One thing you could do to reduce worry is sit down and see how much you really need to survive at a modest level. What would be the cost of a small apartment, only one old car or public transportation, no cable TV, etc. This may be much less than you expect.

A more extreme case would be to take a bus a new city for a month or two with only minimal funds. Most who have done this have learned to survive with almost nothing. While staying in a shelter may not be comfortable, you will learn how little you really need.

My own personal favorite is backpacking. When you must carry everything you will use for 5 days on you back (including food), all of the silly stuff we think we need gets left behind.

So be frugal, save money, make good choices towards your goals, but don’t worry. It will either happen, or it won’t. Risk can’t be completely eliminated, only reduced. Even Bill Gates could go bankrupt in a nuclear war or some other major disaster. But somehow, I doubt he worries about that much.

There isn’t a cookie cutter answer. Some people choose to live a frugal lifestyle even if they have millions in the bank. It comes down to what you are personally comfortable with.

In fact, I’m almost certain.

But I’ll still keep SOME frugality, but I really think the values learned in frugality make me a better person in general and less cluttered because now I’m starting to really evaluate what I buy, what I bring into the home, and I’m starting to walk away from purchases that I previously thought I NEEDED.

I don’t want to end up like a pauper eating cat food out of cans only to leave millions to a university.

So maybe my money should really be spent on a vacation fund or something.

But only once I’m out of debt, with a healthy EF fund and a healthier mortgage downpayment fund.

If you don’t have much left after saving what you need to save each month, then you’ll need to focus on frugality in order to make ends meet. If you have plenty left, then you don’t HAVE to keep being frugal.

Of course some people never lose the frual habits they picked up when those habits were necessities. Consider Depression era folks who are now wealthy but still stockpile grocery bags and reuse dryer sheets.

However if you are one of those people who continues to be frugal even when you can afford not to be, then it might be good for you and/or your relationship to loosen up the purse strings a bit – especially if your partner isn’t as inclined to penny-pinch. Relationship harmony is worth a LOT of pennies.

The question really becomes “when am I saving too much?” Saving can become obsessive, and you have to find a balance. If you have no debt, a stable job, and are still saving 20% or more of your income for some undetermined future purpose, then you might want to relax a little if you’re still sacrificing your desires for the sake of your savings.

DH and I thought it was enough when we made $20k/year. But now it’s a different matter. We see true financial freedom as earning at least $500k/year because we need to be able to walk away and say “I quit”.

We can’t do that now, and won’t be able to do it until we make enough that we’re saving 75% of our income.

I think the problem is that when you start making more, you realize you need more to be truly free from everything. Not just debt, but making all your own choices.

And how many people can do that? Even if we moved today to a cheap COLA and bought a house cash we couldn’t survive. We don’t have enough saved. And even if we got lower paying jobs, we’d be struggling to save every penny to get there.

So I guess it depends. I have no idea when the worry will stop, maybe that will be the day the blog ends.