You can have both. Invest 10% of your salary each month in a retirement fund, eat out with the rest, net costs like rent. You'll retire a millionaire. You just need to size the rewards correctly.
I never understood this... if there was some investment strategy that beat inflation, then if everyone used it, inflation would catch up to it.
So if you invest 10% of your salary all you're doing is saving 10% adjusted for inflation, assuming your investment vehicle doesn't do worse than inflation. And then when you retire you just live off that.
There is no free lunch. In Capitalism, millions of people are in a rat race to survive and eat.
In any case, no matter how wealthy Fred is, if Fred spends an extra $1000 on X then he has $1000 less to spend on something else. How is that supposed to result in inflation? Spending money doesn't magically put more money in one's pocket (despite wishing it did!), it means you've got less money.
You are missing the point. We frequently make tradeoffs in life. Many times this involves a small sacrifice now for a more sizeable gain in the future.
That's a sad way to think about life. Back of the envelope math says I can be pretty happy with way less than that, different standards and all I suppose.
Do you live in america? Do you plan to live 15-20 years past retirement? You are already at 50k/year with a million dollars, which is an amount of money that is ok in the present if you are young, but with inflation it will be a lot less.
Are you aware of how much elderly healthcare and care in general costs?
The average cost of a private room in a elderly care facility in the present is about 90k/year.
My standards are about not dying because I can't afford to pay for my prescriptions.
I hope you have kids, and they (continue to) like you.
I don't know what the inflation rate is between now and 65 years old... and I hope to live for 20 years after that. Assuming you're 50, that's 35 years of inflation which is right about a halving in value at 2%. So you're going to end your life with $25k/yr current equivalent and hope that SS and Medicare carry you through. Good luck.
So if you invest 10% of your salary all you're doing is saving 10% adjusted for inflation, assuming your investment vehicle doesn't do worse than inflation. And then when you retire you just live off that.
There is no free lunch. In Capitalism, millions of people are in a rat race to survive and eat.