'm seriously struggling to keep my food budget below threshold. I'm doing great in every other area, so it seems silly to beat myself up over this one. The point is that you are still setting aside loads of money, and your future is much brighter for it, so feel free to relax a little :)