Morgan Housel

There's nothing delayed about saving this money because I like waking up tomorrow morning and being like, there's a big cushion here.

And so not if, but when

something bad happens in my life, whatever it is, whether it's a personal life or the macro economy or, you know, pandemics, whatever it might be.

Like there's a big gap.

There's a wide channel of outcomes that I can endure.

And the less independent, the less savings, the more debt you have, the narrower that channel of endurance becomes.

And so within that channel is like all the ups and downs of life, individual and macro.

And the wider the channel is, the more that you can endure.

And so much about compound interest, not just with money, but with relationships and careers and friendships comes down to what can you endure?

How many unknowns and the depths of those unknowns can you endure and survive?

And so much, I wrote this in Psychology Money.

If you have to sum up doing well financially in one word, I think it's survival.

That's true in your career.

That's true for savings.

That's true for investing.

Absolutely.

It's just survive.

It's just what can you endure?

What can you put up with?

And when you view it like that, you realize that like every dollar that you save is a claim check of independence that will serve you, not just in the future, but today.