“The most important thing to note is that cutting your spending rate is much more powerful than increasing your income. The reason is that every permanent drop in your spending has a double effect:
- it increases the amount of money you have left over to save each month
- and it permanently decreases the amount you’ll need every month for the rest of your life”
The above is a quote from the blog MrMoneyMustache one the gurus of intense saving and retiring early, like age 30. I think these FIRE folks are mostly a farce for average people, but here he has an excellent point.
I’ve made that same point over and over myself. Do you want $870,000? Here’s how. Or, if you find it hard to save, try cutting expenses in baby steps, periodic fasting
Those people who can’t save or claim to live PTP are mostly kidding themselves. They have established a standard of living and spending based on their incomes before saving when it should be the other way around.
You get to keep and spend what you earn after taxes. Make that after taxes and saving, and you will have a brighter future for sure.
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
I retired at 50, with zero in savings. Living on a small military pension, and credit card debt, until I could receive SS benefits at 62. It took the first 18 months of SS benefits to zero out the credit card debt. Since then zero credit card debt that required interest payments. I now pay credit card statement balances in full every month and get hundreds of dollars in cash back each year. Now I have $10,000 in an emergency fund. I would not recommend to anyone to retire at 50 and use credit card debt to survive. But, what I learned is that every dollar you spend paying credit card interest is a dollar that you will not have for future needs / wants. Saving by not ever paying credit card interest is the biggest thing that has raised my standard of living in my 65 years. My credit score is now 808.
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To get $1.00 extra to spend you need to earn about $1.20 before taxes – so cutting spending is certainly more efficient.
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