When you save money, you buy freedom

I often think of a well-delivered monologue from The Gambler (2014), where a loan-shark is giving the gambling-addict protagonist some life-advice:

> "You get up two-and-half million dollars, any asshole in the world knows what to do: You get a house with a 25-year roof, an indestructible economy shitbox car, and you put the rest into the system at 3 to 5 percent and you pay your taxes. That’s your base. Get me? That’s your fortress of fucking solitude. That puts you, for the rest of your life, at a level of ‘Fuck You.’

> Someone wants you to do something? Fuck You. Boss pisses you off? Fuck You. Own your house. Have a couple of bucks in the bank. Don’t drink. That’s all I have to say to anybody.

> Did your [famously rich] grandfather take risks? [...] I guarantee he did it from a position of Fuck You.”

(2014) But very similar to/linked in yesterday's Maladaptive Frugality (14 points, 2 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47942863