“The ability to do what you want, when you want, with who[m] you want, for as long as you want to, pays the highest dividend that exists in finance.”

Think about what money and wealth are for. A critical distinction between being rich (having a high current income) and being wealthy (having the freedom to choose not to spend money).

Many rich people aren’t wealthy, because they feel the need to spend a lot of money to show others how rich they are. The optimal savings level as “the gap between your ego and your income.” Wealth consists in caring less about what others think about you and more about using your money to control how you spend your time.

From Wall Street Journal