Mar 3, 2014
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…
Early in the life of this blog, several readers wrote to me to recommend a book called Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth. I quickly biked to the library, checked it out, read it cover-to-cover, and found that I agreed fully with its premise. It has been part of this blog’s Book List ever…
Oh man. I was halfway through writing a nice, technical, do-it-yourself article about Radiant Heat for you, when the night sky over Longmont lit up with the giant ‘Stache Symbol*. It seems that our national network of Antimustachian Media Drivel detection volunteers sounded the alert based on this incredible doozy of an article about retirement in…
Foreword from MMM: Mr. Toque is back with more advanced Mustachi0-Canadian techniques! While the methods described within definitely work in Ontario, if you have similar tricks for your own area, please share them in the comments. In the mean time, at least I have my Bota Boxes.. ————— If you grew up like me, which…
A few weeks ago, I was in downtown Denver at the conference center, as one of the parent volunteers my boy’s the elementary school Robotics Club. We were there to watch an international competition, where kids from around the world had brought along robots they had built to be squared off against each other in…
If you hadn’t noticed, the big news around here last week was that this blog was featured in the Wall Street Journal’s MarketWatch. I was pleased to see that a good number of new readers arrived at this site, and they are now digging through the archives and hopefully learning some new things. But I…
Luxury, luxury, luxury. What a strange and grand country this is, where the necessities are virtually free, so we end up spending most of our income on optional luxuries in the quest for ever-fancier pants. The Money Mustache family is no exception, and 2013 was another tight navigation along the border between “Enough” and “Too Much”.…
I suppose I can’t blame him, because this IS pretty nice. It’s Monday morning, and I just dropped him off at school, rode the mountain bike and trailer back home through the deep and fluffy remnants of the latest snowstorm, and settled in with this laptop and my sunny, empty house to compose my thoughts…
I’m pretty sure we’re all being scammed. I have been collecting evidence on this for over 15 years now, and it’s starting to look pretty compelling. If you’re skeptical, see what you think of these stories: Happily Oblivious In my own life, I’ve rarely had much occasion to think about cleaning. Sure, if a surface…
Part One: Avoiding Pitfalls when Buying Shitloads of Stuff The New Old House project is going very well, thanks for asking. Slowly, if you measure the progress by any sort of professional standard, but very well, if you consider the fact that I am having an absolute blast working through it bit by bit. “What…
Canadian Retirement Investing with Mr. Frugal Toque – Part Deux Previously, on Canadian Retirement Investing with Mr. Frugal Toque (see Part 1), we discussed the two major investment vehicles that are available for private individuals who do not have company or government pensions available to them. Those were the RRSP and the TFSA. The key…
Imagine for a moment that you are a warrior. Everything you own is on your back or strapped to your body, and you move effortlessly through the jungle. You’re on a mission of critical importance. Your success determines the fate of many people, who will be grateful if you succeed. But you are not worried…
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…
The season of magic is upon us. Right around now, most consumers are laying plans to intensify their spending frenzy for the final month of the year. After all, what better way to celebrate the holidays and the accompanying temporary freedom from work, with additional financial bondage to that very job? Since you and I…
