Aug 18, 2011
Today is a memorable day in the MMM family, as the Mrs. and I took our precious Junior ‘Stash to start his first day of Kindergarten this morning. It was a wonderful experience, biking through the early morning’s leafy shade on our streets, and feeling the excitement and fear of the assembled crowd of young…
It’s time for Mr. Money Mustache to attack another one of America’s most sacred traditions. Marriage. Well, not marriage specifically, but those fantastic and fancy parties we call weddings. Now, in case you hadn’t figured it out, from an American perspective, I might as well be from another planet. I grew up in a small…
Well, that was interesting. I posted an article about rich people and taxes today, and the comments section rapidly exploded to set a record for activity. I’m glad to hear people are interested in politics, but I actually didn’t intend that as a political posting. So while the comments section of that article continues to…
Well, my hero is up to his usual tricks again. Every few years, Warren Buffett makes a statement saying the taxes on rich people in the United States are too low, and he deserves and would be willing to pay more. This time he has backed it up by mentioning that many of his super-rich…
It seems that Mr. Money Mustache attracts quite a few of the already converted. Every week I write out more of the biggest and most amazing secrets that have allowed me to hop effortlessly across the minefield of American Middle Class life and become rich at an early age. And you, the Mustachians, usually chime…
Ahh, Craigslist. We’ve mentioned it together many times already here on Mr. Money Mustache, but it is such a great invention, on par with the bicycle as one of the Top Two Things that will Save America From Itself, that it deserves its own love note. Let’s illustrate with a little story. Early this afternoon,…
Mr. Money Mustache recently received a request from an up-and-coming Future Early Retiree. His name is Mike, and at the time of writing he wrote a blog called “Mortgage Free by 30”. Here’s what he had to say: “Basically, I hate my job. The company is great. The job isn’t. I want to work for myself.…
Stock market watchers like myself have had an entertaining couple of weeks recently. Amid lots of dramatic economic and political news, the S&P 500 index has dropped from a July level of 1356 down to 1199 (as of Friday August 5th). This 157-point drop works out to almost 12 percent of the value of the…
Well, we’re home. As you may or may not have been aware, the Triple M family has been on the road since way back in June. We had a blast. Everyone is sun-kissed and skinny from being outside playing so much all summer. But aside from these obvious benefits, I got another surprise when we…
Eliminating Lady Temptations: Step 2 (see Step 1) by Mrs. Money Mustache I recently celebrated my birthday. I turned 37. The day started off lying in bed with my little boy, who turned his sweet face to me and gave me a morning hug and kiss and then wished me a happy birthday.…
I was at a party recently and a lifelong friend walked up to start a conversation. Although we had never talked about money before, it turned out he had secretly been reading this blog, and now he had a few questions for me. – My friend had a good question, of course. It is this…
Who wants to spend less money on gas? Everyone? Yeah! Every few weeks, you’ll see yet another simplistic article in a bland mass-market publication like USA today or CNN news that says the same things about saving fuel: pump up your tires to manufacturer recommendations, accelerate smoothly, combine errands, and so on. You already follow the tips,…
Sometime earlier in July, I was perusing the WordPress site stats that prove so addictive to bloggers. I noticed that during my distracted days of lake swimming and cottage building, this blog had hit a nice round number milestone of having had individual articles read a total of 100,000 times. That seemed like quite a…
Ahh, Building Things. It’s a hobby I have talked about many times before, but a recent experience has completed the transformation of carpentry from “enjoyable pastime” all the way up to “Lifetime Religion” for me – something that deserves its own article and its own place on the bookshelf of Top Ways to Be a…
Happy July 18th. It sure is hot these days, isn’t it? Statistically speaking, a good portion of the continental US and Canada has its hottest average day of the year right around now. So I thought it was a good time to share some thoughts on the modern household’s biggest energy consumer in July –…
In one of the earliest articles on this blog called “If you Try Sometimes…“, I briefly described my goal of living life at a cost of 75% less than “normal”. Since then I have received many questions: What is Normal anyway? Where did I get this 75% number? Is it ridiculous or is it easy?…
