Stats for nerds
2recommend
4mentions
4people
2025–2026years
50% recommend50% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- > This is a deeply personal decision and I categorically reject any kind of moralization around frugality.
It's not a bout moralizing but recognizing how the reward centres of the human brain work:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill
I would recommend the recently published book The Art of Spending Money by Morgan Housel, or check out the interviews he's done in recent months on it:
* https://collabfund.com/blog/my-new-book-the-art-of-spending-...
It's not about being frugal or cheap or spendy, but on recognizing human psychology and what actually brings most people happiness. See also the 85-year Harvard study on the topic:
* https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11575524/
* https://the-good-life-book.com
* https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/04/over-nearly-8...
- The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel.
Highly recommended no matter what your age.
Just a few chapters into The Art of Spending Money by the same author. So far very good as well.
Both cover how personal finance is, first and foremost, personal and specific to an individual and highly dependent on your life experience.
- > Certainly, if the objective is (merely) security for one's children, that can be secured with much (much) less money (and likely was secured in the secondary that the author makes reference to); […]
See perhaps Nick Maggiulli's post "The Ideal Level of Wealth":
> Financial Independence (28.6x Your Annual Spending): $3.5M. Assuming you never wanted to work again, you would need about 28.6x your annual spending to cover your costs indefinitely [$120,000 * 28.6 ~ $3,500,000]. This 28.6 comes from the Kitces research[1] showing that the 3.5% Rule[2] is the safe withdrawal rate for a 40-year time horizon and beyond. This research suggests that if you can make it 40 years while withdrawing 3.5% per year, then you’ll likely make it 50 years (or more).
[…]
> Whether your goal is Coast FIRE or full financial independence, the ideal level of wealth in the U.S. is in the low-to-mid range of Level 4 ($1M-$10M), or $2M-$5M. I know this is a lot of money and many people will never reach it, but that’s why it’s an ideal. It’s something to strive for. It’s enough where you don’t have to worry about money anymore, but not so much that it becomes a burden or warps your identity.
* https://ofdollarsanddata.com/the-ideal-level-of-wealth/
Adjust the $120k annual spend for your own lifestyle and cost of living.
You're not going to fly private, but it will take most of the worry out of life. Morgan Housel, author of the recently release The Art of Spending Money (and previously The Psychology of Money):
> 00:50:16 […] You have the independence to be who you are and wake up every morning and say, I can do whatever I want today. That’s wealth.
* https://ritholtz.com/2025/11/transcript-morgan-housel-spend/
- The Burnout Society
Strangers in Paradise: How Families Adapt to Wealth Across Generations
Co-Intelligence: Living and Working With AI
The Year in Tech 2024
This Is Strategy
Optimal Illusions
Matrix Energetics
Models
The Value of Others
The Essence of Bhagavad Gita
From Barista to Billionaire
Go On Alone
78 Days Practical Transurfing
The New Game of Life and How to Play It
Getting Real
There Is No Such Thing as Business Ethics
How to Be Happy All The Time
Shape Up
Catching the Big Fish
Babaji The Lightning Standing Still
The Courage to be Happy
Systemantics: How Systems Work and Especially How They Fail
The Art of Spending Money
Laws of Life
The Oracle
Kriya Yoga: Spiritual Awakening for the New Age
Inner Excellence: Train Your Mind for Extraordinary Performance and the Best Possible Life
