Meet the oversavers

T

tenant13

Full time employment: Posting here.
Joined
Nov 15, 2019
Messages
547
Location
Jersey City
I could read the article, but I know I'm one of the over savers. The thing is we aren't travels and did enjoy our careers and being very frugal through the years be over savers. Living in low-cost area and in fly over country helps a bunch also.
I will say I'm very glad to have over saved and not under saved though.
 
Well the first guy did well planned for his life and got sick so now he things he over saved. What if he hadn't gotten sick? I guess if we were perfect planners we would spend the last dollar on the last day of life.
 
"Hi, I'm Michael, and I'm an oversaver."

One of the reasons I'm looking to gently gift as much as possible is because we denied ourselves so many things as we saved. I know that you can't make up for lost time but dammit I'm gonna try. I also hope that the pendulum swing will be a lesson for my children and they can find the balance I never had.
 
Ronstar said:
A common theme here- enjoying time while healthy is more important than spending time working beyond what is necessary.
Click to expand...
Yes, that’s my take as well. Also: you only “oversaved” if those savings come with a serving of regrets. I bet there are plenty of people happily planning to distribute their estate among their kids and seeing that as life goals achieved.
 
Yeah, the illness shortly after retiring always really gets me (in terms of sadness, regrets and what a bummer/bad luck).

DM was diagnosed with a fatal illness shortly before DH retired at the standard age as expected with his pension. This definitely inspired me to retire shortly after I became FI.

DH lived another 25 years as a widower.
 
I glanced at the article and saw a huge "monetary survivorship" bias in these stories. Being thrifty, working hard and saving was good risk management. Had these folks suffered a health crisis, family crisis, job loss, etc. or if markets recently were like 1966-1982 or the Great Depression, these folks would have been very glad for their wise and careful ways.
 
Exchme said:
I glanced at the article and saw a huge "monetary survivorship" bias in these stories. Being thrifty, working hard and saving was good risk management. Had these folks suffered a health crisis, family crisis, job loss, etc. or if markets recently were like 1966-1982 or the Great Depression, these folks would have been very glad for their wise and careful ways.
Click to expand...
+1

For the vast majority of people, it is only possible to say they oversaved after the fact. Nobody can know what their future expenses will be, or their future returns on investments, or future changes in government policy (social security, anyone?).

I have probably oversaved. But having resources can solve (or at least greatly ease) much of life's unpleasantness. If in the end I find I had oversaved, the peace of mind bought by those extra savings will have been worth more to me than anything else I could have bought.
 
Lewis Clark said:
+1

For the vast majority of people, it is only possible to say they oversaved after the fact. Nobody can know what their future expenses will be, or their future returns on investments, or future changes in government policy (social security, anyone?).

I have probably oversaved. But having resources can solve (or at least greatly ease) much of life's unpleasantness. If in the end I find I had oversaved, the peace of mind bought by those extra savings will have been worth more to me than anything else I could have bought.
Click to expand...
Agreed. I have always lived by the tenet that "It's always better to have and not need, than need and not have." And I have never faced a problem where having more money made it worse.
 
These days, for every mainstream article about retirement, I ask myself, “Is this article written from the viewpoint of a broke journalist managed by a broke editor?”

IOW, should I take it seriously? Most people I know in real life could not be bothered to read even one book on saving and investing and have, consequently, not saved squat for their retirement, so I figure most journalists haven’t either. If someone in this profligate, spendthrift consumer culture has saved $1M - $3M, they are unusual winners, in my book, no matter how they spend their time.
 
Last edited:
I don’t believe I over saved. How can you know what the future holds? We’ve been blessed with a strong stock market and now have more than we need. My health at 68 will prevent me from doing the traveling we had hoped to do, but there are many good things we can still do with the money. There are so many good people in need, including family, that we can help and still leave a nice nest egg for our sons.
 
I think it is perfectly normal that we, the baby boomer generation, were taught the monetary values of our parents, the WWII generation, as well as our grandparents, who lived through WWI and the Great Depression. We understood the value of a dollar and the importance of saving for the future.
 
In hindsight, I was fortunate to save but also spend a decent amount in my last 10 years of working and don't regret it.
I wish I had known more about more on the personal investment side and probably would have retired around 53/54 instead of 57.
Still all in all loving retirement.
 
In 2007, we decided to buy a snowbird home. It was a lifestyle investment, not a rental. We have spent about 6 months there each year. 2020 was an exception at 8 months. Turns out to have been a spectular investment so we are officially over savers even though we travel to Europe for a month every year! We upgraded in 2019 to a larger place that was new. We upgraded to Business Class travel in 2015.
 
Lewis Clark said:
+1

For the vast majority of people, it is only possible to say they oversaved after the fact. Nobody can know what their future expenses will be, or their future returns on investments, or future changes in government policy (social security, anyone?).
Click to expand...
And that's the thing. Although I have probably oversaved, I won't really know until the last day of my life. And as Gumby pointed out it's better to have and not need than to need and not have. So I'm hoping my heirs will be grateful for my spending habits.
 
Walt34 said:
Although I have probably oversaved, I won't really know until the last day of my life.
Click to expand...
And maybe not even then.

For those of us who are married or have a long term partner, we can't evaluate oversaving until the second spouse or partner has died. And likewise for any other dependents we still have at those ages.
 
Better to err on the side of over than under. Hopefully I jumped at the right time and with the right amount of assets so I don't suffer or become a burden on family or society.
 
No. Of all the things I might regret, over saving is not one of them, and I would not waste my precious time doing so. If I had the option of over saving vs. under saving - I would choose over saving. That said, each stage of life is important, and to the extent possible, I would recommend maximizing fulfillment and look for a good work - life balance while working.

(The examples of driving modest cars of living in a more modest house don't seem like much of a sacrifice to me, the only area I would examine for improvement is family and personal time.)
 
frayne said:
I think it is perfectly normal that we, the baby boomer generation, were taught the monetary values of our parents, the WWII generation, as well as our grandparents, who lived through WWI and the Great Depression. We understood the value of a dollar and the importance of saving for the future.
Click to expand...

OK, if you say so, but I haven’t seen any studies showing that Boomers are inherently any better at saving than other generations. Boomers today have more as a group, because they are older and there’s a lot of them, but on a per capita basis, I doubt their superior, frugal, lbym ways.
 
Ah hell. We're all living better than our grand parents did and for sure better than their parent's did. I'm going to help as many people as I can til I die .....then my will can help more people than that.

And I don't even have that much money.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

S
Resentment of the working spouse
Route246
Route246
Jerry1
7 years retired
Koolau
Koolau
B
Moving past the fear
2 3
bobbfrommn
B
T
Took a while to introduce myself
2
Koolau
Koolau
ER Eddie
  • Locked
Retirement and the Single Man (appeal and unique challenges)
2
Chuckanut
Chuckanut

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom