The forced saving angle is often maligned by the sort of hyper-rational people that become engineers, but it's a real benefit. Things that happen to real people

The forced saving angle is often maligned by the sort of hyper-rational people that become engineers, but it's a real benefit. Things that happen to real people: - job loss - startup fails - sudden medical expense - freelance contract customer decides to spend less next month - is married, spouse experiences any of the above - decides to invest in something that fails - decides to invest in VC, but that VC performs at or below the median of VC funds (e.g. far below S&P) - takes a lower-paying job for external reasons (to learn new tech, exciting new space, etc.) Financial stress situations like these challenge the "just save the difference in an index fund" plan. The simple fact is that when you are going through something like this, the temptation is going to be very strong not to make 100% of the index fund investment. If you miss it enough times over the decades, you won't see any benefit from this strategy (and you still will not own a home). On the contrary, if you owe a mortgage every month, you will (if it is possible) find the money somehow.