Aug 31, 2016
It has been a quiet year here at Mr. Money Mustache, and for good reason. It seems like a lifetime since my life has been normal. Even as I write this, I’m thousands of miles from home in Northern British Columbia, closer to the Arctic Circle than I am to the sunny, peaceful bike and beertopia…
As I wrote that last article on making sure your life isn’t too busy, a nagging thought kept coming up in my mind. It went something like this: “Sure, Mustache – you’ve found great value in simplifying your own life. But you’re kind of known for being the Anti-Commitment guy. You get uneasy if somebody tries…
If you’re going to become rich, you need to either earn way more money than you spend, or spend way less money than you earn. This is the basic math of it, which even the worst complainypants cannot dispute. The whining usually starts when Mr. Money Mustache starts talking about how to implement the ideas above.…
If you set aside your fancy adult concerns for just a moment and think deeply, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that this entire world is really just a giant zoo. It is a giant zoo packed with silly animals, and we’re just the one who takes itself most seriously. Every speck of life exists simply to…
By this point, we already know that bikes are awesome and good for you, cars are useful for a few limited things but come with major disadvantages, and electric bikes combine most of the advantages of both. But they do still come with the downside of, “how does a somewhat experienced cyclist get a really…
If you ask a modern member of today’s American Elite to review Mr. Money Mustache’s childhood and educational history, the report would probably come back dripping with sympathy and disdain. I went to public school (the only school, really), in a lower-middle income small town. I didn’t join many extracurricular activities or attend any private…
Although the MMM family leads an almost car-free life these days, I still find myself looking at and reading about the exuberant machines on a very regular basis. It’s a love/hate relationship because I’ve had some truly great times in cars, and I can appreciate the idea of a high-speed personal comfort bubble that lets you…
In my opinion, the first rule of being a reasonable person is admitting when you are wrong, so you can learn from it. So I want to admit something right now: I was wrong about spending money. Remember how all this time I’ve been telling you that life is better if you aren’t focused on the…
One of the biggest causes of my optimism for humanity’s future is something I call the Rise of the Benevolent Billionaire Nerds. See, in the olden days, it seems that the people who rose to great power were the most aggressive ones. Warlords and Imperialists. Then the steel and railroad titans, the Mafia, and more…
For the past three years, I’ve had the privilege of making an annual trip to the equator of our planet, spending a week or two absorbing the very different world of South America. One of the unexpected benefits is that I get to converse occasionally with Mother Earth herself. Of course, we all know her…
Recently I’ve been getting a lot more emails that go something like this: While these emails are always a little bit unfortunate (because it means I haven’t done a great job making my investing articles easy to find), I’m actually thankful for the drop in my account value. And the even larger number of dollars…
I’ve always been a do-it-yourself guy, and will remain so as long as I’m alive. The reason is not money savings but the fundamental recipe for human happiness: you must remain challenged and keep learning throughout your lifetime. People who miss this recipe end up chasing ever more desperately after passive entertainments and pleasures. But…
When it comes to the Automobile, you really have a choice between two possible relationships. You can be the Master, and thoughtfully use cars as a tool as needed to reach your goals. Or you can be a Slave to the auto – worshiping it, allowing it to steal your money, your physical fitness, and your…
I accidentally began research for this article about 2.5 years ago, when passing through Chicago on the long drive home from a summer in Canada. There was a gathering of Mustachians downtown and we kept a pub and eventually the neighboring Falafel place open late. One of the group was a young attorney in a prestigious law…
In my half of the Earth, we’ve recently drifted past the Winter Solstice – the shortest, darkest, day of the year and usually one of the coldest too. Some might consider this a depressing time, but for me it is cause for optimism. After all, if life is already this great right now, can you…
The Man With the Big Keychain An old friend of mine is obsessed with security. He carries a huge bundle of keys and makes his way through each day meticulously locking and unlocking anything that can be locked. He drives his car through the alley into the detached garage, and the door seals shut behind his…
