[ssharp]

We financed almost all of my wife's law school and decided once she graduated and had a job, that we'd pay off her loans as quickly as possible. We're almost done, but it's been two long years of getting by on one paycheck. That, along with having twins, means that we're not spending money like we did in our DINK days.

However, the extra financial discipline has been very beneficial. We've learned to coupon a lot of stuff for next to nothing, redid our retirement savings, set up savings for the babies, and have put together a financial roadmap for the next few years. I'm sure having the kids had a lot to do with it, but cutting your net income in almost half makes you reconsider a lot of things.

Doing things this way will save over $150,000 in interest over the next 30 years. The government will gladly hand you a 30-year refinancing of your loans, with an attractive monthly rate, but the amount of interest that you end up paying is staggering. I know most people graduating aren't in the same position we were in to aggressively pay down the debt and those who can't are starting out life in a financial pit.

Seeing that type of amortization and interest on anything other than a house (and even then...) is pretty eye opening, especially when the amortization schedule has your name on it!

[ChainsawSurgery]

That's awesome! Congratulations. Financial discipline is definitely a nice side effect of this mess - sink or swim, as it were.

That being said, frugality is also not necessarily great for the economy =). It's obviously a fantastic idea for individuals, and you're much better off the way you are - on the whole though, we want people to be spending money on goods and services.

Sorta like how college is a great idea for the individual, but if everyone goes to college then value of those degrees goes down as a whole.

[existencebox]

An honest question about that; since I've heard the "we need people to spend money" a lot, and for the most part think I understand and agree.

However, even if someone saves, (especially if they save via wealth growers like investments to counter inflation) that money doesn't just go into the ground with them when they die. I'd assume the majority of it does go to pay out goods and services in the future, probably nearer to the end of life. As such I'd assume that rather than having everyone buying all the things all the time, you could provide an equivalent effect to the market with only those in the end of life spending at a much higher rate than they would have if they stayed uniform across their lives.

Is there any reason this wouldn't be sufficient to provide the same effect, as well as providing individual benefit? (In blunter words, someone tear a hole in my argument please :) )

[ChainsawSurgery]

Aha:

> I'd assume the majority of it does go to pay out goods and services in the future, probably nearer to the end of life

Most of those expenses involve healthcare, which is probably not a sector of the economy that needs to see more money right now. You typically want to encourage diverse spending to avoid concentrating money in just one segment of the economy (the ol "dont put all your eggs in one basket" rule).

> that money doesn't just go into the ground with them when they die.

No, it doesn't need to - much of it can go onto next of kin, though, which encourages generational wealth that you typically dont want to encourage too much (which to our benefit, we do somewhat through things like estate taxes).

Additionally, and I have absolutely no reasoning behind this one at all, but spending in such a way lends itself to be extremely susceptible to age demographics: if you have a glut of older people (like we do now with baby boomers) then your economy might do fantastic if everyone spends money at the end of their life.

Conversely, when a low-population generation reaches old age, you're sorta doomed to suffer at that point.

[yodsanklai]

> I'd assume the majority of it does go to pay out goods and services in the future

I don't know the answer to your question, but my guess it's that people want to make profit now and not in the future.

Digressing a little bit, I made myself the same reflexion concerning fracking. There's a lot of pressure on my country's government to authorize fracking. Supposedly, it would be very beneficial for the economy. However, since this gas isn't going anywhere, i'm not sure why there's such a hurry to get it. Especially considering that it may be cheaper to extract it in the future.