Brandon Ganch, known online as “MadFientist,” retired in 2016 at just 34 by saving aggressively and keeping his expenses low.

Although he doesn’t regret the wealth he built through his “over-focus” on saving 70% of his income, “I could have taken my foot off the gas knowing what I know now,” he said recently in an episode on host Paula Pant of the Afford Anything podcast.

Ahead of their early retirement, the software engineer and his wife lived frugally “in the woods of Vermont” while striving for financial independence. But during that time, “I fell into hardships and neither my wife nor I were happy,” Ganch said.

Now that he has two young children, his spending habits have changed. Instead of being “overly frugal,” he prefers to spend on things that improve his family’s quality of life, such as buying a house in Scotland, where they now live – a decision he describes as “pure” compared to his previous frugality “Luxury”.

“I’m enjoying owning a home for the first time in my life,” Ganch told Pant. “I don’t let it stress me out. “I know there will be costs,” so he’s not too worried about “saving every penny.”

Ganch’s change in attitude came after reading “Die with Zero” by Bill Perkins, a book about balancing financial independence with enjoying life’s experiences in the present, not just saving for the future.

Looking back, Ganch wishes he had embraced certain moments in his 20s, like bachelor parties he skipped to avoid expensive flights.

“Now, in my 40s, I wouldn’t want to spend a drunken weekend with my friends, but I’m sad that I missed out on that in my 20s because it would have been a lot of fun – and we would have done that.” There are great stories to tell,” he said.

He still values ​​the freedom of retiring early and strives to keep his savings intact, but he has become more relaxed about spending. “You don’t maximize net worth. You want to maximize net fulfillment,” he said.

Like Ganch, Alex Trias wishes he hadn’t been so focused on achieving his goal of early retirement. Before Trias retired at 41 and moved to Portugal with his wife, he spent years obsessing over his investments – a habit that, in retrospect, he would have preferred to avoid.

“My biggest regret from a financial perspective wasn’t my spending, but my thinking,” Trias previously told CNBC Make It. “I used to think all the time about investing at a low price, waiting, and then investing at a higher price for sale. I cannot begin to explain the anxiety and waste that this type of mental framework caused.”

Looking back, “I think it’s probably counterproductive to try to watch your net worth month after month or even year after year,” Trias said. “Don’t focus so much on the end result as on the habits you develop.”

Sam Dogen, founder of Financial Samurai and author of the upcoming book Millionaire Milestones, doesn’t regret his decision to retire early, but he wishes he had had a few more years in his career.

“I now realize how absurdly young I was when I retired,” Dogen, who retired at 34, wrote in a 2019 article for CNBC Make It. “Several people even commented on how My decision was irresponsible and reckless, especially because I was just beginning my best earning years.”

Dogen spent 13 years in investment banking before retiring with a net worth of $3 million, which generated annual passive income of around $80,000. But if he had stuck around a little longer, he could have saved even more for retirement and possibly explored new opportunities.

“Looking back, I could have stayed at least another year and found a new role with the company in a different office,” he wrote. “I always wanted to work abroad – somewhere in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Beijing or London. Maybe it would have stimulated my interests and convinced me to work for a few more years.”

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A glass of wine a day is often touted as a healthy choice for your heart. While there are warnings against consuming other substances such as cigarettes, alcohol in moderation is usually considered OK – but that could change.

The U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans encourage people to avoid large amounts of alcohol and suggest limiting themselves to two or fewer drinks per day for men and one or fewer drinks per day for women.

Still, the latest advisory from U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy suggests that even small amounts of alcohol could be harmful and increase the risk of cancer.

“Alcohol is a known, preventable cause of cancer, responsible for approximately 100,000 cancer cases and 20,000 cancer-related deaths annually in the United States – more than the 13,500 alcohol-related traffic deaths per year in the United States – and yet the majority of Americans are unaware of this risk “consciously,” the Surgeon General’s statement said.

His opinion points to studies that have found a clear link between alcohol consumption and a higher risk of developing seven types of cancer, including breast cancer.

“We now know that there is no safe limit for alcohol consumption and that alcohol is a known carcinogen,” says Dr. Faiz Bhora, professor of surgery and regional chair of surgery at Hackensack Meridian Health and Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine.

“Its mechanism of cell damage is well known. It causes oxidative stress and impairs DNA repair, among other mechanisms that lead to cell cycle dysregulation and cancer development.”

The Surgeon General is calling on manufacturers of alcoholic beverages such as beer and spirits to update cancer risk warnings. Currently mainly alcoholic drinks warn against consumption by pregnant women and driving under the influence of alcohol.

“It’s more social and political pressures that prevent us from doing the right thing, which is putting a warning label on a substance that is clearly toxic,” Bhora tells CNBC Make It.

“Shares of alcohol makers including Molson-Coors and Anheuser-Busch initially fell more than 1% following the news,” CNBC reported.

Even previous claims that a glass of red wine a day has positive effects are questionable. Previous studies that have shown that a small amount of alcohol daily can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease have been criticized for their methodology, according to the New York Times.

“It would be difficult to derive benefit from alcohol consumption,” says Bhora. “Maybe stress relief with some impairment in some emotional skills (but) I’m not even sure that’s necessarily a good thing.”

“We’ve always heard these stories of 80- and 90-year-olds living healthy lives and somehow attributing it to a glass of wine or scotch. “I’m not sure there’s any real scientific connection to it,” he says, adding.

Drinking alcohol is ingrained in our culture, Bhora says, and “people use it as a crutch for social interactions (and) for emotional reasons.” However, now people are “very comfortable with it at a restaurant or at a party for health reasons abstaining from alcohol and I think this is a path that should be encouraged and supported as a first step.”

First of all, Bhora suggests: “Departing from the concept of having a drink every day is good or safe,” he says. Try to drink alcohol only on weekends when you’re reducing your consumption, and slowly eliminate it from your diet completely if you’re so inclined, says Bhora.

“Many of my friends and colleagues who have either stopped drinking alcohol or significantly reduced alcohol consumption have found it liberating,” says Bhora.

“You no longer need it for social interactions, have much more clarity of thought, and in many cases are even much more productive.”

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