cyclingsocialist

Must be all the soy in the supplements he's constantly pushing.

Saving up 40k in 5 years is absolutely saving up for a big trip. Sure, it might not be saving up for a lifetime on the road, but most people in most of the world aren't lucky enough to reliably end a given month with more in savings than they began. That's why everyone asks about money.

Yes, it's absolutely cheaper to live on the road if you find free or cheap campsites, eat out cans, etc. But since most of us are living paycheck to paycheck, or are only a few paychecks away from that, it's not exactly feasible to think of it in that way.

Saving 40k in 5 years is putting 8 grand aside every year. If the average middle-class person between 20 and 35 years old has some level of debt, either from school, a car, a personal loan, or whatever other misc debt people accumulate AND they're barely breaking even each month, it'll be damn hard for them to build up that kind of savings in that time.

I'm not saying this to say that any of your advice about cutting expenses is bad. I think it's good and people should follow it even if they don't want to travel the world on a motorbike. But a lot of people aren't in a position to put even $100 into savings a month, let alone $670.

An increase in economic output is meaningless if more and more people are simultaneously unable to receive that output (be it goods, services or money). We could design entirely AI run and operated systems of production and while that would be awesomely efficient and cool that no one had to do any labor, if we don't also set up some sort of base income all people receive and/or meet everyone's basic needs regardless of their working status the increased economic output is completely worthless.

Put another way: If we manufacture a billion cars a year, but only 500 million people can afford to buy new cars each year, our economic output is good, but our actual efficiency is pretty shit. Finding ways to make car manufacturing less costly, less time consuming and less labor-intensive isn't actually improving things if we're not.
And that's not even getting into the economic ramifications to consumer markets if people are put out of work or underemployed and unable to make big purchases like cars.

Yes, thank you. A typo. Fixing that!

Yeah, this is exactly what I was thinking. I understand that several industrialized nations have better pay, less expensive schooling, and more robust safety next and social welfare programs that allow the middle class in the nations to easily make saving money or cutting frivolous expenses a priority. And certainly, if you're in a decent paying job with minimal debt and find that most of your monthly spending is made up of things you're able to cut back on, putting a few hundred bucks aside every month isn't a problem.

But if you're like 56% of Americans or most middle class or working poor folks in the rest of the world, saving at the rate OP is talking about is a freaking pipe dream.

Hell, I worked at a job where half of my monthly income was enough to pay all my bills. I worked there for a year and dumped all of my excess money into replacing my worn out gear and paying off the $5k in debts I had, as well as helping my partner pay down her $20k in student debt.
I'm well aware of how fast money can accumulate in a savings account if you're good about it (I was putting away $100/month until my debt was paid, then $200).
But most Americans aren't in that position.