Look, I've been lurking/listening to this community for > a year, so I suppose I should clarify this isn't an outsider's misconception.
Money, past a point, _can't_ be used to buy happiness, nor your family's happiness.
This is the frame of mind justifying cutting back on quite a bit else. That's what people value, and it can't be bought.
But I have terminal values that aren't about happiness (perhaps this is the real sacred cow, that we must care about happiness).
Therefore, there _are_ things more important than this, where I'd deplete all my resources in pursuit of it. Therefore, I have no sacred cows (in this area) -- simply because this is, relatively speaking, not that important to me.
Perhaps it would be easier to understand if you shared what those values/goals are?
There is almost no one who literally thinks money itself is a "terminal value" - most people want money to buy stuff - tangible objects and/or experiences. People hoping for FIRE want money to buy freedom from having to work.
You also have to clarify your use of "happiness". Do you really mean "pleasure" (like Grant seemed to be using it)? Sure, life is about much more than moment to moment pleasure. I would consider "a state of well-being and contentment" to necessarily include things like life satisfaction, positive relationships and interconnectedness, charity and giving, meaning and spirituality. If those are all necessary components to being truly happy, than contrasting them with "happiness" is a false dichotomy. If it makes you feel good to sacrifice for others, then you are still acting based on what feels good. It is impossible not to - whatever you do, on some level you must want to do it, or else you wouldn't!
Therefore, there _are_ things more important than this, where I'd deplete all my resources in pursuit of it.
Seems counter-productive to use the principal of an appreciating asset in pursuit of anything. That's like killing the goose that lays the golden egg. If your 'stache of 10k (for example) produces 5000 a year, you can put 100 thousand dollars toward your terminal value over the course of 20 years. If you deplete all your resources for it, you put 10k towards it the first year, and zero ever after. It doesn't matter what the specific thing is, whether its toys for yourself or books for the local school or donations to the red cross, it is counter productive to kill the goose. If its about time, instead of money, the same applies - you need food and shelter, so you need
some money. If you cut back on expenses and invest your savings so that you can eventually retire, you have a whole lot more time to devote to your terminal values. The alternative is you have to keep wasting part of each week working forever.
We ALL have other goals.
If there is anyone here who just wants money so they can jump into a big swimming pool of it, Scrooge McDuck style, I have yet to see them post anything about it
