Are You Stingy with your Expenses?
It's totally possible that in order to increase your savings rate, to save a certain amount of money, to reach your goals as fast as possible, you are taking it a little bit too extreme when it comes to your day to day needs and wants. And therefore you're sleeping on a couch in order to be able to retire in four years. I know it sounds extreme, but I've actually done similar stuff to that in my pursuit, where we were pretty much eating nothing but rice, pulses, Potatoes, and the cheapest protein source that you can get, which is like totally fine.
But also after a while, you do start to feel like everybody else is able to afford food, and you're causing yourself to be extremely deprived of like some basic things that are like enjoyable in life, just so that you can reach your financial freedom faster. Again, looking back over my life, I wish I had kind of calmed that down a little bit and realized that it's okay to go out to eat a couple of times a month and still enjoy your life a little bit. It is also OK to splurge a little bit from time to time and enjoy your hard earned money.
That being said, those were also really enjoyable and fun times for me. The pursuit of a goal that seems kind of unattainable are a lot of times the most enjoyable parts of your life. Even if it can be hard going through them at the time, it can be fun to kind of chase those.
So you got to ask yourself, but if you've taken it too far, you can lose that fun and start to realize that you are depriving yourself of what you are actually working for.
Personally in my case I have switched from being Super Stingy to now enjoying some of the fruits of my labour while still working towards Financial Independence.
What do you think about being Stingy just to be Independent later down the road?
