If you had the money to retire at 30, your savings would be invested and on an average year your earnings would cover your expenses. You would have health insurance, so no worries there. The only catch is that you would have to keep your expenses at 65% of what you spend right now. Would you take it, or would you rather work a few more years for a better lifestyle and financial security?
Living frugally isn’t the problem, at least not directly.
The boredom is what would get most people.
Most people need to engage themselves in something satisfying and challenging.
The sky is the limit on hobby spending, but we’ve also never had more access to inexpensive hobbies and entertainment options.
Hobbies won’t nourish your soul for the next 40 years.
Sure. People need socialization and relationships with other people. Similar to hobbies, that can be as expensive or as inexpensive as one wants. Socialization often even combines with hobbies and recreational activities.
What else do people need? I’d say that purpose. That’s why many people choose to volunteer.
Surprised I have to point this out but…
People need to be challenged. People want to test their mettle and push boundaries and produce value and be useful and show everyone what they can achieve.
When you’re in your 80s and all messed up and just sitting around waiting to die, a great collection of knitted gloves and scarves might not be very satisfying.
I’m not sure why you think hobbies can’t be challenging. Aside from various types of competitive activities, many hobbies very much involve pushing boundaries.
The founder of Myspace retired in early thirty’s after selling his company for $80 million. He travels the world and does photography. People who say they will be bored if they retire aren’t being creative enough to think of doing something else.
Living on $80 million is not living frugally. Living frugally severely limits your hobbies and travel.
I guess I have a different understanding of frugal. For me, you can be rich and yet frugal, only spending money on the needs and occasional wants. Some people don’t even show that they’re net worth increased. I forgot the name of the person, but he worked as a janitor throughout his life. When he passed away, to his family’s utter surprise, he left $8 million from his investment account to his family. The guy could have cashed in the investment profits and lived lavishly but he didn’t.
In this hypothetical circumstance described by OP, you don’t have $80m on which to live frugally travelling the world pursuing your interest in photography.
For most people, living on 65% of their current earnings would mean a serious curtailment of their current activities. A subsistence if you will.
Besides which, most hobbies aren’t really satisfying in a way that can nourish the soul, certainly not the ones you can do at home for little or no cost anyway.
You can do a lot on a frugal budget
What does that mean? You said 65% of current earnings in the OP. Most people couldn’t pursue any significant hobbies or interests on that level of income.
65% of your spendings, addmittedly this question is mostly relevant to people that spend at least a somewhat above the median, where they can reduce their lifestyle by 35% and still live, just frugally.
I’m not sure what you mean by significant hobbies, but personally with the exception of one, all of my hobbies are cheap/free.
Sure, fine, whatever. You do you.
I think there are very few people who could spend 40 years painting warhammer figurines and call that a rewarding satisfying life.
Why are you so skeptical? I could spend 40 years doing:
There is so much more to life than work and paid services.
And yes, this is a privileged position, but that doesn’t make it wrong.