Sure, there is a middle ground.

I wrote what I did in response to someone who said it's pointless to save beyond savings goals unless you can't think of anything else to do with the money.

I would say that you should save excess money unless you can think of something worthwhile to do with the money rather than basically spending it on whatever you can think of at the end of the month to get rid of it, because you'll probably come up with something worthwhile at some point in the future and wish you had some extra money.

That doesn't mean you need to obsess over what you have, constantly worry whether it's enough when those concerns are not objectively valid, or not spend any money at all. Just don't spend money to spend it because someone told you saving beyond what you can think of right at the moment is "pointless".

Given the person I was responding to said that "any other savings goals" in his list can include saving in general for literally anything you haven't even thought of yet, I would say he actually agrees with me.

Edit: Sorry about your dad.