Jun 8, 2011
When I retired from real work back in 2005, I inadvertently crossed a very interesting divide in our society. It was the canyon that separates the People with Real Jobs from the Self-Employed. As it turns out, I was entering a sparsely-populated area. Only about 1 in 9 workers in the US is self-employed, a…
Welcome to the third post in the Investment Series. For those just joining us: Article 1 told you why investing in stocks is actually pretty simple, and Article 2 described the volatile nature of stock returns. So we’ve established that while long-term stock market returns have been quite predictable for over 100 years, with an…
In most of my examples of small savings adding up over time, I assume that you the saver are not only saving the money, but investing it for some compounding gains. For example, I once stated that saving $25 per week by skipping a restaurant meal adds up to about $19200 after 10 years. To…
Eliminating Lady Temptations An Indefinite, Ongoing Series by Mrs. Money Mustache Being a Lady myself, I’ve fallen prey to lady spending in the past and occasionally find myself suddenly “needing” lady things out of the blue. Such as cute shoes, for instance. I have also witnessed many seemingly normal and intelligent women declare that they…
Well what do you know, another Friday has rolled around! Looking back to last Friday, I see that I wrote about beer and that made us all happy, so perhaps we should talk about Beer on Fridays more often. And lucky for me, I have some pretty exciting beer-related stuff to share today. After last…
I recently read a Facebook conversation about health insurance where one person said, “I’m better off saving the $1000/month premiums and paying for my own medical bills if they ever come up”. And the other person said, “Bah! Recipe for bankruptcy! You need full insurance!” Which person was right? Years earlier, I was talking to…
Looking around at the other personal finance blogs, I notice that virtually all of them have some sort of advertising slipped into the page somewhere. Do these people actually earn money just for wiggling their fingers atop a computer keyboard a little bit each day? Even though it’s just a website they created themselves to…
A little-known fact about the MMM household is that Mrs. M. actually holds a real estate license. She got this a few years ago as a way to help us both explore our shared interest in houses (buying, selling, renting), and as a way to help a few customers to find homes in our area…
Imagine a device so advanced that it can keep any boy or man, from birth to beyond age 100, looking trim, clean and handsome for life. It can sculpt, trim, shape, or completely remove any hair on your body. It will save you hundreds of dollars and dozens of hours of time EVERY YEAR, forever.…
It’s the weekend, so that means we get to step back for a little bit of Philosophy instead of hard number-crunching. Today, I’ve prepared a little Story for you. One dark February night in 1992, the skinny teenaged version of Mr. Money Mustache was sitting alone on the La-Z boy chair in his parents’ living…
Mr. Money Mustache is a bit of a Natural Frugalist. For me, buying anything beyond groceries is like giving birth, where there is great thought, planning, and nine months of physical stretching and pain involved before the actual wallet emerges slowly from the pocket. Because of this, I find that I spend very little when…
Despite the reputation Mrs. M and I are cultivating as extreme nonspenders, we do indulge in the ultimate luxury: being parents. Our lovely little boy brings us happiness and learning every day and as with all parents, we feel the experience of parenthood is worth the cost. Whatever that cost might be. Hey.. what exactly…
