Jul 18, 2022
As strange as it may sound, earning financial freedom is a lot easier for certain people than claiming that freedom once they have earned it. And if the following statement rings true to you, you may be suffering from this same hardship: “I think I’m close to having enough money to jump into early retirement,…
It has been a good while since we’ve done a reader case study here on MMM, but that hasn’t stopped them from arriving in my inbox. And since 2022 is becoming a year of interesting financial changes, it’s time to spark things up again, go back to our roots, and start covering some of the…
Beneath all the fluff, this blog exists for only one purpose: to encourage people to change their behavior. So naturally, I am very happy when I hear from people who are actually making big changes. And I’m even more excited to hear about people making big changes early in life, because then they get to enjoy…
Today’s case study is a classic, because it addresses a problem suffered by tens of millions of families: the chronic time shortage caused by a double income, double commute, kid-raising lifestyle. While some practitioners of this game do it by choice, many other would rather have more free time … if only they could afford…
Today we bring back the ever-popular reader case study series with an interesting twist. First of all, our subject is a new reader, with sizable financial baggage from earlier decades, but plenty of potential for improvement. Equally notable is the fact that I have enlisted some outside help for the research and analysis. During a…
I’ve had the chance to go to lunch with quite a few visiting Mustachians of late, and a theme has been popping up in the conversations. Like my own family, many of these readers have been leading slightly-less-ridiculous-than-average lives for years, which has led to a considerable surplus of money. But amassing money is just…
The highest form of payment you get for writing a blog like this is happy stories from readers. Although all this Sensible Living stuff becomes obvious after a while, there are still new people showing up every day with all sorts of monetary problems. The full-on crazy life with the double-financed-SUV-ultracommuting, insurmountable debt, and deteriorating…
It has been a while since we did a real case study, and many readers have been telling me they are itching for the voyeuristic yet enlightening fun of analyzing somebody else’s financial situation. But I try not to repeat studies that are too similar to previous ones, and we’ve now covered a pretty wide…
It has been a while since we did a reader case study here on Mr. Money Mustache, although that is not for lack of submissions. The email inbox is more vibrant than ever, there are problems to be solved and 108 draft articles waiting to be finished and published. But I’ve got a really fun…
All right, here’s a neat case study for you. A guy from Portland emailed me way back in May. He sent in a nice proposal for a case study, but I didn’t get around to writing it up until now. Now, the time has finally come. And when I got back in touch with him,…
These reader case studies sure are fun. First you get to engage in a little voyeurism as you peek in on another person’s life. Then you can actually compliment them, offer advice, or throw out a few Mustachian Face Punches as you see fit. All to a real person, and all from the comfort of…
Dear Mr. M., My wife and I have been reading your blog, and slowly feeling some of the free-spending ways of our past slipping away from us. But it’s a slow process, and while my wife takes after her frugal immigrant parents, I am not sure if I am quite ready to step up to…
Hey! It’s time for a Reader Case Study! I almost forgot about this cherished category of posts, partly because my MMM contact email address stopped forwarding way back on January 10th. “Ahh, this is relaxing”, I thought, “I guess nobody has any questions for me these days!”. Mrs. Money Mustache laughed at my naivete. I fixed the…
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…
A couple of weeks ago, Mr. Money Mustache received a request for help that threw him off balance a little: Dear MMM, I just found your site from lifehacker. Your articles are very good. But I did notice that they are all written from the perspective of someone with assets. I would like some advice.…
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.…
