"because I want it and can afford it"

[ender]

Y'all are high on your own supply of self-righteousness. People can never grow and change? We have to be bound by the opinions of our youth? I guess that’s a choice you make.

I think multiple people in this thread have clearly acknowledged that yes, people can grow and change.  So maybe it's you who are high on your supply of self-righteousness?

If you scream from the rooftops that real estate investors (to use an example) are fools, and you regularly mock them, then you announce you've started a RE investing empire, it's going to raise eyebrows and make you seem like a hypocrite if you don't at least acknowledge that there's been a shift in your thinking and that maybe you were wrong before.  There's nothing wrong with having been wrong, or gaining new understanding that shifts your perspective.  But when you just pretend nothing has changed, well... can you really not see how that comes off? 

Also, sure, MMM/Pete or anyone else can grow and change.  I know someone who used to be pretty open and respectful of all people but has become quite a bigot.  Not all growth and change is good growth and change.  And when you are a public figure who has made your choices the cornerstone of your public profile, people are going to comment on your choices.

Not to mention, the Tesla is by far the least "2011 MMM goes crazy" part of that post.

The blogpost tells you(at least someone who is in MMM's position) to deliberately spend money frivolously. Which is absolutely contrary to everything he stood for a decade ago.

[fredbear]

...
"Okay, [friend] you turn around first and then I'll follow in the Tesla"

I'm pretty sure that woman loves her Tesla more than her husband.

Nice vignette.  It's, like, uber-presumptive to treat the owner of a Tesla as if you could just expect a being like her to run errands, like some lackey. 

In an unobtrusive way, we used to time how long it would take one of our acquaintance to shoe-horn into the conversation the fact that he had been a Rhodes scholar, some decades ago.  Never more than 10 minutes.

[Sanitary Engineer]

...
"Okay, [friend] you turn around first and then I'll follow in the Tesla"

I'm pretty sure that woman loves her Tesla more than her husband.

Nice vignette.  It's, like, uber-presumptive to treat the owner of a Tesla as if you could just expect a being like her to run errands, like some lackey. 

In an unobtrusive way, we used to time how long it would take one of our acquaintance to shoe-horn into the conversation the fact that he had been a Rhodes scholar, some decades ago.  Never more than 10 minutes.

I hiked the Appalachian trail over 10 years ago and it is still the first thing trying to come out of my mouth when I meet a new person.

[HeadedWest2029]

It turns out that living frugally isn't as easy as it seems.

Being hard wouldn't be all that big of an admission, I think we can all agree with and live with that, but the subtext that it actually isn't as sustainable or fun as he's made it out to be is damning.

I actually think living frugally IS the easy option.  At least when considering the big 3 expenses...
1) Housing - big houses just means more house to clean & maintain.
2) Transportation - more cars = more maintenance, newer tech means more stuff that can break, and shopping for cars is a pain, but I'm not a gearhead either.
3) Food - I have zero tolerance for driving somewhere, waiting for a table, and then waiting for food.  Even when considering take-out, I find making food at home easier.

Now beyond that it can get hard.  Especially if we're talking Jacob from ERE level of insourcing. I think this is why FIRE took with me, it really didn't feel like a sacrifice at all

[joe189man]

Y'all are high on your own supply of self-righteousness. People can never grow and change? We have to be bound by the opinions of our youth? I guess that’s a choice you make.

I think multiple people in this thread have clearly acknowledged that yes, people can grow and change.  So maybe it's you who are high on your supply of self-righteousness?

If you scream from the rooftops that real estate investors (to use an example) are fools, and you regularly mock them, then you announce you've started a RE investing empire, it's going to raise eyebrows and make you seem like a hypocrite if you don't at least acknowledge that there's been a shift in your thinking and that maybe you were wrong before.  There's nothing wrong with having been wrong, or gaining new understanding that shifts your perspective.  But when you just pretend nothing has changed, well... can you really not see how that comes off? 

Also, sure, MMM/Pete or anyone else can grow and change.  I know someone who used to be pretty open and respectful of all people but has become quite a bigot.  Not all growth and change is good growth and change.  And when you are a public figure who has made your choices the cornerstone of your public profile, people are going to comment on your choices.

Not to mention, the Tesla is by far the least "2011 MMM goes crazy" part of that post.

The blogpost tells you(at least someone who is in MMM's position) to deliberately spend money frivolously. Which is absolutely contrary to everything he stood for a decade ago.

That's not what i got at all, he is replacing a 20+ year old van that had issues, left him stranded, with a new reliable vehicle

I assume, after a person FIREs, there comes a point that after planning with the 4% rule, which is conservative, a person has way more money then they ever imagined. MMM also has side hustles that bring in money and he has continued his frugal ways for years which equals even more money. The blog post tells me that someone in that enviable position can loosen up and live a little, spend $2 dollars more on bread and not waste 30 minutes driving to the cheaper store. Buy a reasonably priced electric vehicle, living his enviro mission.

Maybe MMM read "Die with Zero" and realized he has way to many dollars left over even after donating hundreds of thousands of them to charity.

[dividendman]

Y'all are high on your own supply of self-righteousness. People can never grow and change? We have to be bound by the opinions of our youth? I guess that’s a choice you make.

I think multiple people in this thread have clearly acknowledged that yes, people can grow and change.  So maybe it's you who are high on your supply of self-righteousness?

If you scream from the rooftops that real estate investors (to use an example) are fools, and you regularly mock them, then you announce you've started a RE investing empire, it's going to raise eyebrows and make you seem like a hypocrite if you don't at least acknowledge that there's been a shift in your thinking and that maybe you were wrong before.  There's nothing wrong with having been wrong, or gaining new understanding that shifts your perspective.  But when you just pretend nothing has changed, well... can you really not see how that comes off? 

Also, sure, MMM/Pete or anyone else can grow and change.  I know someone who used to be pretty open and respectful of all people but has become quite a bigot.  Not all growth and change is good growth and change.  And when you are a public figure who has made your choices the cornerstone of your public profile, people are going to comment on your choices.

Not to mention, the Tesla is by far the least "2011 MMM goes crazy" part of that post.

The blogpost tells you(at least someone who is in MMM's position) to deliberately spend money frivolously. Which is absolutely contrary to everything he stood for a decade ago.

That's not what i got at all, he is replacing a 20+ year old van that had issues, left him stranded, with a new reliable vehicle

I assume, after a person FIREs, there comes a point that after planning with the 4% rule, which is conservative, a person has way more money then they ever imagined. MMM also has side hustles that bring in money and he has continued his frugal ways for years which equals even more money. The blog post tells me that someone in that enviable position can loosen up and live a little, spend $2 dollars more on bread and not waste 30 minutes driving to the cheaper store. Buy a reasonably priced electric vehicle, living his enviro mission.

Maybe MMM read "Die with Zero" and realized he has way to many dollars left over even after donating hundreds of thousands of them to charity.

I think many people are saying the section I bolded above is the exact opposite of what MMM was saying a decade ago. Why get a new car? That's consumerism and anti-environmentalism. If his current car is dying, he could get a used hybrid that is still way better for the environment than a brand new Tesla (or brand new anything).

I drive a 15 year old Prius. Sure, I could get a Tesla as well... but if my Prius ever dies I'll just get a used Prius or somesuch to replace it.

Basically his message has changed from "Let's get rich and save the environment at the same time by reuse/frugality" to "If you're rich do whatever you want, you deserve it."

That's a bit sad.

[ender]

That's not what i got at all, he is replacing a 20+ year old van that had issues, left him stranded, with a new reliable vehicle

I assume, after a person FIREs, there comes a point that after planning with the 4% rule, which is conservative, a person has way more money then they ever imagined. MMM also has side hustles that bring in money and he has continued his frugal ways for years which equals even more money. The blog post tells me that someone in that enviable position can loosen up and live a little, spend $2 dollars more on bread and not waste 30 minutes driving to the cheaper store. Buy a reasonably priced electric vehicle, living his enviro mission.

Maybe MMM read "Die with Zero" and realized he has way to many dollars left over even after donating hundreds of thousands of them to charity.

I took away more like these direct quotes ;-)

But yes, it’s also okay to set aside a portion of the money you’ve earned, for frivolous spending on yourself and those closest to you. You’re not a bad person for having a few nice things.

* A useful tip for more effective splurging:

We both realized that we were being too cheap with ourselves, and we needed to work on it. And we came up with a set of three ideas that should hopefully work together to help us have more fun with our life savings, while we are still alive:

the Minimum Spending Budget,
the Dedicated Money Wasting Account,
and the Splurge Accountability Buddy.

Principle #2 – the Dedicated Money Wasting Account

Re-brand your main bank account – henceforth it is the FREE FUN MONEY account.

[Valley of Plenty]

I just don't understand all the anger over this blog post. The comments on the actual blog post were bonkers and in this thread are similarly weird to me.

Pete's a retired person spending his money, not some deity changing his religion.

Be happy for the guy and and move on.

He is multimillionaire he can buy what he wants. What is disappointing is buying a Tesla, from a company run by sociopath CEO. He could have bought any other electric car but I think he was cheap. On one had he acknowledges that issue and on the other he is rationalizing it. Worse part is he is a major influencer. I have seen on this forum, people who cant afford buy 50-60k tesla. He is setting a bad example.

As opposed to buying a car from one of the other billionaire automotive company CEOs, who are all paragons of virtue? Musk is at minimum no worse than the average billionaire CEO, and in many ways I would argue he is considerably better. The main reason everyone hates him so much is because his name is inextricably tied to his brand, whereas nobody knows the names of all the other CEOs, so you get to be blissfully ignorant buying their products and pretending you've taken some kind of moral high road. There is no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism. If you're buying shit from a store, you're almost certainly indirectly supporting slave labor, or something only marginally better.

And anyone who isn't a millionaire and thinks MMM's latest article is telling them to go buy a brand new Tesla is just projecting their own message. Nothing he has ever said would suggest that sort of spending is reasonable for someone who isn't extremely wealthy.

[GuitarStv]

And anyone who isn't a millionaire and thinks MMM's latest article is telling them to go buy a brand new Tesla is just projecting their own message. Nothing he has ever said would suggest that sort of spending is reasonable for someone who isn't extremely wealthy.

That's the thing though.  MMM has been extremely wealthy since he started the blog.  Nothing he has said before this post would suggest that sort of spending is reasonable.  Full stop.

[Metalcat]

...
"Okay, [friend] you turn around first and then I'll follow in the Tesla"

I'm pretty sure that woman loves her Tesla more than her husband.

Nice vignette.  It's, like, uber-presumptive to treat the owner of a Tesla as if you could just expect a being like her to run errands, like some lackey. 

In an unobtrusive way, we used to time how long it would take one of our acquaintance to shoe-horn into the conversation the fact that he had been a Rhodes scholar, some decades ago.  Never more than 10 minutes.

Lol, this was a running joke in Frasier about him name dropping Harvard.

It's funny, I've actually made a bit of a sport recently of seeing just how long I can go when meeting someone, without lying or purposefully misleading, letting them assume I'm a 20-something university student with no significant accomplishments.

What's also funny is that when I talk to people about my current life, they all wax poetic about their favourite time of their lives being when they lived in that little apartment during school. They get all misty about how much they loved that little apartment, how fun and carefree that time was. Often they'll throw in some love for their old shitty car.

They often wistfully tell me to enjoy it while I can because midlife is just a clusterfuck of responsibilities and stress. This is usually where I'll finally admit that DH and I are 40 and 50 and that we too were wistful for our university days, which is why we proactively returned to that kind of lifestyle after downsizing our home and car.

And that's really what's being lost in MMM's new messaging.

There's an extremely useful discussion to be had around luxury spending, but he's not really framing it effectively.

The message of "don't feel guilty about a bit of luxury if you can afford it" really does contradict his original messaging that frugal options are often superior.

The key point he's missing is that *some* luxuries are absolutely worth the cost if you can afford them, but they are rare. If you find a luxury that is an excellent value relative to its cost, and you can readily afford it, then yeah, that's worthwhile.

I just posted in the stupid things you're lusting after thread a 12K used, all terrain wheelchair that has tank treads instead of wheels. I spend half my year in a place where the only thing to do is wander on trails in one of the most beautiful places on earth. I can't do that right now thanks to my legs being fucked.

12K for me right now is too much to spend on a wheelchair I don't really need, but if I had Pete's money, of course I would buy it!

Luxuries are not all made equal. MMM's original, very important point was that most luxuries actually detract from quality of life. Which is why so many people I meet get all misty and nostalgic about when they were broke students having true fun and engaging in profound relationships.

Most luxuries are a scam. They're bullshit that makes you more miserable and more unhealthy. Even if you "can afford" them, they're best avoided just for your basic well being.

So the messaging shouldn't be that "a little luxury is okay if you can afford it," the messaging should be that some luxury truly adds to your quality of life, but that even if you can afford it, you should stay hyper-vigilant to the task of assessing that value.

When I first went from being a broke student to making insane income, I was briefly spending like crazy on whatever luxuries I felt I had denied myself for my decade+ of school.

After a few months life felt so fucking hollow. The more I spent, the more pointless life felt. The act of existing in a consumerist world "indulging" in crap felt similar to how people feel after spending too much time on social media.

The things designed to grab our attention and our money just aren't good for us on average. MMM got this right the first time.

He's not wrong about not feeling bad about spending on luxuries, but he's missed A LOT of nuance in the argument.

IMO, I think he got too caught up in feeling like he needed to justify going against what he previously said, instead of figuring out the more complex argument to be made about assessing the value of luxury.

[ender]

Feels weird when I think @Metalcat knows MMM better than he knows himself lol

[joe189man]

That's not what i got at all, he is replacing a 20+ year old van that had issues, left him stranded, with a new reliable vehicle

I assume, after a person FIREs, there comes a point that after planning with the 4% rule, which is conservative, a person has way more money then they ever imagined. MMM also has side hustles that bring in money and he has continued his frugal ways for years which equals even more money. The blog post tells me that someone in that enviable position can loosen up and live a little, spend $2 dollars more on bread and not waste 30 minutes driving to the cheaper store. Buy a reasonably priced electric vehicle, living his enviro mission.

Maybe MMM read "Die with Zero" and realized he has way to many dollars left over even after donating hundreds of thousands of them to charity.

I took away more like these direct quotes ;-)

But yes, it’s also okay to set aside a portion of the money you’ve earned, for frivolous spending on yourself and those closest to you. You’re not a bad person for having a few nice things.

* A useful tip for more effective splurging:

We both realized that we were being too cheap with ourselves, and we needed to work on it. And we came up with a set of three ideas that should hopefully work together to help us have more fun with our life savings, while we are still alive:

the Minimum Spending Budget,
the Dedicated Money Wasting Account,
and the Splurge Accountability Buddy.

Principle #2 – the Dedicated Money Wasting Account

Re-brand your main bank account – henceforth it is the FREE FUN MONEY account.

All that sounds fine to me if your stash has grown so large it doesn't matter anymore -> say you go from a 1% withdrawal rate to a 1.5%

But i get it, its way of "brand" for Pete to talk and act like this, and it could skew newcomers ideas

[Metalcat]

That's not what i got at all, he is replacing a 20+ year old van that had issues, left him stranded, with a new reliable vehicle

I assume, after a person FIREs, there comes a point that after planning with the 4% rule, which is conservative, a person has way more money then they ever imagined. MMM also has side hustles that bring in money and he has continued his frugal ways for years which equals even more money. The blog post tells me that someone in that enviable position can loosen up and live a little, spend $2 dollars more on bread and not waste 30 minutes driving to the cheaper store. Buy a reasonably priced electric vehicle, living his enviro mission.

Maybe MMM read "Die with Zero" and realized he has way to many dollars left over even after donating hundreds of thousands of them to charity.

I took away more like these direct quotes ;-)

But yes, it’s also okay to set aside a portion of the money you’ve earned, for frivolous spending on yourself and those closest to you. You’re not a bad person for having a few nice things.

* A useful tip for more effective splurging:

We both realized that we were being too cheap with ourselves, and we needed to work on it. And we came up with a set of three ideas that should hopefully work together to help us have more fun with our life savings, while we are still alive:

the Minimum Spending Budget,
the Dedicated Money Wasting Account,
and the Splurge Accountability Buddy.

Principle #2 – the Dedicated Money Wasting Account

Re-brand your main bank account – henceforth it is the FREE FUN MONEY account.

All that sounds fine to me if your stash has grown so large it doesn't matter anymore -> say you go from a 1% withdrawal rate to a 1.5%

But i get it, its way of "brand" for Pete to talk and act like this, and it could skew newcomers ideas

It's fine for someone whose message hasn't always been that spending less improves your quality of life.

MMM's message was *not* Bogleheads. It wasn't about saving for the sake of getting rich. The core messaging was about how spending less improves your quality of life.

That's why discussions about luxury and what it actually brings to your life are so important.

He did touch on this indirectly many times in the past. He talked about how he perceived his life as incredibly luxurious, which means he was always an advocate for true luxury, aka those things that he felt were worth spending on.

This message was always there, just not fleshed out.

What's worth discussing is whether increased wealth changes the calculus on which luxuries are worthwhile and which aren't. Which, obviously it does.

There's the absolute question of the value of a luxury: does it actually improve your quality of life?

MMM covered this many times. No, most luxuries are false value.

But then there are are luxuries that *would* actually add to your quality of life, but not at the expense of other luxuries, such as more free time.

But if you've purchased all the free time you need and there are no other luxuries you would rather purchase, then the relative value of those luxuries rises.

Let's come back to the example of the 12K wheelchair I mentioned.

The only reason I'm not buying it is because I have other luxuries this year that are more valuable and not enough resources to add an unnecessary 12K wheelchair to the mix. The trade off would be poor, it's a bad deal for me, so the value in the luxury isn't there.

If this were several years from now, those constraints wouldn't exist. The trade becomes a lot better. The purchase much more likely.

What's important to note is that not all luxuries rise with the tide of wealth in terms of their value.

What is challenging is truly discriminating between those luxuries that will truly improve our quality of life and those that we've been conditioned to *believe* will improve it, by a system that is hellbent on luring us into coveting luxury.

[Sanitary Engineer]

That's not what i got at all, he is replacing a 20+ year old van that had issues, left him stranded, with a new reliable vehicle

I assume, after a person FIREs, there comes a point that after planning with the 4% rule, which is conservative, a person has way more money then they ever imagined. MMM also has side hustles that bring in money and he has continued his frugal ways for years which equals even more money. The blog post tells me that someone in that enviable position can loosen up and live a little, spend $2 dollars more on bread and not waste 30 minutes driving to the cheaper store. Buy a reasonably priced electric vehicle, living his enviro mission.

Maybe MMM read "Die with Zero" and realized he has way to many dollars left over even after donating hundreds of thousands of them to charity.

I took away more like these direct quotes ;-)

But yes, it’s also okay to set aside a portion of the money you’ve earned, for frivolous spending on yourself and those closest to you. You’re not a bad person for having a few nice things.

* A useful tip for more effective splurging:

We both realized that we were being too cheap with ourselves, and we needed to work on it. And we came up with a set of three ideas that should hopefully work together to help us have more fun with our life savings, while we are still alive:

the Minimum Spending Budget,
the Dedicated Money Wasting Account,
and the Splurge Accountability Buddy.

Principle #2 – the Dedicated Money Wasting Account

Re-brand your main bank account – henceforth it is the FREE FUN MONEY account.

All that sounds fine to me if your stash has grown so large it doesn't matter anymore -> say you go from a 1% withdrawal rate to a 1.5%

But i get it, its way of "brand" for Pete to talk and act like this, and it could skew newcomers ideas

It's fine for someone whose message hasn't always been that spending less improves your quality of life.

MMM's message was *not* Bogleheads. It wasn't about saving for the sake of getting rich. The core messaging was about how spending less improves your quality of life.

That's why discussions about luxury and what it actually brings to your life are so important.

He did touch on this indirectly many times in the past. He talked about how he perceived his life as incredibly luxurious, which means he was always an advocate for true luxury, aka those things that he felt were worth spending on.

This message was always there, just not fleshed out.

What's worth discussing is whether increased wealth changes the calculus on which luxuries are worthwhile and which aren't. Which, obviously it does.

There's the absolute question of the value of a luxury: does it actually improve your quality of life?

MMM covered this many times. No, most luxuries are false value.

But then there are are luxuries that *would* actually add to your quality of life, but not at the expense of other luxuries, such as more free time.

But if you've purchased all the free time you need and there are no other luxuries you would rather purchase, then the relative value of those luxuries rises.

Let's come back to the example of the 12K wheelchair I mentioned.

The only reason I'm not buying it is because I have other luxuries this year that are more valuable and not enough resources to add an unnecessary 12K wheelchair to the mix. The trade off would be poor, it's a bad deal for me, so the value in the luxury isn't there.

If this were several years from now, those constraints wouldn't exist. The trade becomes a lot better. The purchase much more likely.

What's important to note is that not all luxuries rise with the tide of wealth in terms of their value.

What is challenging is truly discriminating between those luxuries that will truly improve our quality of life and those that we've been conditioned to *believe* will improve it, by a system that is hellbent on luring us into coveting luxury.

Fuck Yeah!

(But I’m starting to think that maybe you should get the wheelchair.)

[Metalcat]

Fuck Yeah!

(But I’m starting to think that maybe you should get the wheelchair.)

I mean...look at it

https://m.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1373887700124027/

[Alternatepriorities]

Fuck Yeah!

(But I’m starting to think that maybe you should get the wheelchair.)

I mean...look at it

https://m.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1373887700124027/

Can we still call that a wheel chair if it has tracks?

Also that looks epic!

[bluecollarmusician]

I have to say, I have enjoyed the dialogue that this blog post has generated more than anything I have seen on the Forums (or on the blog) in a very long time.

Maybe it's because it is relevant to me in a way, maybe because it seems to fall in line with the schism that I have seen in the forum about things getting a bit spendy/soft, but mostly I think it has caused me to evaluate and reevaluate my own thinking on frugality, what it means and how it is relevant in my life for "maximizing life enjoyment."

(Although, the frugal part of me reminds me "is it convenient, would I enjoy it... would I like a catheter and a bed pan to go with it?"

I think a lot of it comes down to varying "opinions" about what it's all about "here."  And the truth is, it will be different for everyone.  Take what works for you, leave what doesn't. 
 
I think that if we really get down to it, it's not frugality; it's about efficiency- "pareto optimization for maximum life enjoyment."
Many (most?) people are living wildly un-optimized lives; you know the hair-on fire situation.  For them the tactics espoused by what we seem to be referring to here as "classic MMM..." will lead to a richer life; not just money richer, but also richer in time, freedom, and options. 

Optimizing your life is about more than following the same tactical steps forever.

And I don't think blog post is advocating for a Yolo- so go out blow it on hookers and blow... quite the opposite, I think it is really saying when the money problem is totally solved, it might be good to be mindful to not bottle-neck your own happiness by a desire to continue optimizing.   It is a means to an end.  Agonizing over the cost of bread is not a good or efficient use of your time once you have completely conquered the money game.  The early optimizing may have focused on the money part; and the tendency is to keep the focus there; but the reality is there are other kinds of capital and recognizing when they are out of balance is an important step in growing your "business" of you.

My thoughts are still evolving on this, but I really don't see it being at odds with earlier material.
 

[achvfi]

I just don't understand all the anger over this blog post. The comments on the actual blog post were bonkers and in this thread are similarly weird to me.

Pete's a retired person spending his money, not some deity changing his religion.

Be happy for the guy and and move on.

He is multimillionaire he can buy what he wants. What is disappointing is buying a Tesla, from a company run by sociopath CEO. He could have bought any other electric car but I think he was cheap. On one had he acknowledges that issue and on the other he is rationalizing it. Worse part is he is a major influencer. I have seen on this forum, people who cant afford buy 50-60k tesla. He is setting a bad example.

As opposed to buying a car from one of the other billionaire automotive company CEOs, who are all paragons of virtue? Musk is at minimum no worse than the average billionaire CEO, and in many ways I would argue he is considerably better. The main reason everyone hates him so much is because his name is inextricably tied to his brand, whereas nobody knows the names of all the other CEOs, so you get to be blissfully ignorant buying their products and pretending you've taken some kind of moral high road. There is no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism. If you're buying shit from a store, you're almost certainly indirectly supporting slave labor, or something only marginally better.

And anyone who isn't a millionaire and thinks MMM's latest article is telling them to go buy a brand new Tesla is just projecting their own message. Nothing he has ever said would suggest that sort of spending is reasonable for someone who isn't extremely wealthy.

.
I am not sure if there any current auto CEO that is a billionaire. Anyway, Any other CEO with toxic personality and rhetoric like him would have been fired long ago.
What you are saying makes no sense, Just because so much shit out there that we don’t notice we should ignore what we notice as well.

[Mr. Green]

Fuck Yeah!

(But I’m starting to think that maybe you should get the wheelchair.)

I mean...look at it

https://m.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1373887700124027/

Can we still call that a wheel chair if it has tracks?

Also that looks epic!

That's some Mad Max looking shit right there! Strap on a minigun.

[EscapeVelocity2020]

Maybe Ramit Sethi is to blame?  Around the same time as this 'bizarre' post from MMM, the Mad FIentist posted a podcast with Ramit, parroting a lot of similar 'spend the stache' ethos (How to Spend (and Actually Enjoy It)).  Then today we have Mr. 1500Days talking about their podcast with Ramit - https://www.1500days.com/what-if-you-run-out-of-life/

Consider this question:
Would you rather have really rich experiences when you’re 50 or be really rich when you’re 80?

Here are some of the experiences that I’m considering splurging on soon:

Buying a place in the mountains and then frequently inviting friends and family to hang out.
Taking my mom, siblings, and their partners on a cruise.
Buying a ridiculous car and then take wild road trips with it. I’ll see friends and National Parks. In between, I’ll cruise down scenic byways and lost highways. A Tesla Model S would be great for this.
Renting a ridiculous property for a month and then invite everyone I know to come visit.
This thinking isn’t easy because it’s the opposite of the FIRE life many of us have embraced

Through the magic of living on other people's money as an expat a few times, I've had this taste of 'splurging' for years at a time...  It is easy to lose track of the lifestyle inflation and hard to reign it back in once the treadmill gets going.  I'm also interested to see if the community follows these folks in to splurge-ville? 

[bluecollarmusician]

  Then today we have Mr. 1500Days talking about their podcast with Ramit - https://www.1500days.com/what-if-you-run-out-of-life/

Consider this question:
Would you rather have really rich experiences when you’re 50 or be really rich when you’re 80?

Ironically, when I read this first I didn't interpret "rich experiences" to have anything to do with money, and only after thinking about it in context  did I realized he meant enjoy "experiences that involve spending a lot of money" rather "enjoy fulfilling experiences full of complexity and depth."  There may be some overlap, but I know which one of those 2 I would prefer.

[Valley of Plenty]

On a tangentially related note, I started listening to the ChooseFI podcast again recently and I'm noticing a pattern there too where more of the episodes seem to be centered around spending money efficiently rather than not spending it at all.

It seems that most of the big FI influencers are now so wealthy that they're becoming less interested in saving money and more interested in spending it. Which is fine by me, but as someone who is still relatively early in the wealth accumulation stage, I do find myself longing for more content by people who are working towards FI rather than cruising along with a 7 or 8 figure net worth.