To be honest, learning to spend money and be OK with it is something I’m working on. Frugality can be a beneficial quality — it helped us reach early financial independence — but an associated scarcity mindset can also be something of a hindrance to living a joyful life with a sense of abundance.
Overspending is a more common and more damaging problem as compared to “underspending,” but when someone has pinched pennies for decades, it can be difficult to break thrifty habits that have become ingrained.
The term “well-rounded” is rather nebulous, but I do feel that spending time in dozens of different nations will give our kids (and us) a global perspective that can’t be gleaned from history books or documentaries, as much as we like those resources, too.
By the time we’ve built Dreamhome #2, we’ll have spent well over a million dollars. If we choose to sell the house across the street, where we’re living now, I think we’ll still have over a net 7 figures into the new home, but we might just keep our current house as a guest house and short-term rental.
My undergraduate and medical school education led me to a rewarding and lucrative career as an anesthesiologist; I want my kids to be able to take full advantage of whatever educational opportunities arise for them.