Scrooges and spendthrifts are two sides of the same coin.

It’s obviously foolish to live perpetually at the limit of your means. Even if buying “experiences,” the banks and creditors still come knocking. And there’s the matter of retirement.

It’s equally foolish to live as a miserly and reclusive workaholic, bent on retiring 7 years after graduation. You’re young once and only once.

But when we pillory either extreme, we forget they’re both sad efforts to purchase one’s way out of fear and aimlessness. Spend until you forget the void, tomorrow be damned. Suffer and save until you can buy your way out of the void tomorrow.

There is one solution, and I bet you already knew it. Face the fear and aimlessness. When you no longer spend or save to assuage a troubled psyche, money returns to its proper role: that of a mere tool.