Pursuing financial independence has become a shared discipline for millions of Americans, organized around a deliberate approach to save relentlessly, invest every spare dollar, and let compounding do the rest. For a large share of that community, the framing gets treated less like a strategy and more like gospel.
In practice, the creed often tips into something harsher. Spending gets cut to the bone, rest starts to feel like a leak in the plan, and any upgrade to daily life reads as a failure of will. Whole decades, the prime earning years many people spend in their 20s and 30s, get pledged to a target that always sits somewhere in the future.
This is something I’ve personally battled in my investing career, and on Friday’s episode of the BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast, a warning was issued to anyone trading valuable years, experiences, and general well-being for a future pursuit that, in some ways, is a complete myth.
“You don’t have to sacrifice your entire 20s or 30s or any decade on the altar of some number,” Dave Meyer, host of the BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast, said on Friday’s episode.
The case against sacrificing your best years to save
Meyer’s problem is not with discipline itself but with the version of it that never switches off. He describes a mindset common among aggressive savers, where the goal becomes squeezing every possible dollar out of income and treating any enjoyment as a delay. That approach, he argues, confuses a temporary phase with a permanent way of living.
The alternative he lays out is permission to slow down on purpose.
“It is okay to sometimes take your foot off the gas as long as you are being deliberate about it,” Meyer said.
The deliberate part is what separates his view from simply spending more. As income climbs, he sees room to let some of that gain show up in daily life without apologizing for it.
“A reasonable amount of upgrading your life as you grow is not a failure of discipline,” Meyer said. “It’s the reward for working hard.”
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The position lands differently because Meyer did the hard part first. Early in his pursuit of financial independence, he spent three years living in the basement of a friend’s grandmother and drove a beat-up car, keeping his costs low so more money could go toward investing. He is not arguing against sacrifice from the comfort of having skipped it.
That background is also what turns his message from a comfort into a warning. Savers who treat frugality as the whole point, rather than a stage, risk crossing the finish line only to realize their best years were the price of admission. And when it comes to to a magic financial freedom number, Meyer doesn’t believe it exists.
“This idea of a FI number or a magical net worth number is wrong,” he added. “It’s actually just kind of a myth. This idea that you hit some number, become free, your problems dissolve, it’s not real.”
When easing off beats the next deal
Meyer backs the argument with trade-offs he says he would choose again. The clearest arrived in the middle of his career, when he steered money set aside for a deal toward something other than property.
“I decided instead of investing in a new property around 2015 to go back to grad school and I used my money that I had saved up to pay for my tuition,” Meyer explained.
He said the degree went on to raise his salary, a return the next rental might never have delivered. Other choices were about living rather than earning. Meyer points to a large wedding and to frequent, expensive vacations, with travel a stated priority, even when the tab pushes his next acquisition further down the calendar.
None of it, in his telling, derailed the larger goal. The pattern he describes is one of alternating gears rather than a single fixed speed.
“Sometimes you go hard, you save and invest aggressively, and sometimes you ease off and enjoy the fruits of your labor,” Meyer added. “Both are correct at different times.”
The path to financial independence rarely runs in a straight line, and it can plateau or dip along the way. Meyer’s case is to budget the ease-off spending on things that actually matter, to measure success as being further along than a year ago, and to mark those gains instead of staring at a number that may still be years out.
Key takeaways for investors chasing financial independence
- Build the ease-off spending into the plan: Meyer said letting your lifestyle rise modestly as income grows is the reward for hard work, not a lapse in discipline, and it belongs in the budget rather than deferred to a distant date.
- Keep the deliberate line between reward and recklessness: Meyer draws a hard distinction between intentional upgrades earned by rising income and unchecked spending, saying easing off only works when it is done on purpose.
- Some detours pay for themselves: Meyer said that around 2015 he put savings toward graduate school rather than another property, a choice he says later lifted his salary and one he would make again.
- Measure progress, not distance to the finish: Meyer frames the path as nonlinear, one that can plateau or dip, and worth judging by how much more financially independent you are than before instead of against a far-off target.
- The discipline that builds wealth still holds: Meyer is not abandoning frugality, noting he once spent three years in a friend’s grandmother’s basement and drove a beat-up car to save; his point is to alternate hard-saving and ease-off phases, not to quit saving.
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