How we spend our money says so much about us. Are we generous to ourselves, stingy to others? Stingy to ourselves and others? Buying others attention? Spending more than we have? There are so many ways to live both within and outside of our means.
I've come across the FIRE system - Financial Independence, Retire Early - quite a few times in my life. Some of my clients have been fiercely dedicated to it. Some have strained their marriages over it. It's basically living way below your means and squirreling every spare penny away, till you reach a magic number (different for every person) and then you can stop work and live very frugally on that.
Conceptually it never worked for me. I don't want to be that frugal and I didn't want to stop working at 40.
But now a new acronym has emerged - FINE, Financial Independence, New Endeavor. Which doesn't make you retire once you hit your personal magic number, but allows/encourages you to shift to a new idea/endeavor. This seems more appealing, though you still have to be very frugal to get to your magic number, but once there, you embrace new ideas or doing part time work, or lower paid but more emotionally satisfying work.
I do think that for many of us, living that much below our income implies that there is some fat in our income and that is far from always the case. And getting your nails done once a month shouldn't be seen as a shameful luxury.
So as with everything, I advocate moderation. Spend moderately, but also save moderately. Try to live within your means, don't get the maximum mortgage, see if you can find something cheaper a little further out, give yourself some breathing room. And take a holiday. Holidays are joy. And if camping gives you joy, go camping. But if going to Paris gives you joy, don't force yourself to camp and resent your choices.
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