Ben Carlson

Yeah, and I love that cartoon because it does perfectly encapsulate it.

Like you, I was always an early saver.

I think it was just the way I was brought up, my personality.

I was frugal to a fault in my 20s and 30s, and it probably helped me get ahead in many ways.

But I think that mindset can be taken too far.

And I think the big change for me was having kids and realizing like, oh, they're not going to be young forever.

And at some point, they're going to want to leave the house.

They're going to want nothing to do with me probably, right?

Or when they're teenagers.

My wife and I had to make a concerted change of, no, we have to enjoy some of this now.

What's the point of having a big nest egg when you're older and not enjoying it now?

So I think there does have to be some balance.

And working in the wealth management field, I've seen countless stories of people who ran a business their whole life.

Great, we're going to sell the business.

We're going to get a ton of money.

Now we're going to enjoy ourselves because I've worked for 80 hours a week for 30 years.

And we had a client who passed away not long after they sold the business.

We had clients who were going to

retire early and sail around the world.

And one of them got cancer and passed away.