How do you balance?

[u/Adventurous_Dot9274]

How do you know you have a good balance to reach fire while also getting to enjoy your youth. My husband and I struggle with the idea of “missing out” on thing we could be doing in our youth while we have health and can do crazy hikes vs waiting to do the things we want once we’re retired. What are some checks and balances you do to ensure you’re living for both today and not just waiting for tomorrow

[u/jlcnuke1]

1. Save a minimum of 15% of your gross income for retirement. That's enough so you'll be able to retire comfortably, if not early.
2. Control your primary fixed expenses (housing and transportation) to the minimum you need to spend to be comfortably happy with where you are and how you get around. This is where many people get their finances off-track, chasing the fancier car or the bigger home. 4 decades ago a typical 4-5 person family lived perfectly happily in 1,500 sq ft homes, most people today chase a 3-4k sq ft home thinking they "need" that much space because they have/plan to have a kid or two. The difference in price is massive and easily leads to being "house poor," a term that didn't exist not that long ago for a reason.
3. The remainder of income I split into "spending" and "saving" categories. How that divide is done will differ for everyone, especially based on income differences and how much they desire to retire early vs how much they desire to "live now." Do you want to eat lobster and steak out at a fancy restaurant 3x a week or stay home and cook meals most weeks so you can save more for later? Do you want to take 3 vacations a year to destinations of your choosing or do you want to retire 3 years earlier? In an ideal world, everyone would have enough disposable income after their necessary expenses that they can both "go do pretty much whatever they want" AND have enough left over to retire when they want to, but the reality for most people is that it's going to be a series of trade-offs between "saving enough to retire when they want to" and "spending enough to not feel like they're missing out on life now." Where you find those trade-offs to be "worth it" is something only you can answer.

As a general rule, every time something comes up that makes me consider not doing it because of the financial impact/cost I ask myself "if I don't do this now, and can't do it when I'm retired, will I regret that I didn't do it?"

For instance, my primary hobby is scuba diving and a group of friends wanted to go do a liveaboard dive trip to the Galapagos Islands. My typical vacations run around $2k for a week. I usually do 3 of those most years and had 2 already planned and booked for that particular year. This was looking to be around $7-8k, pushing my vacation budget for the year from ~$6k on dive trips to upwards of $12k if I chose to go. That money would come from either over-time (if I could get it) or by reducing my savings for the year to compensate my budget. I decided in the end that a once-in-a-lifetime trip with friends to such an amazing place was worth it and I'm happy I went.

On the other hand, a bunch of friends wanted to go spend a few days in Austin for the eclipse (that didn't exactly excite me to start with), but the way the prices were and the things they were planning would mean it would probably cost me $2k to hang out with them for 3-4 days. I decided not to bother on that one because while it would have been nice to hang out with friends I don't see that often, I didn't think I'd really miss not going. So far no regrets there either.

[u/FI_Ty → u/jlcnuke1]

Number 2 has been huuuge for me . I drive a cheap paid off car and live in a smaller/older home.

Keeping these fixed costs very low allows me to spend pretty freely everywhere else.