Living my life… while I work towards my end goals

You read those stories about the people who saved tens of thousands of dollars or paid off x amount of debt in a year or less… but is that real life? A common theme I find in those is that they make extreme life changes and cut back everything else in their life to make that work. And while it might be worth it for some people to completely stop eating out, traveling, meeting up for a drink with friends after work or binging on Netflix in order to meet their goal faster, I long ago decided I was not that type of person. I just can’t reconcile that approach for myself even if it makes sense on some level because I don’t want to stop my life in order to fix one part of it. In this area, I’m much more of a live each day as if it were your last type of person. 

For me, moderation is key. Because really, my main goal behind wanting to be location independent is because I don’t want to wait for retirement to live my dreams, so why would I put my life on hold for a year or two in order to save the money I need to “begin living”? And for me, making those extreme changes to my lifestyle would be the same as putting my life on hold. I need to be able to travel, see my friends, enjoy good food. That said, I will still make changes. For example, I can definitely reduce the amount of money I spend while traveling, try meeting up with several friends at the same time versus traveling to each one, share my netflix subscription with my sister, or learn new delicious recipes that I can cook myself. 

Are you the type of person who jumps into goals and makes drastic life changes to meet them as fast as possible? Was it worth it?