May 13, 2014
It is nice when the answers for frugal and efficient living become simple and obvious, so as to free your mind for more complex and worthwhile pursuits. For example, when investing in stocks, Vanguard index funds is all you need to know. For cars, a compact hatchback like a Honda Fit will almost always suffice. The…
A big part of the recipe for a good life is to love the place you live. Although you can compensate for almost any living conditions with a strong Stoic attitude and some training, it sure is nice to be surrounded by an environment that truly agrees with your constitution. After all, all five of…
Well, I’m almost done rebuilding that house I have been working on since last fall. There was a big push through the electrical and insulation stages, and then I happily handed the place off to Agustin and his crew for drywall*, which is now in its final days as well. Insulation was a big step…
As anyone viewing this on the main website already knows, MMM has a new face. To be accurate, it is more like a new face, head, skeleton, body, and nervous system. But the personality remains mostly the same. Since this is a big event for any website owner, and since quite a few readers are…
Summer seems to have started a little early this year here in Colorado, and brought along all of its pleasant side effects. Abandoning the socks and shoes, gathering with local friends to play in the park and watch the sunsets, and of course an increased consumption of cold beverages. Long ago, I wrote a post…
What are you spending all that money on? After reading this blog for a while, you already know what’s good for you, but there is still the odd slip-up. A few hundred disappear here and there for the odd fancypants luxury, or a few thousand on trips or keeping the BMW X5 around because hey,…
New York City exists in a dimension all by itself. Like a Black Hole that has formed upon the Eastern Seaboard, it is a place where conventional financial rules don’t apply. In Manhattan, you can feel poor after receiving your $3.6 million quarterly bonus because somebody down the hall just made $360 million, and while…
Let’s face it. Here in America, a car is not a luxury, it’s a basic necessity. With our wide-reaching cities and the harried schedule of our modern lives, the comfort, flexibility and privacy offered by the modern automobile is both an essential part of life, and a little slice of heavenly peace to brighten each…
People who are pursuing Frugal yet Badass Lives of Leisure tend to be pretty fun to hang around with. I learned this shortly after starting this blog, and since then I have cashed in on many opportunities to meet up with fellow Mustachians. This is another one of those, but a pretty ambitious one. Three…
If you’re in the United States and you look out your window in a typical neighborhood, you will notice asphalt shingle roofs as far as the eye can see. There are a few regional differences, like clay tile roofs in California and Florida and flat roofs in the adobe-style houses of Santa Fe. But overall…
Tales of squandered success. Both Mr. Money Mustache’s mailbox, and the world at large are filled with them. Every day another pile of $250,000 earners collapses from stress or goes insane, because they have managed to slip into an awful life of debt and time scarcity, despite the fact that they are living within a…
Sigh. I suppose this was bound to happen sometime. This blog is approaching its third birthday and has been blessed with over 62 million page views from 5.2 million people and counting. Many people have helped and contributed along the way, and while we rant, swear, and speak out against many aspects of our culture,…
We did it last year and it turned out to be pretty incredible, so this year it is happening again. This coming August, a new group of us will be returning to Ecuador to continue the fun that was started there in October 2013. The event is called a “Chautauqua”, and last year I estimated…
Behold, the almighty Nail Gun. Symbol of human ingenuity and productivity, and also builder of my new house. This particular one, my trusty Ridgid R350, has blasted just over 10,000 large nails into the framing members of this residence, and perhaps 100,000 additional ones into the other houses I have built or worked on since…
An Introduction from MMM: We get a lot of case study requests around here these days. I’d love to answer all of the questions and write articles about a good chunk of them. But even a retired man has his free time limits, which is why I am glad to have Jacob on my side…
The house rebuilding project is going well. We’ve finished all the framing, and the higher ceilings and more open floorplan are hinting at a level of awesomeness that surprises even me. A picture from just this morning: While I’ve destroyed and rebuilt quite a few houses for other people, this is the first one I…
