There is no exact formula, yet if we make mistakes and we do not have enough of a cash back up or if we invest too much or too little into bitcoin, then there would likely be consequences for our mistakes.
There's nothing more to it. Every investor must be careful when distributing their discretionary funds either to Bitcoin accumulation or building up back up funds. As you said, it's in the investors sole decision and also only such investor will face the consequences of mistakes were made in during investment period.
Even if it's called discretionary(the cash remaining after settling all basic expenses),we must do proper calculation before deciding either to use all your discretionary for accumulation, or using some portion for investment and some for building up other back up funds, because every decision still lands on the investor either positively or in the negative. If we invest weigh too much all in the name of discretionary funds, we might fail to build up back up funds which in turn haunts us at some giving time of our investment.
So there should be a perfect way of balancing everything to ensure lack of panic even in dips because you because you have built up back up funds that can sustain you plus you want to Hodl for long and also with a target of the amount of Bitcoin you would want to accumulate before thinking of selling any portion.
Even though we are attempting to find a balance that is comfortable, it is probably not correct to consider investing into bitcoin as a form or achieving perfection or that perfection has to be achieved.
There are a lot of ways that we can make mistakes, yet even if we make mistakes we can learn from the mistakes, and if the mistakes are not too BIG, then we would continue to be invested in bitcoin for many years into the future, perhaps for the rest of our lives.
I frequently suggest that guys invest as aggressively as they can without overdoing it, yet if anyone is investing as aggressive as they can, then they are going to need to be more organized than the whimpy investor.
Let's say that a guy with a $30k per year income got into bitcoin 8 years ago, and he had a discretionary income of about $150 per week, yet he decided to get into bitcoin with merely a $10 per week investment, and so over the past 8 years, he would have had invested $4,200 and accumulated right around 0.303 BTC, and if he had invested $100 per week he would have had invested $42k and accumulated 3.03 BTC.
Surely it would be better to be the guy who invested 10x more, yet even the guy who invested merely $10 per week is in a better position for having had invested into bitcoin as compared to if he had not invested in bitcoin.
Also, it could be possible that the guy who invested more aggressively might have had ended up making mistakes with his cashflow, since he was choosing to spend a higher quantity of his discretionary income on bitcoin.
An investor who fails to understand the concept of discretionary funds plus proper allocation of funds for accumulating Bitcoin using DCA strategy might make or take hasty decisions which might lead to panic sells in the future either during Dips or even in a normal market condition without reaching there initial target.
We would not want to overdo it or to under do it, yet there is likely no perfect answer regarding what is the best allocation, and a person who is in touch with his actions and trying to learn from his practices will likely have better possible outcomes and even more likely productive tweakings of his investment and/or his cashflows from time to time.
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The fact that one can actually have the freedom to allocate 100% of their discretionary income to accumulating Bitcoin (which is aggressive enough) doesn't mean that they should always do so. Some folks might actually consider setting aside some part of their discretionary income as a cushion to cover some upcoming short-term expenses and needs, while investing the rest regularly and the investment would still be growing.
Of course a cushion can be for anything to cover, extra expenses, needs or wants, and maybe a guy keeps one jar that has $500 for emergencies and then he has another jar that he keeps $200 so that he can spend it on whatever he likes, like a night out at the clubs or something like that, and maybe he only splurges once every few months, but it gives him a lot of pleasure to have that $200 to do whatever he likes as a way of treating himself once every 2-3 months.
Now, the longer that he is in bitcoin, and the more solid his bitcoin stash, he might slowly increase each of the jars.. especially the "one for fun," and yeah, maybe he would have had been better off to have had bought bitcoin with that extra money, but he also wants to feel good about his life. So part of the aspects of "discretionary" funds is that guys can do whatever they want with that money, even dumb shit and even smart shit. So, their actions have consequences, yet their path might not even be close to perfect, even though each of us likely try to get within a path that is acceptable for us and within consideration of our
9 individual factors.