Oh wow, thanks for sharing the news, even though it's tragic. It's a really well written article too that should encourage some introspection for many of us Bogleheads.Interesting NYT times article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/13/your ... =url-share
Jonathan Clements, a long time personal finance columnist for the WSJ. Did many/all of the things espoused on this forum including planning for a long life. But life threw him the curveball of cancer.
My favorite bits:
"I haven’t worried about money in more than 20 years... The No. 1 thing money can do for us is to give us a sense of financial security"
We sometimes talk about over-saving as being pathological, but it can also be a treatment for anxiety about money. This is very personal, of course. For a while, when I was around 30 with a $500k portfolio, I worried a lot about money, more than I did as a 20 year-old with <$1k in savings, so having more money didn't seem to be helping. But I seem to have crossed some sort of threshold as I approach 40 with a $1-2M portfolio and the assurance of a pension; I really am starting to worry a lot less about money. I've said that planning to be "the richest guy in the graveyard" is unappealing, but planning to die with, say, $1M (in today's dollars) also seems like a decent plan to keep the anxiety away.
"What I really like doing is getting up, pouring a cup of coffee, doing some writing and editing, exercising and eating well, having a glass of wine..."
And this is what makes it easy to over-save. Many of us Bogleheads are the same way; perfectly happy with the inexpensive things in life, and therefore able to derive more pleasure from saving (in combination with the above) than from living a more expensive lifestyle.
"Divorce may have [helped], too..."
This goes against the conventional wisdom, but it has been brought up on this forum before. If someone is naturally, exceptionally frugal, a 50/50 split with an ex-spouse is probably a financial win (in terms of enabling FIRE). Even getting much less than 50% might be a win. I'm not saying a win overall for happiness or whatever, but it an interesting point.
Statistics: Posted by warner25 — Wed Jul 17, 2024 11:58 am — Replies 129 — Views 6594