I was reading an article on MSN earlier titled “Will Our Kids Be Dumb & Broke?,” and it really made me think about… umm… something, I guess. I don’t know, I was too busy sending my bank account info to this chick Natasha. She’s from Russia, we met on Craigslist. She’s totally hot for me, but she can’t afford a plane ticket to America. So she asked if I could loan her $2000… I know, I know, it’s a lot of money, but the minute her plane lands in New York I’m sure it’ll seem like a small price to pay for discovering true love. Anyway, I didn’t completely grasp the idea of this article, but I think it was something about how young people make unwise decisions with money.

This is a topic that most people can relate to. Older people always talk about how they wish they made smarter decisions when they were younger. Most of the time this is just old people being jealous of young people and trying to trick us into acting “responsible.” Responsibility is just old person speak for “lame,” so it’s usually best to ignore the advice of your elders at all times. But once in awhile, adults are right about stuff. And one piece of advice that most adults agree on is that you need to save money starting right after college. If you wait until your 30s or later to start saving, you’ve already missed your greatest chance to build wealth.

The problem with this concept, of course, is that stuff is expensive. Everything costs money. Think about it: You can barely leave the house without paying. It costs money to drive anywhere. You can’t go to bars or restaurants without running up a solid tab. Movies are expensive, as is a cable bill. There is nothing free you can do for fun (at least nothing worth doing). Even when something is free, like say going to a public beach, they’ll hit you up for parking or find another way to get money out of you. Oh sure, technically there are free things you can do, like going for a walk, but if walking was so great then why did God invent cars? Yeah, exactly.

They say you should budget 50% of your income for fixed bills – rent, car payments, insurance, student loans, etc – and save the rest for leisure activities, food and emergencies. For most young people, especially those of us who live in urban areas, that’s just not realistic. Rent and the costs of owning a car are especially high these days, so even on a decent income, after they’ve paid fixed bills, many people have far less than 50% left over. Finding money to save usually means cutting into your disposable income; in other words, it cuts into your fun.

But I’m not complaining. I make a reasonable living and my life is non-stop fun, so I’m in no position to complain. This is just a set up for another one of my crazy theories.

Here it is: I don’t think fun should be treated as a bonus, reserved for times when you have enough disposable income. I think fun is a necessary cost of living. I think spending money on fun is as important – if not more – than things like rent and car payments. Now, you can’t be stupid about it. You have to have a place to live, and you have to buy food. But if I had a choice between a great apartment and a boring social life, or an average apartment and a great social life, I’ll take the latter every time. And when it comes down to either saving for retirement in your 20s, or being able to go out and have fun whenever you want, I think you have to go with fun.

Sure, you could cost yourself hundreds of thousands of potential dollars in your 401K by not saving right out of college, but if you’re sitting at home all the time doing nothing so that you can save for the future, what’s the point? You’re costing yourself life, dammit! Sorry, I couldn’t think of a way to make that sound not cheesy. But seriously, how do you know there won’t be another financial scandal that leaves you broke? How do you know you won’t get mauled by a bear? How do you know you won’t get a huge promotion or marry some rich old man/woman or win the lottery and be set for life, thus rendering that time spent saving worthless? No one has ever looked back on their life and said, “Man, I wish I never had all those awesome times when I was young!”

Like on Memorial Day, I spent several hundred dollars to get wasted all day and see Stone Temple Pilots on their reunion tour. I didn’t have to spend that much. I didn’t have to get VIP seats. I didn’t have to get a hotel room and stay over after the show. But I did. Those few hundred dollars could’ve went toward retirement, but then I wouldn’t have seen Scott Weiland wearing a poncho, yelling into a megaphone and doing the Weiland Dance. A lot of people would call my spending frivolous, and say that in the long run, I’d be better off cutting back on my leisure expenses and putting more money toward my future. To which I would respond, “have you heard Crackerman?”

Those who can afford to save money and still live it up are fortunate. If you can only afford one of the two, I don’t think you can take a pass on enjoying your twenties just so that you can be financially secure when you’re 70. You can always work to increase your savings. You can never replace missed experiences.

PS – When I’m fifty and have a retirement fund worth $300, and you find me face down in a ditch with a bottle of Colt 45 screaming “Why, WHYYY?!?!” ask me if I’ll reconsider my position. Then get out of the way before I stab you. Keep in mind I’m a Comm. Major and an Econ. Minor, so I have a history of choosing fun over money.