As marginal utility goes, though, it sounds like “spending more money” in this story includes things like “having more than one room to live in.” And, admittedly this was an inference rather than baldly stated, “nice vacations.”

Money doesn’t just buy a different grade of items. It also buys a whole slew of novel experiences, of which you only get so many in your life.

Yeah, some amount of spending can make you happier.

The ROI from vacations when your younger vs much earlier retirement seems to favor early retirement.

...and then you die at 35.

Live while you're alive. You don't know when the bus is going to come around that corner a little too fast.

Humanity has been having this debate for thousands of years, e.g. the fable of the Ant and the Grasshopper. It's a virtue to work hard and plan for the future. Delayed gratification is a foundational building block of civilization. There's a balance that each person must strike but I'm hesitate to criticize unless someone has parked at one extreme end of the spectrum or the other. The secret may be to more carefully measure and unnderstand experiential ROI from money spent which our traditionally materialistic focused consumer culture does not make very transparent.

That’s more convincing if you ignore interest. I do take long breaks between jobs, but I also avoid debt and save a huge percentage of my income.

I emphatically disagree. If your job has high stress, then relaxing and checking out can pay huge dividends; up to and including the ability to maintain your high stress job. Additionally, for those of us who take more exploration-learning-bucket-list style vacations, the memories and knowledge offer more value the earlier in life you take them, as they contribute to lifelong education. Finally, the vacations provide networking opportunities, opening doors due to shared experiences leading to new friendships and possibly new jobs or clients.

You don’t need to travel to Hawaii to destress or make interesting memories. I simply recommend cheap vacations in your youth.

It is extreme frugality, not just frugality, when you choose to put your dining table in your bedroom.

I would honestly never live like this, regardless of my financial goals. I hope the husband is actually enjoying it...

I disagree that a studio apartment is _extreme_ frugality. Not many years ago, it was standard for people to live on much less space per person than these days.

> I would honestly never live like this, regardless of my financial goals.

Yes you would. If your financial goal was to have enough money to put food on your table, you'd care less where that table was located.

> I disagree that a studio apartment is _extreme_ frugality. Not many years ago, it was standard for people to live on much less space per person than these days.

And I also disagree; I have lived in a studio before.

But in this context -- owning a 4 bedroom house yet deciding to rent out the remaining rooms to live in one of the bedrooms -- it is indeed extreme frugality.

> Yes you would. If your financial goal was to have enough money to put food on your table, you'd care less where that table was located.

So you think that there are people out there who own a 4 bedroom house and have a 7 figure (?) household income and yet struggle to put food on the table??

Or do you just have trouble sticking to context?

> Or do you just have trouble sticking to context?

To be fair you wrote "never", not "within this context".

It's enough that the husband assumes it to cause marital disaster...