Last night late I tried to post but got an answer that the server was too busy and my post was distributed into to ether, so let me post my comments once again:-
This article is totally contrived and a nonsense as it doesn't deal with realities, humanistic urges (if you like), what it seems to try and convey is that if you save and deny yourself and your family some pleasures in life that at the end of the day you will be exceedingly well off at the end of the day. There is no costing around schooling yet our 2 examples seem to have kids, there is a presumption that they have similar paying jobs but nothing about number of kids, whether they employ domestics and gardeners.
The views taken are Cyclops in nature and have no relevance in life, in fact the article is so skewed that it misrepresents life totally.
The essence of the story is that one person enjoys life whilst the other beavers away every cent that they can and story line is about new car versus second cars and how long you keep the cars for. A secondhand car after 5 years out of its motor plan is going to cost and a motor car is a poor example, as technology is changing so fast that it makes a 10 year old car almost redundant. There is an issue around insurance as well, as, as insurance premiums drop so does the replacement value of the car making it more difficult to recover a reasonable payout in a collision, and its trade in value is negligible
In the one instance you have a person who enjoys cars (given the types of car bought) and probably also enjoys driving for driving's sake, the other will battle along with a second hand car with mounting costs of repairs and probably find that spares are not readily available.
I could go on and analyse the context, but that could be boring, suffice to say that the article is skewed to prove the authors point that it is advantageous to undertake some form of savings over ones working life. The reality is that if you are in a well paying job make sure you make some saving commitments, another reality is that maybe consider having your kids early in your marriage so that from age 45 onwards you have no schooling or varsity fees to deal with and your kids are out of the house. From age 45 onwards should be your highest earning segment until you retire - and more importantly when you retire you want to retire comfortably rather than a sour puss rich individual who is likely to die soon after retirement because they have no ambition or hobby to pursue.
Life is for living just keep a balance in your life