yeah, I'm assuming most of the people on this forum have upper-middle salaries or will likely have them in the future. I mostly wrote the post with this audienc

yeah, I'm assuming most of the people on this forum have upper-middle salaries or will likely have them in the future. I mostly wrote the post with this audience in mind, though I think the bit about analyzing spending in relation to your savings rate is relevant to everyone. I am very fortunate to have the opposite "problem": I tend to be very stingy and waste a lot of time and energy trying to save amounts of money that just aren't very meaningful compared with my savings trend. unless you're unable to save anything at all, I think it is very important to strike a balance between saving for retirement and spending on stuff you enjoy in the moment. also minor addendum: someone with the median 401k savings might receive something close to the median social security payout of ~$15,500/year. since this is a guaranteed payment until end of life, this is like having >$375k in a retirement account at age 67. $200k is a meaningful amount to add to a $60k retirement account + social security payments, but it doesn't do anything close to quadrupling the person's safe spending capability. it's more like a 45% increase, which is still nothing to shake a stick at!