Don’t wait to enjoy your life
Former Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s death at 64 made it all the more clear to me that you shouldn’t wait until retirement to enjoy your life.
He died of a massive heart attack and had JUST stepped down a month ago saying he wanted to return to working in the private sector.
I know we talk a lot about saving money, not spending it and funding your retirement but sometimes you can’t predict what is going to happen to you.
We can all expect to live to an average age, but who can say for certain?
By all means, save your money for retirement and emergencies, but don’t forget to enjoy it either.
If you can afford it, take that trip.
If you have the money to spare and it isn’t an expensive habit, buy yourself that latte and enjoy it.
This is why my blog is entitled: Save. Spend. Splurge.
… it isn’t just some cheeky way for me to justify spending gobs of money, it’s also to remind people and myself that life is not about hoarding money and working until you die.
Don’t wait until retirement to see the people you love and do the things you have been waiting to do. There’s no point in hoarding all that money and having a killer net worth if your life has been miserable and crappy for the past 40 years to get there.
No one on their deathbed has ever uttered these words:
I wish I had spent more time working.
RIP, Mr. Flaherty.
10 Comments
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The Asian Pear
I was really shocked to hear of his passing. I’m not a Conservative fan but he was a good Finance Minister. He did his job and he did it well (whether I agreed with the Government’s policy decisions.) May he rest in peace.
PS – I loved this post btw.
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jane savers @ solving the money puzzle
I work in health care and we talked about Mr. Flaherty’s condition, bullous pemphigoid, today at work. None of us had ever seen a patient with this condition and there were some old people in the room who have been in health care for decades.
I don’t know if his death had anything to do with his painful condition but health is all you have and you need to enjoy life while you can. I think Mr. Flaherty probably loved his government work and wouldn’t have missed it for anything.
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save. spend. splurge.
I was thinking about that — did his heart attack have something to do with his disease?
Still, even if you love your job as I do, you don’t really wish you had spent MORE time in the office. He had stepped down (as Debt Debs pointed out) to spend more time with his family, an obvious wish / dream of his.
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jane savers @ solving the money puzzle
@save. spend. splurge.: It is an autoimmune disorder and he was probably on a several different medications for it but we may never know what killed him because it is not suspicious so the cause of death does not have to be made public.
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debt debs
Well said. I’m so sad that his life has ended so prematurely, especially since he had decided to step down only 3 weeks 2 days ago so he could spend more time with his family. He worked tirelessly for the country and has left us in good stead. He believed in Canada, was a heck of a good guy and did a heck of a job. May he rest in peace and I will pray for his family at this time of great loss.
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save. spend. splurge.
It really shocked me to hear that he died so prematurely. He did admit to having health problems though, but no one could have expected him to go so soon.
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Amen… Totally agree with you on that. While it’s great to be focused and save and invest and plan for that day when we’ll be financially independent, you have to ask yourself would it have been worth the constant denial and frugality to drop dead before reaching that glorious financially independent age?