By all means be frugal and live as debt-free as possible. But I think the issue raised by the article is that in today’s economy even “reasonable” people making rational decisions are screwed once they pass 40, age out of the workforce and/or get hit by a financial emergency like a health issue. There comes a point where the reckless decision is actually to postpone “living” until an imagined idyllic retirement that most likely will never materialize. But I’m one of those people who’d rather leave early than stay late.