7 ms·

I have a non-terminal, but life limiting illness. I've got an expensive and silly car, and it brings me great joy whenever I drive it (like when I drove to the

I have a non-terminal, but life limiting illness. I've got an expensive and silly car, and it brings me great joy whenever I drive it (like when I drove to the office this morning!). I haven't sacrificed other things that would bring me deeper fulfilment to own it though, and I think if that's the case then yes, silly material things can bring you some happiness. Without my illness I'd probably be saving the money instead, so that I could have silly material things in retirement. Because I know that my retirement is likely to be a struggle I do these things now while I can still enjoy them.

sgtnoodle 5y ago
I am naturally a relatively frugal person, and I don't like to waste resources. I like to reuse and repair things of value. I don't like to buy new things unless I really need or want them. My wife says I am the hardest person to buy gifts for. I don't regret buying a new Mustang within a week of starting my first job out of school. I'm still driving it 12 years later, and my 3 year old loves it. In 2020 the nerves on my heart failed, and on night 4 in the ICU I promised myself I would waste a bunch of money on building a Zen 3 desktop when it came out. I finally just got a proper GPU for it last week. Playing Titanfall 2 on max graphics settings at 80FPS made my evening. I have every intention of living well into retirement age. All my doctors seem optimistic that I will, although I'm up to 5 specialists and was just today reading about how my latest medication inadvertently alters DNA to be significantly less UV-A tolerant... As long as I can afford it, I'm not going to sweat wasting money on hobbies or overpriced cups of coffee.