[NSchandler]

How on Earth can you continue to fight with people about what their own preferences are? I saw you sit there and tell somebody that based on what strategy forums he posts in, you know better than he does what his own preferences are.

Look at this way - suppose somebody came to you and said that he paid off his home mortgage early. You tell that he would have been better off investing the money in the stock market or bond market or wherever because of the tax advantages of mortgage payments, the low interest rates he's paying, etc. If he says "oh I know I could have made more doing something else with the money, I just like to be debt-free," that's all there really is to it. Yes, he could have made more money elsewhere. And he even recognizes this. But he did it anyway. Maybe he just likes the idea of being "debt-free," maybe he likes the idea of having a home that is truly "his," i.e. fully paid off. Whatever, it doesn't matter - it was his preference. You can go on and on about how psychological considerations shouldn't be a part of financial decision making, and so on and so forth, but at the end of the day, that's just your opinion.

In the long run, you'll probably make financial decisions that yield you more money than his would. You might retire with a bigger nest egg even though you didn't save any more than him. But he knew this, it was a cost he was willing to bear for the psychological feeling of being "debt-free." He wasn't wrong, he just had different preferences. Maybe you don't understand them, but it's not wrong.

This is the same thing. You have people telling you "look, I understand what you're saying, but I play poker for fun, I treat poker different from mansion money for whatever reason" ... what else can you say about that? It's just a preference. Maybe it doesn't make sense to you, but it's not wrong. It's just different.

Edited to say: de gustibus non est disputandum