Oct 17, 2011
Being the bossiest personal finance role model on the Internet, Mr. Money Mustache naturally receives quite a few challenges on the accuracy of his math and assumptions. It is with a palpable sense of glee that some people dig into my calculations, find something they disagree with, and then jump up and down and throw…
Eliminating Lady Temptations: Step 4 (see other steps) by Mrs. Money Mustache This past weekend, MMM brought a big box up to our bedroom. It contained clothing we had packed away into boxes way back in June, just before our trip to Canada, as we rented our house this past summer and wanted to clear…
One of the big inspirations for my recent article on Complainypants Disease was the comments section of a mainstream newspaper article about some semi-early retirees that was recently forwarded to me by a few readers. Don’t waste your time reading through more than a few of the comments, because they’ll make you punch a hole in your…
While we were all sitting around anticipating the upcoming closing on the bank-owned house down the street, a comment came in on that first article in the series. A guy named Joe told us this: “This house is cash flow negative with 100% financing (and the many issues you are ignoring like maintenance/repairs, vacancy,…
When I read an article about an olympic athlete who can swim further and faster than I can even run, I don’t immediately find his blog and write a complaint that he is training too hard and failed to take into account time for commuting, chronic illnesses, or TV watching in his lifestyle. When I…
It was a beautiful evening in my neighborhood, and I was enjoying one of my giant homebrews on a deck chair I had placed in the middle of the street, as part of a nearby block’s Annual Street Party. I was talking to a couple I had just met, and the topic turned to the…
You and I are about to embark upon an adventure together over the next few months! Have you ever wondered what is involved in buying a bank-owned home at a massive discount, renovating it back into nice condition, and then selling or renting it out at a highly profitable rate? Well, a friend and I…
A few weeks ago, I got a really interesting email from a guy in Norway that said something like, “Hey Mr. MM.. What you are preaching is Pure Stoicism, with a great twist and perception on today’s world … I love it!!” * “Stoicism?” I asked, “You mean like the Stoics in Shakespearean plays that show no…
Last week, I had a chance to indulge my usually suppressed Consumer Instinct and buy a WHOLE BUNCH OF STUFF at Costco. The nearest outlet of that chain is about 20 miles away from my house, in a mostly-sprawl area called Superior, Colorado. If you know Mr. Money Mustache at all, you know that I…
If you’re like me, you currently live somewhere. But can you explain exactly WHY you live there? For most people throughout the history of our species, the reason they have lived somewhere is because they were born nearby. And the reason they were born there is because their parents were born nearby. Very rarely, a…
I originally started this blog to both Ridicule and Educate the rich and privileged group of people known as the American middle class. Being a newly minted member of this group myself, I feel that we are all living large, and the vast majority of our financial problems are of our own making. Thus the…
Mr. Money Mustache loves his music. I need a constant soundtrack of it at all times – different types of music for breakfast-eating, house-building, furniture-making, driving, blog-writing, exercising, dancing, house cleaning, patio beer-drinking-and-campfire-having, and more. And it has to be different music all the time – no repeating the same song within a week (preferably a…
This is fantastic! Just when Mr. Money Mustache is starting to get a bit overloaded with answering email questions and comments from readers, volunteer work at the local school, building a stone wall around one of the gardens, starting a new carpentry project in the neighborhood, and trying to write new articles here and there,…
Earlier this week, I spilled the beans and detailed Mr and Mrs. Money Mustache’s combined savings history from zero net worth to retirement. In the article, I tried to explain that it wasn’t a struggle or a sacrifice to become financially independent in nine years, it was in fact unavoidable. If you get paid…
I have been asked many times to provide some more gritty details on how I became Mr. Money Mustache at such an early age. Commenters and email writers have asked me to provide Salaries and Savings amounts through the years, as well as describe any windfalls or unusual maneuvers that made it all possible. I…
A while ago, I had the pleasure of doing a guest posting a website called Frugal Dad. I noticed that the article that ran just before mine was about Outsourcing – Frugal Dad nicely illustrated his own battle between convenience and cash with a task he finds particularly unpleasant because of allergies – lawn mowing.…
