Psychiatrist Hideki Wada, writing for Diamond Online, argued that “the most expensive hobby of all is saving money.” Unlike gambling or travel, he says, simply hoarding cash does nothing to enrich your life — a claim that split opinion on 5ch. Some agreed that “there’s no point saving if you never spend it,” while others pushed back: “even if you’re the richest person alive when you die, that’s fine — your kids can just inherit it,” and “watching my bankbook balance climb is fun in itself.” The thread exposed just how differently people view money and happiness.
Published 9/5 (Sat) 20:30
Diamond Online
Say “expensive hobby” and most people picture gambling, overseas trips, or art collecting. But psychiatrist Hideki Wada points out that the priciest hobby of all is actually “saving money.” Why does endlessly hoarding cash without ever spending it end up hollowing out your life? It’s worth rethinking your relationship with money as you get older.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Read the original article here
And that's exactly why so many people end up richest the day they die. Doesn't matter how much you saved if you never spent it.
Exactly this. You can just leave it to your kids in the end — I don't get this psychiatrist's argument at all.
Watching the balance climb is genuinely fun. When it gains a digit, it feels like leveling up.
Even if it loses some value, that beats having barely any savings at all. I hold a decent chunk of safe government bonds plus a bit of stock. The advantage of cash savings is the flexibility.
Other psychiatrists have said the same thing. Sure, if you're struggling to the point of real hardship, you lose peace of mind — but past a certain point, saving more doesn't proportionally boost your sense of security, so it stops mattering.
Then again, if having more money truly bought more peace of mind, [comedian] Okamura wouldn't have ended up depressed.
There's a single guy in his 40s still living with his parents at my job who blows money on trips, motorcycles, whatever — but he looks like he's having a blast. He keeps hitting on the new female hires, creeps them out, gets an earful from the boss, and still never quits. I guess spending money really does relieve stress.
But the single guy at my job who still lives with his parents and only ever talks about savings and investments creeps everyone out too. Save it or spend it, a grown man still living with mom and dad has it rough either way.
I don't have 100 million, but I retired early and this is basically me. My kei car is a 4WD kei — I live somewhere snowy, so it's more than enough. I've seen big heavy SUVs stuck in ditches plenty of times, while my little kei 4WD just cruises right on past them home lol
Nobody's recommending that.
So many people suffer because a family member — a kid — got diagnosed as "hattasho" (slang for developmental disorder). They're not actually disabled, just ordinary people, but this bizarre diagnosing — or really, labeling — has run rampant.
Suffering because of the diagnosis? If someone's bad enough to actually get diagnosed, the people around them were already suffering long before that. You're just blaming the diagnosis instead of accepting reality.
If it's just a few tens of thousands a month, that's only 3 years.
Sure, "a certain amount." But people who call saving their hobby are way past that.
As long as it doesn't hurt anyone, that's just personality. The whole concept of "hattasho" is what's making society worse.
Japan puts a lot of pressure on people to "be normal," but the real question is: what even is "normal"? Japan is a country where everyone's scared of this invisible thing called "normal."
Anyway, people who go around calling others "developmentally disordered" or "borderline intelligence" as an insult are usually just projecting their own complex about it onto someone else.
But single guys actually tend to have fewer assets.
There's no grand reason or purpose behind any living thing being born in the first place — it's pure chance. It's only because humans happened to develop intelligence that we want to believe there's some reason behind it. So everyone should just set their own purpose based on their own values. There's no rule or obligation about it.
That's a real Showa-era mindset (´・ω・`) (Showa era: 1926–1989, shorthand for old-fashioned values)
Buying stocks and watching my assets grow is an absolute blast.
That's because you've set no goals for yourself and turned into an animal that just breathes and takes 💩s. You're a beast, not a human being.
Y-yeah, fair enough… I guess the brain just stops craving stimulation as much.
Just go buy yourself a luxury car.
Is it any use at all to an ordinary person with no particular talent, or someone from a poor family?
So you're saying a guy who just graduated from a regular high school would be more convincing?
https://www.irhpress.co.jp/upload/save_image/07251155_6882f23e1fc48.jpg
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
Hideki Wada is a psychiatrist known for his work on geriatric psychiatry and lifestyle advice, and his view that “money only means something if you spend it” is a stance he’s repeated throughout his own books. The thread split largely over whether saving is seen as an “end in itself” or a “means to an end” — some people genuinely enjoy the act of saving, while others see unspent savings as pointless. The counterargument that “you can leave it to your kids and grandkids eventually” reframes saving not just as personal spending but as a form of passing on wealth — a point raised in the thread that doesn’t appear in the original article. As for the link between financial security and happiness, some research suggests that once you’re above a baseline of financial hardship, savings amount and life satisfaction don’t necessarily keep rising together — which echoes the thread’s view that “having ‘some amount’ is enough.”
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Breaking News+) thread “Not gambling, not travel… A psychiatrist declares: ‘The most expensive hobby that won’t make you happy is saving money’.”
