Archive | April, 2011

Weekend Edition: Retire in your Mind even if you Love your Job

Weekend Edition: Retire in your Mind even if you Love your Job

Happy Weekend to all! The Weekend Edition feature of Mr. Money Mustache is designed to be read while wearing pajamas and/or slippers, and sipping casual weekend drinks. It will feature a selection of lifestyle and philosophical articles, since the weekend is a place where we take a break from the intense hammering of our day [...]

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Living well on the trailing edge of Luxury

Living well on the trailing edge of Luxury

“The only constant in the world is change”.. that old quote is amazing, because it is so true no matter how deeply you think about it. What is even deeper is that it is credited to a guy in 500 BC, back when things were changing almost unfathomably slower than they are right now. Let’s [...]

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Mustache on the Move: Gas Prices Still Way Too Low

Mustache on the Move: Gas Prices Still Way Too Low

Mustache on the Move! A catchy new feature where I capture breaking frugality news in and around the Boulder/Longmont, Colorado area and report back to you. And these reports will always come with an eye-opening image from my handy telephone camera. I love reading about gas prices, because here in the US, people get very [...]

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MMM Challenge: Save 100 Dollars This Week

Perhaps you have been reading along so far, enjoying our little growing community, but you’re still not sure where to get started. There’s plenty of personal finance advice out there, but you’re too busy to search through all the disorganized piles of non-amusing advice. You want to do it the Mr. Money Mustache Way! Well, [...]

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Why Hardcore Saving is much more Powerful than Masterful Investing

Why Hardcore Saving is much more Powerful than Masterful Investing

I was recently enjoying a conversation with a new friend. Despite my best efforts to sound normal and busy, this person eventually figured out that my wife and I don’t actually do enough paid work to sustain the normal middle-class life we seem to lead. From here he pried out the fact that I am [...]

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Having “The Talk” with a Current or Potential Mate

Having “The Talk” with a Current or Potential Mate

My wife actually invented this post and I think it’s a great concept to write about. You see, Mrs. Money Mustache* is an indispensable part of our shared empire of frugality. Believe it or not, she gets just as excited as I do about making an extra payment on the mortgage, and buying and selling [...]

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Unleash your Inner Hasselhoff for Greater Riches

Unleash your Inner Hasselhoff for Greater Riches

“I drive a pickup truck because it’s comfortable and sometimes I need to haul things on the weekend” “There’s nothing in the fridge right now so let’s just go out for dinner” “I’ve read that Mr. Money Mustache claims to save $94,432 every ten years by riding a bike, but I don’t HAVE a bike, [...]

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Springy Debt instead of a Cash Cushion

Springy Debt instead of a Cash Cushion

Good morning readers, and Happy Earth Day! I’m supposed to be packing for a MMM family camping trip, but I thought I’d post this question that came over the wire to Mustache Headquarters late last night. After that, I may or may not be posting any updates until Tuesday, April 26th or so.   Q: [...]

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Silly and Misleading Retirement Calculators

Silly and Misleading Retirement Calculators

I think the main reason people seem amazed at the idea of retiring at age 30, 40, or even 50 is the lack of real information on early retirement in general. If you type “retirement calculator” into a search engine these days, and type in some basic stats about yourself, you will find some very [...]

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Yeah, Mr. Money Mustache, Good for You, but What About Real People?

Yeah, Mr. Money Mustache, Good for You, but What About Real People?

First a quick editorial update: Mr. Money Mustache and the Realist got into an epic battle last night, similar to the one where Good Superman and Bad Superman smashed each other around in the auto wrecking yard in Superman III. However, unlike Superman, we ended up in a death grip of mutual strangulation where our [...]

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How to come out WAY AHEAD when buying a used car

How to come out WAY AHEAD when buying a used car

A recent comment from a valued Mr. Money Mustache reader asks something like this, “I need a new car – we want a Honda CRV, but after looking at the used car listings, it looks like new might be a better deal, especially since it saves me from the need to put much money down”. [...]

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Get Rich With… Bikes

Get Rich With… Bikes

Hey there.. welcome to the first edition of the new “Get Rich With…” series. In these articles, we’ll analyze a bunch of ideas, both new and old, to see what kind of impact they can have on your life. (Hint: the impact will probably be a huge positive one, since these are all of my [...]

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Getting Started #4 – If you Try Sometimes, you Just Might Find, you Get What You Need

Getting Started #4 – If you Try Sometimes, you Just Might Find, you Get What You Need

By the Realist Mr. Money Mustache has been a bit more reasonable lately, posting some numbers to back up his assertions. But I thought I should join in at this point to address something that has probably been in your mind: how much can I really give up, without going crazy? After all, we all [...]

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Getting Started #3 – Eliminate Short-Termitis, the Bankruptcy Disease

Getting Started #3 – Eliminate Short-Termitis, the Bankruptcy Disease

I just saw one of those automatically generated text ads at the top of my Gmail account. Here’s what it said: 2011 Pilot 4WD LX $319/mo It gave me shivers to look at it, just because it is advertising a purchase that is so wrong on so many levels. We’ll get into all of those [...]

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What Does “Early Retirement” Mean Anyway?

What Does “Early Retirement” Mean Anyway?

By Mr. Money Mustache I love the topic of “Early Retirement”, because that alone is the subject of so many books. But as a reader of this blog, you get full discussion of that topic for free. For previous generations, perhaps our parents or grandparents living stereotypical middle-class lives, retirement used to mean reaching age [...]

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Getting Started #2 – The Higher Cause

Getting Started #2 – The Higher Cause

By Mr. Money Mustache The Realist thinks he has me pegged. He’s right about the 1999 REI Bookpacker Plus backpack, but in his calm by-the-numbers approach he is missing a lot of the reasons frugality is great.. no, not just great.. it’s the only non-ridiculous lifestyle for the thinking person. And this is because for [...]

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Getting Started #1 – What am I Supposed to Do With All This Money?

Getting Started #1 – What am I Supposed to Do With All This Money?

Hi, It’s me the Realist again.   I think I’ve noticed a pattern with Mr. Money Mustache. He is part of what I like to call, “The Religiously Frugal”. For him, the avoidance of spending is not just a way of reaching a goal… the frugality itself is the goal. He actually likes this shit! If [...]

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Mr. Money Mustache’s Own Story

Mr. Money Mustache’s Own Story

Ahh, I see that sissy the “Realist” has been posting on my blog. I hope that doesn’t happen too often. Sukka’s too soft. You’ll never get anywhere with piddly numbers like $5/month or $5/day. And I had to laugh at that example.. would anyone really start buying lunch at a restaurant when they were already [...]

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Meet the Realist

Meet the Realist

Whoa, did you read that opinionated garbage yesterday? Who is this Mr. Money Mustache? The guy thinks he’s got it all figured out. And is he trying to offer financial advice, or just financial scorn to those less fortunate than himself? Sure, maybe you can retire early if you are born to a frugal family, [...]

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Meet Mr. Money Mustache

Meet Mr. Money Mustache

“What do you mean you retired at 30?” This is a blog about money. We’re going to cover a lot of ground and make plenty of amusing side trips into lifestyle and culture issues, but when it boils down to it, we are talking about money, and the freedom it can give you. Freedom from [...]

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