Climbing to the top of Mt. Washington, or even Rainier is mainly an achievement of endurance.
Of course. I was pointing out how the same economics works with a
different currency - health instead of money. That's one thing I'm trying to get across, that money isn't the only thing.
Anyone of sound body can train, and do it.
I'll turn the analogy into something more obvious: A woman can try to have a baby when she's 30 or 60. Age
matters.
Certainly if doing something that you think you may be able to handle at 62, but not later, is important, by all means do it.
This is the point I've been making. There
is a matter to consider - there are considerations that could result in the decision being 62 as much as there are consideration that could result in the decision being 66 or 70.
Financially, there really is a
single answer. But money
isn't the only thing, so there isn't only a single answer.
Ron could wear a sweatshirt and be just as comfortable as someone whose entire house is heated to 70 degrees.
I think that's a cop-out. You're nitpicking an analogy, so it is simple enough to point out that Ron's ears and nose would get cold, and that this logic carried forward would have him walking around his own home in a ski mask.
Reducción al absurdo, at least as far as I'm concerned. Beyond that, the point is that the levels of unknowns in any real scenario that involves projecting into the future four years or eight years tends to degrade the later options - not from a strictly financial perspective, but from a human perspective. Bird in hand and all that.
I do not understand why any of this is bad.
Perhaps because you didn't know anyone who excessively deprived themselves to economize. Or perhaps you simply don't hold to the same values with regard to living life. And I'm not saying that any measure of economizing is bad - not by a long-shot. My spouse will tell you that I'm stingy to a fault. But it is, literally, a fault to fail to adequately factor-in the "soft" negatives of a plan, because the "hard" positives are so definitive.
I disagree that money is worthless for its own sake. Money can bring enormous feelings of independence and freedom.
We'll have to agree to disagree about that, or at least we'll have to agree to disagree about any disagreement you may have with what I said, i.e., that money is worthless for its own sake. Focusing on your specific counter-examples - independence and freedom: There are paths to independence that bypass money. And most paths to wealth are traps, themselves. You may be independent from some structure or entity that you hold antipathy for, but you are beholden and veritably enslaved to that which safeguards your wealth. Asset allocation, bond yields, safe withdrawal rates, etc. You probably don't see these things as hallmarks of dependence and captivity, so we won't see eye-to-eye on this.
I hope to ER this year at age 53.
I wanted to make an unrelated comment on this unrelated comment.
I think there are different paths to ER (and again, I'm not talking financially - I'm talking about motivation). Some folks - perhaps most folks here - seek ER for its own sake, to achieve what I would consider the fiction of independence and freedom, as I mentioned earlier. Others - myself included - seek ER because we view things the way I have indicated, above, and pursue ER as a back-up plan - as part of my own personal "Plan B". I suspect that difference in perspective plays into our differences of opinion.
Not spending money on things that I do not want or need is not worthless.
The money in question still doesn't have worth for its own sake. Rather, it is the choice that has worth, which brings us back to the original point, the choice between 62, 66 and 70. That's what's of value - not the money involved.
. I plan on saving up a big enough nest egg that she will want it. Then before she can get it she will have to set foot in Texas. All the way to San Antonio. 
