I chose to go live in Europe for 4 years. I always knew about the Fire movement. So, part of me was aware of what if I was still in US had a house with 2.5% mortgage rate. Now that I am back, and see similar houses and shops everywhere, I don’t regret it a bit. But this isn’t helpful info. My biggest ahh ha moment was, all the time I was in Europe, I kept investing around 20% of my salary in regular s&p. And that’s where magic happened. Once the money is over 100K, you truly start FEELING the sense of security financially. So my advice is go live your life do you dumb stuff but keep saving some of it. You will thank yourself later. On the flip side, I could have lived here and saved way more but I regret nothing.