I am 20 years older than you and would increase my standard of living by reducing current saving vs pulling from investments. Before I did that I would ask myself if we were entering a decade where I saw no increase in net worth would I still feel my investments were sufficient for my plans at the end of that decade.
If I lost my job now I would be fine for the rest of my life and likely be in a position where growth in investments exceeds my living costs. & I only need to consider another 40 years of life. I would still be cautious about increasing my living costs because once you do buy really nice yarn it can be hard to go back to the affordable stuff. But you can be perfectly happy if you never stop limiting yourself to the affordable stuff. OTOH while I also like nice tea, it's something I only indulge in on rare occasions and I am fine with the cheap stuff on the daily. If we entered a lost decade I would mourn my yarn and not think twice about my tea. (I do buy nice yarn - out of current income. I might pull from savings for a once in a lifetime experience but I would prefer to save up for it out of current income if I had the time to do so.)
So... What do you want that would require you to supplement from savings rather than current income? If you lost your job how much of a runway do you have? If your investments had no growth for a decade could/would/should you stop pulling from them during that time? If you needed to drop back to your current living standard how hard would it be? Could you do an experiment without locking yourself into a dependency? You have 60-70 years of remaining life to play with it. It's a tough balance.
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I am 20 years older than you and would increase my standard of living by reducing current saving vs pulling from investments. Before I did that I would ask myself if we were entering a decade where I saw no increase in net worth would I still feel my investments were sufficient for my plans at the end of that decade.
If I lost my job now I would be fine for the rest of my life and likely be in a position where growth in investments exceeds my living costs. & I only need to consider another 40 years of life. I would still be cautious about increasing my living costs because once you do buy really nice yarn it can be hard to go back to the affordable stuff. But you can be perfectly happy if you never stop limiting yourself to the affordable stuff. OTOH while I also like nice tea, it's something I only indulge in on rare occasions and I am fine with the cheap stuff on the daily. If we entered a lost decade I would mourn my yarn and not think twice about my tea. (I do buy nice yarn - out of current income. I might pull from savings for a once in a lifetime experience but I would prefer to save up for it out of current income if I had the time to do so.)
So... What do you want that would require you to supplement from savings rather than current income? If you lost your job how much of a runway do you have? If your investments had no growth for a decade could/would/should you stop pulling from them during that time? If you needed to drop back to your current living standard how hard would it be? Could you do an experiment without locking yourself into a dependency? You have 60-70 years of remaining life to play with it. It's a tough balance.
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