Apr 14, 2020
Foreword from Mr. Money Mustache : Marla is a long-time friend who I met on one the very first of the Ecuador Chautauqua trips. Since then, she has served as the Chancellor of Fun in the MMM organization, which is an informal and haphazard group of entirely volunteer planners who sometimes create interesting events. Marla…
So here we are just a month later, in a full-blown economic panic, and at the start of the most sudden recession ever. The pandemic has spread much further and faster than most uninformed people (including me) would have ever guessed, and the whole world is on some form of lockdown. Nothing quite like this…
As I write this, the biggest story in the entire world is a virus that is making its way around the planet, leaving a trail of sickness and death in its wake, while sending a much bigger shockwave of fear and uncertainty out front. Last week, the US stock market dropped 15% in just a…
You don’t need to pay an arm and a leg for cell phone service. The MMM cell phone service recommendations are maintained by Christian Smith, creator of Coverage Critic. Affiliate Note: Some of these companies offer commissions for online referrals. Other ones don’t. Details about Coverage Critic’s financial relationships with cell phone carriers can be…
These days, I do a fair amount of informal financial coaching for both old friends and newer acquaintances. It’s a pretty amazing experience, almost as if I were a real doctor – people let down their guard and talk about the details of their financial lives, without the usual hangups and secrecy that tend to…
— — As I type this, there are only a few days left in the 2010s, and holy shit what a decade it has been. Ten years ago, a 35 year old MMM and the former Mrs. MM were four years into retirement, but not feeling very retired yet. We stumbled out of 2009 with…
My son and I are having a beautiful Saturday night here at home. The sun is setting over the mountains outside my bedroom window and I’ve just finished baking a pizza which I am about to serve up for his dinner. Although our day has been very simple, there has been an underlying magic within…
Like you, I am pretty much resigned to the fact that I’m going to have to buy a Tesla at some point. I can tell because I have read every last scrap of Tesla news and inadvertently memorized every last technical detail about the company and their cars and energy storage systems that has ever…
There have been a lot of big bills coming across my kitchen table recently. Property taxes, car registrations, income taxes, things for the school orchestra in which little MM plays the standup bass. Plus the usual credit card bills for all my spending on groceries and not-all-that-rare luxury indulgences. There’s nothing bad or unexpected in…
So a funny thing happened on Twitter this week, which almost changed the world a little bit. Someone sent me a beautiful 3-D mockup of a fictional, car-free city of 50,000 people, set in the scenic nook of land* between Boulder, Colorado and Longmont, where I live. It came complete with street plans, detailed descriptions…
Even in the most carefully run and financially independent of lives, there will be some wrenching twists and turns. Friendships and businesses will fail. You or your loved ones will get sick and some of them will die. Kids will have plenty of trouble on their long road to adulthood – if they even make…
These last two articles have focused on how common it is for early retirees to continue making money after they say goodbye to the cubicle. I share stories like that because I’ve seen it happen in so many lives, including my own. Plus, if you do it right, work is fun. But the downside of all…
“Dear Mr. Money Mustache… I’d like to retire soon. I’ve had a good career and the numbers say I’m just over the threshold, but I’m still afraid. It would help if I had a solid plan for what to do after retirement – perhaps even make some money eventually. Because I think it would help…
In case you hadn’t already noticed it in the news, it seems we are hitting a turning point in how the rest of the world perceives this lifestyle that you and I have been enjoying. First, we were ignored. Then, there were a few stories that just focused on the strange lives of Mr. Money…
I’d love to retire early, but then what? … Although I retired about thirteen years ago, and continue to be retired, about one year ago I opened up a little business on Main Street here in Longmont, Colorado. It is a multi-purpose gathering space, under the guise of a coworking space, with the typical-for-me grandiose…
It was mid July, and I had just finished a sweaty run on the trails which criscross my older sister’s farm in Canada. I was overheated and heading straight for their swimming pool when she saw me walking across the lawn. “Oh yeah, please do use the pool! You’ll help get my cost per use down…
