Quote:
Originally Posted by DownhillGoat
That's my line of thinking. In 25-30 years we're going to be hooped anyway. I have a LIRA and RRSP tucked away for retirement (and a DB where I'm currently at). I figure by the time I'll be looking at retiring we'll either be paying exorbitant amounts of tax to support basic income, "fight" climate change, or whatever the flavor of the day is then, and what I do now isn't going to make a bit of difference. Or we get hit with a worldwide health crisis and see a Spanish-flu style epidemic, and what I do now still doesn't make much of a difference.
Anyone who's 20-40 years away from retirement now, I absolutely do not see enjoying the same standard of retirement as today (retire at 55, buy an RV, snowbird 6 months a year, etc). So I'm very much of the mentality to travel, ski, bike, hike, whatever now while I enjoy it and can do it. While I won't go into debt to enjoy life now (outside of the usual mortgage/car payment), I'm not going to back-load my finances either.
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Ugh, as a pathological saver this is something I really struggle with.
I get genuine pleasure from deferred gratification when it comes to money, and often would rather look at taking a position in quality businesses than buying junk I don't really need. Still enjoy life and spend when it's appropriate, but really enjoy investing.
The problem is I see the same long term story, where the effort I'm putting into my finances now will simply be taxed away at rates we can only imagine to feed those who can't/won't properly secure their future. As someone who's not mentally wired to yolo money out the window, it's pretty frustrating to think about. I say all this as someone who honestly believes that healthy taxation is critical to maintaining our social fabric, just sucks to be saving and planning to feed and house those who are leveraged to the eyeballs with side by sides and toy haulers.
Quick edit, as there was no shade throwing intended in that post. I think the position you're taking is honestly the rational one given the likely outcomes, but as someone who's wired to "back load my finances" it's a troubling situation.