Moderation

In Dave Slusher’s Dog Daze Clambake, Dave digs into his financial strategy. While I appreciate where Dave’s coming from (don’t buy stuff you don’t need) and our savings rate is also in the double digits, he makes a couple of assumptions I completely disagree with:

  1. Retirement, as sold to our grandparents, will exist a decade from now – and later.
    Unlike previous generations, Dave and I make our living from our brains – not our backs. While 40+ years on the factory floor makes a back lamer, the same isn’t true of brains. I’m betting on my brain will be a valuable member of society 40+ years from now in a similar way it is today. Perhaps my perspective will change in a couple decades, but today – I see myself doing something revenue generating when I’m in my 70s not because I have to, but because I want to.This is where Dave and I disagree.Dave and I are talking about the same elephant.
  2. Sacrifice today inherently creates opportunity tomorrow.
    No, I don’t have a video game console or subscribe to cable television. Nor do I have a high quality portable podcast recorder or a dog. I do have a bunch of other gear that makes my life easier, work more enjoyable, and offers me opportunity and experience I wouldn’t have without the gear. Here’s my assumption: having lunch with a colleague is more likely to lead to a new business opportunity than not.

4 thoughts on “Moderation

  1. I think people are more likely to find jobs that they truly enjoy, so feel a lot less like work, than in the past. This makes retirement less of a goal to count down towards, or even something worth obtaining in an absolute sense.

  2. GVB, we still don’t disagree no matter how hard you try to make it seem so. I have no problem earning money in my 70’s but I don’t want to lose my house if I don’t. That seems to be the same way you feel. I just want my options in the want to /have to arena to begin at 50, not later.

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