Reply #50: not everyone can afford to think that way

[DeepBlueC]

And the lost opportunities are not hypothetical unless the ten thousand comes from a box under the bed. Usually amounts like that come out of an interest-bearing vehicle. Thanks to the miracle of compound interest, ten thousand dollars over ten years earns a substantial amount of money and to make an interest-free loan of that amount is a straight-up loss.

What with inflation those dollars lent today are losing money every day anyhow so you pretty much have to get some interest from your assets just to try to hold its original value.

A few hundred until the end of the month is quite a different matter than 5 or 6 figures over a decade or more.

Managing the money you can put away when you have enough to do so can best be appreciated when your ability to keep putting it away is abruptly snatched away by death of a spouse, disability, your own or your child's, or any of the myriad of catastrophes that befall people every day.

If you are young and making some good bucks and not lending out money you can't afford to lose, go for it. If you are dipping into your nest egg, I think you have to be very careful.