- Gwen Merz, 33, used to save around 75 per cent of her income and lived thriftily
- She ended up falling behind socially and professionally with her strict lifestyle
- She now saves 10 per cent of her wage saying there’s more to life than saving
Money can’t buy happiness as one recovering ‘super saver’ has discovered, after revealing she saved $200,000 at just 27 – but it left her depressed and anxious.
Gwen Merz, 33, originally set out with the goal of accumulating enough assets to retire at age 35 in 2025, saving most of her income with her thrifty habits.
Her intense financial journey began with the FIRE movement – which stands for financial independence, retire early, encouraging users to invest enough to build up a comfortable nest egg before the traditional retirement age.
Gwen, from Washington, D.C., took part in FIRE from 2014 to 2018 after finishing college, but admits she has always been ‘obsessed’ with the money and finances.
‘I was obsessed with obtaining more [money] so I could have more things,’ she explained in her blog, Fiery Millennials. ‘Namely candy from the gas station and replacement fees for lost library cards.’
Gwen, who works in IT solutions, started out earning $65,000 when she first left college.
‘I was saving a high percentage — at my peak, it was somewhere around 75 per cent on a fairly routine basis — but there just wasn’t a whole lot left afterwards,’ she told Business Insider.
‘That really cut into my quality of life.’
When Gwen first started aggressively saving, her tactics of entertaining at home and never going out worked well with her lifestyle.
She explained she wasn’t interested in seeing major league sporting events, going to concerts or having other experiences many people find themselves spending a lot of money on.
‘I had friends over to play board games, we’d have bonfires in the backyard, or we’d go out and play frisbee golf,’ she recalled.
Gwen continued: ‘All these things are low-barrier-to-entry experiences that you can do over and over and over again. That’s what I focused on.’
Although during this time Gwen’s bank account balances were ‘flourishing,’ she was finding other areas of her life were starting to fail including her social life – admitting it was hard to date with such a regimented approach to saving money.
‘I also didn’t really realize the cost that I was incurring in my career, as I was not wanting to go out and do happy hour or go do lunch with my coworkers,’ the IT professional pointed out.
‘That kind of off-site networking really is where a lot of connections get made,’ she added.
The thrifty woman added what had served her well at 24 was becoming increasingly more difficult and hindering life in her late 20s and 30s.
Gwen added that as she got older she also learned to prioritize what would help her mental health, such as having a nice place to live and traveling.
She used living in a ‘tiny’ studio as an example of when her mental health suffered.
The savvy saver had purchased a single-family home that had been converted into a triplex, renting out the other two apartments to cover her costs – but found her quality of life diminished.
After not being able to enjoy any of her hobbies – like quilting – she decided having a nice place to live was worth spending extra money on.
Although there were some downsides to her regimented saving, Gwen says she doesn’t have any regrets, pointing out saving so much early on in her career allowed her the freedom to find a workplace that is a good fit for her and her lifestyle without financial pressures.
‘[I could] see what I liked and what I didn’t like. It definitely benefited me in the long run,’ she explained. ‘I am much better off than I would be otherwise if I hadn’t saved up all that money.’
Gwen now saves only 10 per cent of her paycheck for her 401(k), and recently purchased a home with her fiancé.
‘I’m still on the path to Financial Independence, but I no longer wish to retire insanely early,’ she said. ‘Instead, I’ve chosen to enjoy life a little bit more on the way.’