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Notes -
Have any of you thought about moving spending forwards vs saving for retirement with seemingly numerous multiple crises coming down the pike in the next few decades?
Thinking: AI Global fertility Global debt (insert other left or right-coded flavored crises here as desired).
Just seems like my desire to put away money for 35 years from now versus making memories with family and friends now has started to decline.
I guess option 1 would be just to cut 401k contributions down to the match level instead of maxing? I've had trouble saying no to the immediate tax benefits, but seems like the move.
Would love cash out refi if interest rates were lower, but not looking to add several hundred beeps to my mortgage.
None of it would be world-changing in 30 years. I mean, yes, the world will change, a lot, but not in a way that makes current wisdom irrelevant. Internet changed everything, and yet saving now is as relevant as it was before the internet. If you started saving before the internet, you can enjoy it now, with the internet, no less. If AI proves as world-changing as internet was - which is not a given but let's assume it will be all that and twice all that - I am still sure fundamentals would not change. I mean, there could be some life-changing things that could be very valuable - like, I knew about bitcoin's existence extremely early and if I invested in it seriously, I probably could retire and be a rich man now. I did not. But somebody probably did. Somebody would invest in something AI-related and become fabulously rich in 30 years too (probably not me again). But for the rest of us, it'll be the same but with AI.
As for saving vs making memories - it's much more complex question. I admit I have no idea what's the answer for me. My thinking shifted a bit after COVID when I realized how fragile is everything we're enjoying and how easily it could be destroyed - not by something big and glorious, but just by a bunch of panicked idiots that find themselves in an unknown situation and start thrashing around. So now I am more on the side of "making memories" but still in a pretty conservative stance overall. But I can't guarantee some shit like COVID won't happen again and that time the breakage would be personally ruinous for me. I feel this is much more realistic threat scenario than "global debt".
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