Great post about lifestyle creep and advice on how to manage it better.

Another way to manage lifestyle creep is to make a point of adding to your savings 50% of each and every raise you get (or increase in business income). This allows you to enjoy a nicer lifestyle while at the same time increasing your savings rate.

As for renting a place to live, personally, I chose to buy rather than rent as soon as I could afford it, which turned out great for me. Not only was I able to choose a nice place (and then a nicer one, and then a much nicer one after that), but was able to increase our net worth as a result each time. As I’ve pointed out in a piece about buying vs. renting, when you rent, you don’t avoid paying the expenses of home ownership or the cashflow burden of paying down the mortgage principal. You’re simply paying all of it for your landlord through your rent.

As for the impact of having a mortgage, that’s actually some of the cheapest money you’ll ever get (except anytime somebody gifts you cash with no strings attached). In fact, if inflation soars, you can actually make money off of hundreds of thousands of dollars of other people’s money.