Strangely, I felt like I was doing all that when I was a grad student making a $30k stipend, and I actually didn't spend all the $30k. Nice condo in a nice location, recent car, ate out all the time, spent a surprising amount on microbrews. Granted, Atlanta wasn't the world's most expensive city.
I could've easily imagined being much more frugal in almost every aspect of my life, if I actually needed to save money. But certainly by other standards I was already living very cheaply. I can think of some other things I could've spent money on, but even now that I make more, they don't seem that appealing. Maybe it's just my tastes, but I prefer brewpubs to $50/plate restaurants; you would have to actually pay me to convince me to start eating regularly at high-end places (I currently go if I'm entertaining someone, or occasionally as a novelty, but it's not really my thing). And I could upgrade from "recent, fairly nice Honda" to "new BMW", but I don't really care very much about that. Maybe I'll take more trips or something, but of course I actually have less time to take trips now than I did as a grad student. =]
I honestly am not that sure what I can do with the extra money that would really improve my life, so so far it's mostly being saved, maybe for possible future self-financing, if an idea arises that I want to work full-time on. I guess I could upgrade my microbrew hobby to a Scotch or fine-wine hobby, but again, that doesn't actually appeal that much; it feels like something I would do just to spend money "because I can".
I could've easily imagined being much more frugal in almost every aspect of my life, if I actually needed to save money. But certainly by other standards I was already living very cheaply. I can think of some other things I could've spent money on, but even now that I make more, they don't seem that appealing. Maybe it's just my tastes, but I prefer brewpubs to $50/plate restaurants; you would have to actually pay me to convince me to start eating regularly at high-end places (I currently go if I'm entertaining someone, or occasionally as a novelty, but it's not really my thing). And I could upgrade from "recent, fairly nice Honda" to "new BMW", but I don't really care very much about that. Maybe I'll take more trips or something, but of course I actually have less time to take trips now than I did as a grad student. =]
I honestly am not that sure what I can do with the extra money that would really improve my life, so so far it's mostly being saved, maybe for possible future self-financing, if an idea arises that I want to work full-time on. I guess I could upgrade my microbrew hobby to a Scotch or fine-wine hobby, but again, that doesn't actually appeal that much; it feels like something I would do just to spend money "because I can".