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by rootusrootus 1302 days ago
A good friend of mine spent his life being pretty frugal. Saved up a nice chunk of change, too -- his wife is also a software developer, they both made good money. Got cancer early last year and was dead 10 months later. 55 years old. Ugh.

Not saying you should run out and spend your nest egg. On the other hand, I'd be reluctant to suffer too much during my prime working years scrimping and saving for a retirement that might actually not happen. I'd rather have jobs I really enjoy, and frankly, if I enjoy the work well enough why would I retire? Just take longer and longer vacations and work part time. So I'm willing to use a bit of my saved up funds when necessary to get out of a work environment that is unpleasant.
2 comments
ryandrake 1302 days ago
Sorry about your friend. My wife also had a friend in the same boat. Made it to 59 and heart attack. Statistically they are outliers, though. For every one of those cases there are probably 10 that make it long past a normal retirement age and 2 that make it beyond 90 years or so. Given the choice, I’d rather be prepared for a 30 year retirement and unluckily die early than be prepared for a 5 year retirement and live to see 90, eating dog food.
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VBprogrammer 1302 days ago
You can live a long time with a very low quality of life. It's not just dying that the concern. I don't think we're really talking here about not having enough money to survive in retirement, we're saving to have the dream retirement later.
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rootusrootus 1302 days ago
Right, I wouldn't advocate spending it all. Just a bit of moderation. It does help that by the time you're within 10 or 15 years of retirement you should mostly not need big contributions to investments, the interest ought to be doing the heavy lifting. Doesn't always work out that way of course.
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LouisSayers 1302 days ago
There's definitely something in not putting off the things you really want.

My sister's landlord always told her how he planned to live in the house she's in once he was a bit older.

He ended up dying in a motorbike accident a few months ago, right after a house inspection...

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