What would you do if you were diagnosed with cancer and given 6 months to live? Would you change your lifestyle? An interesting question, posted on a message board. If you had stage 4 cancer and it was a reccurance from an earlier diagnosis would you change your spending and saving habits?
Would you stop planning for the long term future and live for today? Would it be wrong to do so? Should you make plans to leave behind money? Or would you go on a spending spree and run through your money? Or better yet, would you start charging up your credit cards and spending money you don’t have because you know you have 6 months to live?
I think this is an interesting question. There are moral issues are play as well as financial ones. It’s easy to say, spend every penny. If you have no dependents, then there is no reason to plan to leave behind any savings. But what about getting a new car and car loan or charging a once in a lifetime trip, you’ll know you’ll never pay?
I don’t know what I would do. A lot depends on how many dependents I have. If I had my life insurance in place, savings, etc. Would I stop paying student loans knowing they didn’t have to be repaid by my spouse and instead save the money? Maybe.
If I had no one would I spend everything and run up bills? I hope not, but who knows what emotional, irrational thing I would do. That being said, do you know anyone this has happened to? What did they do?
10 responses so far ↓
1 Mrs. Money // Nov 5, 2009 at 8:45 am
Last year I had a scare like this. I had to go to an oncologist and have surgery. I’m only 26. I was convinced it was going to develop into stage 4 cancer and I regretted not having kids earlier. Thankfully, everything has been fine since then but it really makes you stop and think!
2 Julie // Nov 5, 2009 at 3:20 pm
I might do one major thing, such as rent a house by the beach for a few months, but other than that, I would be paranoid/hoping that I’d live longer and be worried about running out of money! All of the doctor tv shows have episodes where someone was supposed to die in 6 months, spent their life savings, then was cured and sued their doctor because they were poor (but alive). I would never want to be in that situation!!
3 Meg // Nov 5, 2009 at 4:48 pm
I would quit making retirement contributions and saving, and I’d also quit my job, but I wouldn’t quit making my mortgage payment or run up credit card debt.
But that’s easy for me to say because I have savings to blow through. Honestly if I didn’t have savings, I can’t say I wouldn’t charge a few amazing vacations even if I knew I couldn’t pay off the balances…
But I don’t think I’d blow through everything, even though I don’t have dependents; I’d leave some to charity (probably a charity dedicated to curing whatever was killing me) and some to my siblings just because.
4 Neil // Nov 6, 2009 at 7:16 am
Since I have children I wouldn’t be able to run up debts because I would be looking to leave them as much as possible. If that wasn’t the case I would probably have one erally great vacation on credit!
In my situation I would try and spend as much time with my friends and family as possible.
5 JoeP // Nov 6, 2009 at 8:48 am
I think it would be pretty dumb to spend money on stuff before you die. What’s the point? It’s not like you’ll remember it or anything!
I’d much rather work on an autobiography or memoirs so that family and others can know more about me after I’m gone. Family time would be very important, and I’d probably insist that some of that be videotaped for posterity. I’d also insist upon no expensive heroic medical procedures…just palliative care and hospice.
6 LAL // Nov 7, 2009 at 5:51 pm
Because JoeP, some people don’t have dependents or much family. They only have student debt or minimal savings.
And maybe they would enjoy living enough of a life to write about. Sometimes you can be 25 and barely have had time to live.
7 nicole 86 // Nov 8, 2009 at 2:24 pm
First, I would quit my awful job and get rid of everything. Then I could spend time with my grand daughters, live a few weeks by the sea and another few weeks in an abbey.
And afterwards it would be great to know that I will rest in peace.
8 LAL // Nov 8, 2009 at 9:37 pm
Seems like very few people would work and save until the end.
9 JoeP // Nov 9, 2009 at 12:36 pm
“Because JoeP, some people don’t have dependents or much family. They only have student debt or minimal savings.” Those people aren’t me! You asked what I’d do, and I gave my opinion!
My values say that it would be irresponsible to spend money in such a way that I leave this world with a debt to be absorbed by society. If people think it’s ok to run up big bills and then check out without paying, this comes across to me as not too much different from leaving a restaurant without paying.
Sure, everyone’s situation is different, and so are their values, but I would be a little ticked off being stuck with part of someone’s bill for a deluxe around-the-world cruise.
10 LAL // Nov 13, 2009 at 12:23 pm
That’s a great point about sticking it to others. But I wonder if values don’t change when you don’t have the same norms as everyone else?
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