Money isn't anything in and of itself, and that is really critical to understand.
Spending is not "bad" and saving is not "good" and thinking of money in those terms is highly pathological.
Money in the bank literally isn't anything unless you do something with it or decide that it is something to you.
Let me unpack that: money is just a placeholder for time and energy. Time may be defined, but it's value changes depending on how you feel about it. Energy is also self defined, it can be physical energy, motivation, emotional energy, etc, and it's value changes constantly as well.
The time and energy it takes me to make eggs at home is minimal compared to the $16 dollars and time I would have to spend at a brunch place. It's an easy trade off. However, there have been times sitting in a clinic waiting room waiting for biopsy results where I would have gladly paid thousands to experience less nervous energy and waiting.
Time and energy have relative values, which means that money does as well.
"But Malkynn, my FIRE number is 1M with a 4% WR of 40K/yr! That's a clear and definable set of numbers. Certainly that's not relative, it's math!"
Sure...it's math...but it's made up of numbers you made up for yourself based on completely relative metrics. You decided for yourself that 40K/year was the number that would be "enough" to live a "happy life" indefinitely. Well, what defines that number? What do you need to be happy? Your housing costs? Your healthcare? Your diet? Your travel plans? These are all flexible numbers that are products of a series of lifestyle decisions you are making for yourself. They are all exchanges between time/energy/money.
All of these calculations, budgets, and tracking of numbers are great. Learning to be frugal is great. Setting achievable goals and working towards them is great. It's just not the whole picture, and it's not the end of the work that needs to be done to achieve A Happy Life.
Dave Ramsey may be the elementary school version of personal finance, where his baby steps are amazing for helping people get out of debt and start saving, but we all know it kind of falls off of a cliff from there. Well, savings rates, budgets, and FIRE targets are the same way. They're great first steps for learning how to live much much better through spending less, but once you remove any "consumer sucka" spending from your life...well...the savings is not the end goal. In fact, it's actually just the beginning.
Having a solid handle on your finances is a *pre-requisite* for living A Happy Life, but that's it.
Money will never do the heavy lifting of happiness, neither spending it nor saving is can compensate for not doing the work yourself.
Money is a critical tool of building your best life, but you still need to do the very intense work of evaluating every trade off of time/energy/money in order to find the right balance, and you also need to be able to adjust that balance constantly as the values perpetually change.
Look at MMM's life now, he didn't save to $X and then live annually off of $Y at Z% WR. He possibly works more and makes more money and hasn't withdrawn a penny for living costs. However, his time/energy/money exchange is much better designed for happiness than his life working his day job. In his current situation, his day-job years and their earnings are essentially irrelevant. That money meant A LOT before, and now it's virtually meaningless other than the meaning he emotionally assigns to it.
So look at your own life. Look at your own time/energy/money exchanges
If you find some things that you want to exchange money for because they're a good deal, then go ahead and spend. If your job takes too much time and energy relative to the money it pays, then look into changing your work. If an activity takes a lot of time and energy, but gives you a net psychological energy increase, then do that hobby. If a friendship takes too much emotional energy from you, end or modify that friendship. If making extra money at work puts a strain on the energy you have for a spouse, cut back on work and trade some income for a better home life, etc, etc, etc.
Examine every aspect of your life carefully for what kind of exchanges you are making and evaluate every single on of them in terms of whether or not they are a good trade. If they aren't, then change them. Never forget that the whole goddamn point of this is to live your best life. Your best life isn't defined by the numbers, your best life DEFINES the numbers.