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 atoms both fused into one Ultimate Financial Being! So now you may find both sensitivity and brash belligerence displayed within the same posting. Also, Mr. Money Mustache may still refer to himself in the third person, just because he finds this makes him sound more authoritative.
…
I’ve been getting quite a few comments already, both online and offline. This is to be expected with a controversial topic like money. A blog like this can be offensive to lots of people, because money gets mixed in with your feeling of happiness and security in life, and to have somebody telling you what to do when they don’t even know you!? – Forget it!
First of all, Mr. Money Mustache is not judging you. He loves you and he is here to help.
Next issue: some readers might feel alienated because they read Mr. Money Mustache’s Own Story and saw that he and a very cooperative wife started saving earlier than they did. Don’t worry! It’s not a contest of how early you started. It’s a contest of who can start making some changes in their life right now which bring them benefits in the surprisingly near future.
Not every person is a good candidate for the MMM way of life. If you’re already supporting a large number of children (or have other unstoppable life-and-death expenses) on a very small income, you are probably more frugal than me already and can gain very little from reading on.
But what I keep finding every time I meet new people, is that almost everyone has a pretty reasonable income – higher than what we currently live on – yet they all seem to be just barely keeping above the waves financially. Still others have a super-high income (defined by me as over 100k per year for a household – 50k for each person in a couple), yet STILL tend to borrow money for things like cars or even carry a credit card balance. These are my target audience! These are the people who have the power to start feeling like lottery winners on the gusher of income they are currently sitting on, instead of being a slave to their current inefficient spending patterns.
It’s commendable to advance yourself in a career to the point where you are making anywhere near this much. But most people manage to build up a spending pattern that pretty much burns the money as quickly as it comes in. The big difference is that, being an incurable engineer, I always calculate out every possible spending decision over a lifetime and weigh it against a dollar-value estimate of the potential hassle. So I make certain decisions differently and end up with the same desirable lifestyle – fairly big fancy house, good cars, a self-employed 10 hour workweek, lots of fun vacation travel per year, yet at drastically lower levels of cost and debt.
Surely some of these tricks can be boiled down into a nice daily or weekly column!
So to the people that are asking “What’s next?”, I can only say “Read on!”. I’ve got a big list of future articles already written and more on the go, and I am accepting comments and criticisms from anyone. It takes a lot of work to write up these little articles, so they will come in little daily tidbits. But no expense or strategy will be spared. You will surely reject some of my ideas and perhaps outdo me on others (and then I can copy you!).
But the bottom line is if YOU, middle-income-person, make some of Mr. Money Mustache’s recommended changes in your spending, YOU WILL BECOME RICH QUITE QUICKLY, and YOU WILL LOVE IT.
Article: How To Start a Blog
Where to next? Check out a Random Article
|
Stay in Touch: Subscribe to posts by e-mail, RSS Feed, or follow MMM on Twitter and Facebook.
Join the Conversation: Learn from Like-Minded Mustachians in The Money Mustache Community |
Mr. Money Mustache is a family man living in the United States who retired from work, relatively wealthy, at about age 30. After several years of retirement, he noticed that his still-working peers were envious of his lifestyle. They were making more money than he ever had, yet they were somehow still broke. So he decided to write this blog to educate the world on how it is done.
yo mmm- Long time listener, first time caller. as a successful young urban professional, I generally have more income than I can spend. I used to ‘stash every possible penny, but I noticed recently that i had slacked off and my balances are not much different than they were a year ago. I decided to use my expensive Internet phone to track every penny spent over the last two months- and I discovered some alarming trends when I graphed the data. I’d like to suggest this exercise to your readers as an eye opening introduction to understanding how money flows through your life.
Hi Mr. Salisbury. Thanks for that fun suggestion. That sounds like a great position you are in, for potential early retirement when you choose to do so. Did you use any particular iPhone personal finance or spending app, or did you just type everything into the little yellow note pad thingy?
As a note on tracking/budgeting, the hardline Mustachian opinion would be that instilling a deep aversion to ANY kind of spending is the simplest way, since then you always know your spending is at the optimium level. As opposed to traditional budgeting, which just gives money wasters permission to waste their money in controlled amounts. But perhaps a tracking tool like yours would be a good introductory class in the series that eventually leads to a Frugality Black Belt.
MMM
Mr. Money Mustache,
As someone who has recently been in their own marital financial debate throw down, I was curious where you stood on the subject of building up a 6 month savings cushion versus flinging money at existing debt? I know what Dave Ramsay says, but I also value Mr. Money Mustache’s experienced opinion. Thanks!
Another great question from my top commenter so far – thanks!
I wrote up a reply for you, but in the end it all sounded so good I moved it over to become an actual post for today. The title is Springy Debt instead of a Cash Cushion.
My experience is that work becomes a lot more fun when you don’t need the paycheck. Like you I’m an engineer and I love solving the puzzles that appear in our product development lab. But I hate sitting in long meetings, making powerpoints, and taking on boring busywork– so I don’t. I’m good enough at the parts I like (perhaps only just) that I get away with it, while my colleagues who took on the commitments of a high-maintenance lifestyle basically have to eat what management dishes out.
The other thing you young people need to be aware of is that it’s no fun staring down a company reorg once you pass the age of 45 if you’re not financially ready. My company is in that state right now and morale among the rank and file isn’t very good because we know the big L is coming in a few weeks, we just don’t yet know how deep it’ll be. Jobs are recovering in this area, but it’s been pretty slow so those who are cut may be on their own for many months. In my case thanks to my life history of low expenses, I don’t need to trim at all. Schedule B covers it. That money I didn’t spend on Rolexes and Porsches ended up in shares of big oil & telcos so I’m getting a gift that keeps on giving. Sure beats hoping to cover rent by having a garage sale.
My point is that even if you don’t want the life of leisurely vacations and conspicuous free time, and even if you really enjoy your job, get prepared financially for a rainy day by following your blogger’s advice. Even if you never need it, I think you won’t regret having it.
Great point about the fact that financial security drastically improves life even for working people. I think sometimes I get so excited about the benefits of early retirement, that I forget to mention the other benefits that start much earlier on.
And it is true that many people just love working – including me. I could never be happy just sweeping my driveway every day, so both my wife and I still do quite a bit of work. I think I need to expand the message a bit as we go on to avoid scaring off people who don’t actually want to quit their jobs.
thanks again for your comments – keep ‘em coming!
MMM
I love the point about being ready even if you love what you are doing now. Two years ago, my husband’s employer was bought out by another company, and quickly instituted policies that made the job a lot less pleasant. About the same time, I got a new director, and the work environment changed drastically. I am no where near the 25% mark, but have made sure to put away a significant chunk for “later”. This allowed both of us to make plans to leave what had become negative work places. I do know that we are fortunate in that I have enough years experience in a public agency to “retire” even though I am not near 65, and “retire” with insurance coverage for both of us. Even with half-hearted frugal practices, and a lot of slipping, we are now embarking on our own and loving that we can do so. I can only imagine the possibilities if we had had true “mustaches” way back then. I am proud to say that one of my sons and his fiance are currently living with us while they save most of their income so that they can eventually put a very large down-payment on their own home. I am glad I found this blog, and I am going to send my son to read it!! He is young and just starting out (and with an accounting degree). Thanks for such a great resource.
My wife and I had the beginnings of this sort of conversation last night. We have an income of approximately 105k combined and have been contributing around 10% each to our 401ks. Beyond that we save approximately 1000 to 1500 a month. I’m not sure we’re ready to go all the way and start saving 50% but I’d like to move up to saving 2000 a month. I think we can do it without too much stress. I should mention that we don’t have children, at least not yet.
Thanks for the blog posting I’m landing here from the ERE page and Get Rich Slowly Blog.
Nice to see an acknowledgement of your target audience. I’m not it but that’s not to say I won’t learn something. ;) It’s awesome to see such a similar approach to life within multiple tiers of income.
I just started reading your blogs from the beginning. Where were you in 2003 when I needed you?!!! I was your target audience then, but now I’m just really really poor, and I fear I may always be this way.
I sure hope you have a blog on what to do with a less than cooperative spouse, which is what I have and the sole reason of my poverty. I love him more than money, but I really would love SOME money.
Dear mustache,
Recently started reading yer blog from the very beginning and I’m loving it. Finally, some practical financial advice w/out the usual greedy assumptions.
Anyway, wanted to pipe up and say that even as a family man making under 30k, I see a lot to take from your posts. Sure I may not be on the 10 year retirement plan, but I can definitely glean some creative solutions, and use what little income I have more purposefully. But most importantly- i can revive my belief in a joyful simplicity. Woohoo
Keep up the good work, and remember to cater some special points to us poor folk whenever it makes sense
Thanks
Dan