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Money exists to be spent

Frugality is important and oftentimes many people looking to retire early will focus on frugality. That’s not a bad thing at all. But if they think that they will retire and suddenly be able to treat themselves, it’ll be a difficult transition. It’s a skill that is hard to unlearn.

It’s taken me quite a bit of time to learn that money should be working for me and not hoarded in a safe place. It starts with investing in the stock market but also extends to other investments as well. Investing in a new X before the old one fails catastrophically is one key example. Investing in greater comfort so I can perform better, whether this is in leisure (like sports) or in my work.

These things are all important and frugality would have you believe you should save it all and “deal” with it. Money exists to be spent and there are responsible ways to do it, even if it still means spending it!

On Time, Money and Health [Today Purpose] – “Money exists to be spent. You’ll never regret spending money into experiences or things that can create memories (either good or bad). They add a lot into fulfilling your life and shape the way we are:”

Tracking Spending: A Foundational Skill of Personal Finance [Managing FI] – “A key foundational skill is knowing how to track your spending. Tracking spending brings awareness to where the money goes so you can cut out the waste. Understanding your annual spending is also necessary to know how much money you need in retirement.” (also, FWIW, I really like the acronym BLUF over tl;dr)

Life is a Picture, But You Live in a Pixel [Wait But Why] – “So while thousands of Jack’s Todays will, to an outsider from far away, begin to look like a complete picture, Jack spends each moment of his actual reality in one unremarkable Today pixel or another. Jack’s error is brushing off his mundane Wednesday and focusing entirely on the big picture, when in fact the mundane Wednesday is the experience of his actual life.”

And if you thought NFTs were just a fad, this next tweet is either a signal that it’s not or that it has jumped the shark. 🙂

Visa bought CryptoPunk #7610 [Twitter] – “Over the last 60 years, Visa has built a collection of historic commerce artifacts – from early paper credit cards to the zip-zap machine. Today, as we enter a new era of NFT-commerce, Visa welcomes CryptoPunk #7610 to our collection.”