I want the power to do spontaneous, crazy stuff like "hmm, I'm going to go to Europe for a month just because I feel like it" or "let's fly to japan for a month, take a month long kenjutsu course and have tea at an authentic tea house every day after practice". outrageous spontaneity requires large amounts of cashflow and liquid capital, the middle and lower classes cannot afford to do things like this
If you set your sights a little lower, you can still have that spontaneity in your life as a middle class person...you just have to spontaneously go to the beach or move to another state instead.
I'm glad I'm kind of a hippie because I need that sort of spontaneity too, and while I can't just fly off to Japan, I've kind of moved around the U.S. whenever I wanted and I have more freedom than some people do.
But, no, I can't just say "oh I'm going to take a few months off and go live in England."
Refraining from having children helps, and so does not owning a home. Less responsibility = more freedom....regardless of income.
Some people make three times as much money I do and have tons more responsibility, so my life in some ways is more spontaneous than theirs even though they could
plan to vacation in another country more easily than I could.
I think that's all people are trying to tell you. More money does not necessarily equal the ability to just do what you want, in fact sometimes people with less money have more freedom because they're happier with less.
