That's easy to say after having had a high paying position for a while, which would give you the opportunity to build some financial stability. Never having had any stability, money plays a much larger role.

There was a comment a few weeks ago about someone saying how money doesn’t matter - his family doesn’t care if his networth aged 40 was $2m or $20m.

Many people on HN, after a decade or so of amazon salaries, seem to have no concept of the real world.

Well, yes. It wouldn't have been a good decision for me 20 years ago. But it was a good decision this year. Context is important. Money is important, obviously. But once you have a certain level of stability in your life, other priorities begin to overtake it.