MicheleB made the following comment to an earlier post on Post Navra Rush.

OK then, here’s a question I’d really like your considered opinion on. How does one, how do YOU, balance lifestyle with an ongoing acquisition program?

When you’re young, it’s easy to put the comfy choices on hold when you have a PLAN. In fact, there’s something smug and heroic about living like a refugee while owning half a suburb.

But suddenly you wake up one day and find that you’d better get a decent house pronto because the kids will be leaving home any minute and to continue to live in conditions that would shock a battery hen is no longer an option. Okay so we sell something, extend/renovate an ip (because prices are silly and who’d buy in this market right?) and we suddenly have a ‘lifestyle’ YAYAY.

And of course it’s suddenly quite fulfilling to buy and enjoy nice things, an Italian oven, marble tiles, a Persian rug.

So how does one get back that lean machine attitude? And do we have to? Of course we do! We have tasted NICE. And nice costs money.

I see a brand new treadmill in front of me Paul… and it’s got celestial rays coming off it like a Monty Python vision.

Balance is obviously required here, especially as I’m now too buggered to work as hard as I used to. Passive income sounds better than ever. What’s the answer? I suspect it’s probably the same as it ever was… a PLAN. Goals, a budget, a nominated slush amount, a reliable income. And a reasonable stab at answering that trickiest of questions… what IS the meaning of life?

Well Paul?

Hehehe I’ll have a stab later this week. But I think it’s a great post on it’s own, so I’m reprinting it here for those who don’t read comments. There are a lot of readers who only check to read the new entries.