One book killed my obsession with status symbols and changed how I see wealth, but I had to learn the hard way that building wealth without living is just a different kind of broke.
It was a few days after Christmas, a few years ago. Most of my friends were at a liquid drum and bass festival somewhere in the Netherlands, probably losing their minds to some amazing basslines and dreamy melodies.
I, on the other hand, was sitting at home, feeling like the biggest fool on the face of the earth.
I’d been invited and the total price would be around €150, travel and food included. I also had thousands in savings at that point, so the money wasn’t the problem.
The problem, however, was that my monthly budget said no. I’d allocated all of my fun money already due to the holiday season, and the number couldn’t fit anymore. So I stayed home, technically €150 richer.
When my friends came back with stories about the performances, the energy, the bass shaking through the crowd and other memories I didn’t make, I was angry at myself. I had thousands in my accounts doing nothing urgent, and I still said no because of an arbitrary line I’d created myself?
If you’ve ever said no to something you could clearly afford because “the budget said so”, you know exactly how stupid it feels: building wealth to have freedom, but refusing to use it when it actually matters.
Turns out learning to prioritize spending on experiences over stuff is one lesson, but prioritizing experiences over building wealth is a completely different one.
The Porsche Obsession Years
The irony of the whole situation didn’t fully hit me until much later. Because just a few years earlier, I’d actually been obsessed with the opposite problem: wanting to spend money I didn’t have on material things that didn’t matter.
It started during my studies, when I landed a student management position at my university. The pay was incredible, and suddenly I was working alongside professors and executives who earned way more than what I made, driving nice cars and living comfortable lives.
I didn’t suddenly start blowing my hard earned money on status symbols, but I did become very fascinated and intrigued by them.
At the same time my then-girlfriend’s uncle occasionally took us for rides in his Porsches, and that feeling stuck. The power, the precision, the calm confidence of someone for whom a speeding ticket was just an inconvenience rather than a crisis. And even though I realized the true lesson on financial freedom was not caring about the ticket, I was still mightily impressed by the car itself.
So I started browsing Porsches online. Just to look, I told myself. Then I’d get distracted for a while, but eventually found myself back on the listings, calculating what it would take for me to get one. My conclusion, since I wasn't a medical sales rep promoting the latest and greatest medicine: a fortune, out of reach for quite some time.
You probably have your own version of this. Not with cars, maybe, but at least something you keep coming back to, constantly calculating and imagining. But it wasn’t really about the car, and I knew that. It was about what it represented: proof that I’d made it. That I’d won at whatever game we were all apparently playing.
After graduation my career progressed well, and the Porsche obsession kept lingering. I kept checking the listings at regular intervals, at least. But then I stumbled on a book that killed my obsession almost overnight: The Millionaire Next Door.
The Book That Killed My Porsche Dreams
I picked up this personal finance classic (aka ‘downloaded from the legally grey areas of the internet’) around the time I’d started my investment journey, and it completely changed how I thought about wealth.
The author, Thomas Stanley, had spent years researching how America’s actual millionaires lived in the 1990’s. His major finding? They’re often not the people showing off, but the ones driving a cheap reliable car, living in a normal house, and building wealth quietly, out of sight.
And although the book is full of timeless personal finance insights, one of the things that hit me hardest was his concept of Under Accumulators of Wealth (UAWs). These are the people earning big salaries who’d still financially collapse if they lost their job. Everything was tied up in their lifestyle: the cars, the houses, the appearances, everything. They looked successful from the outside, but one missed paycheck could start unraveling everything.
I thought about the Porsches I’d been eyeing. Even if I could afford them, every euro spent would be one that couldn’t save me if things went wrong, and the people I wanted to impress might actually be one paycheck away from disaster themselves.
The realization was immediate: wealth is what you keep and how you let it grow. It lives in your bank statements, your tax filings, and the gap between your savings and earnings—visible to no one but yourself.
After completing the book, I immediately decided to take action. Turns out I already wasn’t doing too bad on the “paying yourself first” front, but I now started moving my money even more aggressively into investments and savings before I could spend it on anything else.
Suddenly I wasn’t chasing Porsches anymore. I was chasing something better: financial freedom that only I could see.
How Saving Smart Also Became Saving Stupid
Such a mental shift might actually sound responsible on paper, but here’s what I hadn’t learned yet: building wealth can also make you forget it’s ultimately supposed to serve you, not the other way around.
And around the same time, I’d also come across that famous Charlie Munger quote: “The first $100,000 is a b*tch, but you gotta do it”.
It made me push really hard towards a six-figure net worth, and that was when the rigidity started setting in.
It also didn’t really help that I’ve already got a bit of a black-and-white mindset of my own, which is usually great for my professional life. It forces productive pushback from people around me, because of which we end up faster in the realistic grey area. Without it, we’re often at risk of drifting toward the path of least resistance and never getting actionable.
But in personal life, when it’s just yourself? That pushback isn’t usually there, and then it can make you blind to what actually matters.
Which brings us back to the festival that I missed for no other reason than simply being savings-focused, stubborn and ignorant.
I wanted every euro possible to compound toward that €100,000 as fast as it could. It meant the festival money wasn’t just €150, it was fuel that could help me reach that milestone faster. Money that could be working for me and increase in value, instead of disappearing on a single night.
I must admit, it actually still sounds quite rational on paper. But that’s only until you realize you’ve just started optimizing yourself out of enjoying life.
The Dutch word for wealth is vermogen, which also means “ability”. I like that, because it captures the entire point about having wealth in the first place. It’s not about having things, especially when you’re just getting started. It’s about having options. The ability to say yes, the ability to say no, and the ability to walk away when needed.
I already had vermogen that night. More than enough of it, actually. Thousands in liquid assets, intentionally saved and invested to actually go to festivals and other events like it worry-free. But for some inexplicable reason, I’d completely forgotten about that when the moment was there.
Why My Friends Still Call Me “The Festival Guy”
I did hit that six-figure milestone eventually and Munger’s quote wasn’t wrong, money truly starts working for itself at that point. Because when a 1% fluctuation in your portfolio is worth €1,000 or more, the numbers suddenly become extremely meaningful and impressive.
But looking back honestly, I could have easily reached that point a little later and still been perfectly fine. Missing moments with friends to accelerate the timeline by months, maybe even days, and giving up social events because of it absolutely wasn’t worth it.
My friends and girlfriend now occasionally call me out when I’m being “the festival guy” again—getting too caught up in optimization and forgetting that numbers aren’t the goal. And I’m learning to listen better when they do, at least I haven’t skipped that festival anymore unless there’s been a valid social reason for it.
And honestly, my goal has never been hoarding money for the sake of it to begin with. It was having enough to build security, options, and living life a little on my own terms. But also having enough to use it when it mattered. Not one at the expense of the other, but space for both.
Admittedly, finding that balance is easier now that I’ve got a solid portfolio backing me. So in that sense, my rigid saving mindset has actually been rewarding. The investments compound quietly in the background, doing what they’re supposed to do, and I’m still making my monthly contributions to grow it even further. But I also have to remember that all of it is pointless if I’m not trying to make the most of my life in the meantime.
The festival regret didn’t last long, since there will always be other parties to visit. But the lesson absolutely did. Because sitting at home, technically €150 richer but actually much poorer at the end of the day? That’s not being wealthy, but just a different kind of broke.
If this story gave you something, feel free to pass it on!
Leave a Reply